SUSAN LOESCH
CATS IN THE STACKS

Our new oil portrait of Big Footsie continues to bring smiles to us all. One of my 6th graders looked at it for a long time and then said, “It looks like Footsie is looking right at me and sees me doing something wrong and is thinking ‘I’m gonna tell!’” We laughed about that.

Some of my secondary kids walk past the portrait on the front desk and tell Footsie hello.

My 4th graders crowded ’round and talked to Big Footsie and actually petted the painting. Then they wanted to have their picture taken with it.

One of my 3rd graders just hugged the painting to her chest and then she also wanted me to take her picture with it, as did her classmates.

They all like that he is wearing his Harley-Davidson bandana in the portrait, and so do I. Some of the kids still say he was a biker dude!

It is nice, and very touching to me, the way Footsie has stayed on everyone’s mind this year. Almost 7 months have passed since the students returned to school and found out that he had died. He has definitely not been forgotten.

One of my favorite mentions of him is in a poem my 4th graders wrote earlier in the year. They called it “Fourth Graders Rule!”

One of the verses reads, “Scissors, markers, crayons and glue. We all like to do art, too. The bells are ringing in our heads. We are wishing Big Footsie wasn’t dead.”

When their teacher brought it to me she wasn’t sure how I’d react, but I loved it, and it made me laugh.

Trinity is a junior now; she has been my student since kindergarten. She has loved all the Library Cats, and she grew up with Big Footsie.

Looking at his portrait, she talked for a long time about him and his effect on her. She said her Granny commented that she doesn’t pick up her own cat, Miss Kitty, and carry her around and wondered why. Trinity says that is because she “learned on Big Footsie” and he never liked to be picked up and carried. She and Footsie were truly buddies.

As we close in on spring break and then the end of the year, we have a few loose ends to tie up.

We still need to find an Assistant Library Cat for Alex; Big Footsie, after all, had 4 assistants at one point.

And we need to decide if “Footsie’s Favorites,” those Accelerated Reader books that earn students prizes when their quizzes are passed, are going to be renamed.

I think I will throw that question out to my 5th and 6th graders and see what they think. They’ve proven to be very wise this year!