Dennis McCarthy has the day off.
This column by Dennis McCarthy was originally printed on Nov. 7, 1996 in the Los Angeles Daily News.
Once in a while a story comes along that makes you shake your head and smile — gives you a feeling you can’t exactly put your finger on, but you know it’s something special.
And that makes you shake your head and smile all over again.
There’s this cat living over in Sylmar who, paws down, has to be the most faithful feline in the whole country today.
She makes Lassie and Rin Tin Tin look like a couple of two-timing ingrates.
For almost three years now — ever since the Northridge Earthquake rocked the Valley — this cat has been waiting for its owners to come back to their red-tagged condo.
Every day, every night, rain or shine, just sitting there waiting — existing on the handouts of people in the neighborhood who just shake their heads and smile whenever they drive by and see her.
People like Bill Marrujo.
“If she’s that faithful to whoever owns her, I think they should know she came back, and is waiting for them to come home,” says Marrujo, who figures the cat probably panicked and ran away when the earthquake hit, returning home days later to an empty condo.
It’s a long shot finding the owners after this much time has gone by, he admits, but after almost three years of waiting, this cat has earned any shot it can get.
Who knows? Maybe the people are still living in the Valley, and read this newspaper.
“It hits you hard, just watching her sitting out there, waiting for them to come home, day after day,” says Marrujo, who nicknamed the cat Sweetheart.
Most cats roam. Not this one, he says.
The condo complex is located on Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar, and it hasn’t been touched since the windows were boarded up and a chain-link fence was placed around it shortly after the earthquake.
“The people living there just walked away and never came back,” Marrujo says. “It’s the only place left…
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