GROWL!    Now This is Living   

   Three more big cats have found "new life" in Tampa, part of a worldwide attempt to rescue lions and tigers from exploitation in prison-like captivity.

    Dog lovers, we get it. But we've always favored felines, starting with best-friend Scamper, who left us too soon at age 6. 

   Our fascination with beautiful tigers began with...well...the evolution is so:

   At the turn of the last century, Massillon, Ohio boys began playing football. They had no mascot nor jerseys. Someone passed through Princeton University, (the Tigers), and brought back leftover jerseys. The school took shirts and the name. 

   The sport became wildly popular well before young Paul Brown entered school. After college, Brown became head coach, leading MHS to a string of state championships. 

   My good fortune was to be son of a man who claimed he "went to school with Paul Brown." We drove from Pennsylvania once or twice a year to see a game, which to me was heaven. 

   If you watched with me the Tiger Swing Band fast stepping down the field playing Hold That Tiger - two rows of tubas growling - led by a mascot in real tiger skin, you would have become a cat lover too. In later years, they had a tiger cub in a small cage at their games. Maybe not so lovely. 

   Brown went straight from home to Ohio State, where he won a national championship. The military called, after which he formed the Cleveland Browns and won more championships. 

   They aren't named for him, but their helmets are Tiger orange. After a five-year vacation, he formed the Cincinnati Bengals - get it? - whose tiger-stripe helmets today mark the end of the trail. 

   Okay. A male might eat his young if given the chance. But, forget that.
My little buddy had black and gray tiger stripes and a white belly. Meow.  

        Jimmy