From the Editor: Miss Daisy’s story comes to an end

One criticism the media often hear is that we don’t follow up on stories after they’ve been published. So here’s one for you, reaching back nearly 20 years.

I got a call Thursday from Mary Greenlee telling me her cat, Miss Daisy, died a few days ago.

You won’t remember Miss Daisy, but she’s got quite a story. We shared it with readers on Jan. 4, 1991, in the clipping you see here.

As the story goes, a guy was driving north on Interstate 19 from Nogales when he heard odd sounds coming from his car engine. He pulled over in Green Valley, realized the problem and called 9-1-1. They sent a firetruck that included 21-year-old Rural/Metro firefighter/EMT Jon Spezzacatena.

Turns out there was a kitten way down in the engine, and she wasn’t shy about letting everybody know she was there. (If, at this point, you’re tempted to call and suggest the cat was attempting to illegally enter the United States, please refrain. I’ve heard it a dozen times already.)

I tracked down Spezzacatena, who now is the fire marshal in Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix. He turned 40 this year, and, you bet, he remembers the call.

“The driver called 9-1-1 needing help getting the cat out of there,” he told me. “He heard the cat crying but didn’t know where it was coming from.”

Spezzacatena arrived at the scene and reached in. Deep.

“She was way down in there ... she was oily and dirty,” he said.

“That was one of the stranger calls I’ve had.”

As Mary remembers it, Miss Daisy was rescued from the clutches of the transmission — which no doubt cost her several of her nine lives — on Dec. 26, 1990. (The paper says it was a week later, but I hear newspapers sometimes get things wrong so I’m going with Mary on this one.)

It was around the holidays and The Animal League of Green Valley, which normally would take in the kitty, supplied food and had her stay at the fire station.

Mary, who’d just moved that month into Pueblo Estates, called TALGV looking for a cat and was told they didn’t have any — but they knew where she could get one. She headed for the fire station on Dec. 27, and fell in love with the cat who later was named after the movie “Driving Miss Daisy.”

The vet put her age at about 10 weeks, so Mary decided Miss Daisy’s birthday would be marked every year on Oct. 12. And she fell just shy of celebrating 19 of them. Mary says that would put her at about 90 in cat years (Mary’s only 83 herself).

Mary moved to Virginia in 2001, and Miss Daisy, who rolled with the punches throughout her life, made the move without a hitch.

“Oh, my goodness, what a cat,” Mary told me. “She was something else. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She’d take on dogs without thinking twice.”

Miss Daisy loved the sun, weighed more than 10 pounds at her heaviest and, like nearly every cat, ruled the house.

But the playful kitten who’d sidestepped death in an engine compartment nearly two decades earlier eventually gave in to age and kidney disease.

Mary said she’s done her crying, has her memories and is simply grateful for every day she spent with her friend.

“She was a faithful, loving companion,” she said.

Miss Daisy is buried in a flower bed under a crape myrtle tree.

— Dan Shearer