Making an impression….the story of Room 8
The impact cats can have on multiple human lives is fascinating to me, so when I read a post on social media about a cat dubbed “Room 8”, I had to look into him a little more. Room 8 was a cat who wandered into a classroom in 1952 at Elysian Heights Elementary School, California. He lived in the school throughout the academic year, disappeared for the summer, and reappeared when term time started again. Room 8 had documentaries made about him, books and music inspired by him, and had a 3-page magazine feature printed about him. The school received up to 100 letters a day addressed to him.
When Room 8 got older, he was involved in a fight and suffered from feline pneumonia which meant he got a little too frail to be living at the school, so a local family offered to give him lodgings at night. The school janitor would carry him to their home at the end of the school day. When Room 8 passed away, students clubbed together to fund him having a gravestone marking his resting place in a pet memorial park. He was so well known that there were obituaries printed as far away as Connecticut to mark his passing.
This cat is just one example of how profoundly a cats presence can affect somewhere and how much of an impact they can have in terms of making connections with people. If you want to know more about Room 8, he has his own Wikipedia page here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_8
But there are other articles with a little more detail available online.
(Photo source: The LAist)