A Memoir

Loving Music for a Living

By Gerald Carpenter

We arrived in Santa Barbara, with two cats and all our earthly
belongings, on October 20, 1984. The more significant of our cats
was Duncan, a wise and confident Tonkinese, coffee-colored with
dark points, who lived another 10 years to the ripe age of 18. The
other cat was Wally, a beautiful but dim-witted black-and-white
who, a few months later, found his way to a coyote’s dinner
table.

In January 1985, we moved into the house in Ellwood where we
would spend the next 21-plus years. There was a Chow named Chad and
a black cat named Taz already living in the house, and we willingly
absorbed them into our family. The house was Heaven on Earth, for
us and for all our animals.