David McElroy

He was named for William the Conqueror. He came into a home with five dogs and six cats and let everybody know that he was now in charge. He was supremely confident as a kitten — you might say arrogant — and he conquered every room he entered.

Mostly, though, he conquered my heart.

It was my ex-wife who found him and brought him home in 1999. I can’t say that I was thrilled to add another animal to the menagerie, but there was something about him that was impossible to say no to.

So he became the seventh and youngest cat in the household, but there never seemed to be a moment when he wasn’t in charge.

Eventually, all the others died of old age or disease. At 16 years old, William was the oldest — the unquestioned king of his domain.

Just about 10 days ago, he started acting lethargic. After a few more days, he had little interest in food. Early last week, a trip to the vet confirmed my worst fear. My little friend was very sick.

William had a tumor the size of a lemon in his abdomen. There were signs that it was attached to something related to his gastrointestinal system. His age and his condition meant that surgery wasn’t an option. All we could do is put him on steroids and try to “jump start” his appetite. If he would start eating again, he might have many months of quality of life left. But if he wouldn’t start eating, he had no chance.

Just five days after that diagnosis, William died Sunday morning about 9 a.m. He never seemed to be in pain. His cancer-ravaged body simply shut down as I held him. All of a sudden, he was gone — and his battle with the cancer was over.

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When I was about 10 years old, I saw a dead man right after his car had been hit by a train. It happened near where we lived at the time in Anniston, Ala. I’ve never gotten that image out of my head.

We lived away from the city and suburbs, out in a little community called Choccolocco. At the turnoff from the main road to get to our house, there was a railroad crossing. We came upon it one afternoon after an accident had happened. We had never before stopped at an accident, as far as I remember, but since my father worked for the safety department of Southern Railway, he had a reason to check it out. And I think he also wanted my sisters and me to be very aware of the danger of being unsafe around trains.

I still remember the unnatural stillness of the accident scene. Even though there were people standing around watching, everyone seemed dead silent. The man’s body was placed onto a stretcher to be taken away.

As the ambulance attendants walked the body toward a waiting vehicle, they had to pass within inches of where I stood. I could have reached out and touched the body. Right as they passed, the body shifted slightly and the dead man’s arm dangled off the stretcher — right in front of me. On the dead, hairy arm was a watch.

In the surreal vision of my mind’s eye, the arm dangled in front of me for what seemed like an eternity. I saw the second hand still moving on that watch and it’s an image I’ve never gotten out of my head.

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I won’t be watching the Super Bowl today. I doubt Grumpy Cat will be watching, either, despite someone decking him out in a Seattle logo here. I figure he wants both teams to lose.

I enjoy football, but I’m a college football fan. The pro game bores me. I don’t have an attachment to any of the professional teams, so I just don’t care one way or the other who wins.

I get tired of the rabid obsession that seems to descend upon the United States on the day of this game. It seems excessive to me, and I’m sure it’s easier for me to see it that way since I’m outside of the mass of participants.

But despite my disinterest and my discomfort at the obsession, I’m getting increasingly uncomfortable with the backlash against it. I’m afraid that those of us who don’t care about the game have become a bit elitist and arrogant.

I see non-football fans competing with each other to see who can care the least about the game. I see people condescendingly saying that if others would just care about the things they care about — whatever they happen to be — the world’s problems would be fixed. I see people looking down their noses at others simply because they enjoy a game that doesn’t matter to the first group.

In a lot of ways, it’s just another manifestation of something that keeps troubling me. It’s just another form of people saying, “Why aren’t you people more like me?”

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