Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Dave and Barbara Pickett were driving their RV along Highway 20 toward Sweet Home on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend when they found the kittens.
The Picketts, a retired couple in their 70s who live in Chehalis, Wash., had gone to Idaho and decided to try a different route home.
“I said ‘Let’s go over Santiam Pass,” said Dave Pickett. “We’d never been over it, and we could come down into this town named Sweet Home.”
As they drove down the highway, they pulled off near mile marker 57, next to the logging road there.
“We got out to stretch,” Pickett said. “My wife said, ‘Look over there.'”
What they saw was five kittens, four of them about two months old and the other slightly older, dumped there.
“I picked one up and it started purring right away,” said Pickett. “We had a camper, so we got a can of tuna fish and put it out on a plate. They were just starving. We had no idea what to do. The only thing was we weren’t going to just leave them there.”
They decided to drive down to Sweet Home to see if there was a local humane society or such that could handle the situation. If not, Pickett said, they would go back.
“The snow gets awful deep in those passes and these cats were too young to hunt,” he said. “They were miles and miles from the nearest residence.”
They drove into Sweet Home and pulled off in the first gas station they came to, Fast Gas. An attendant, Rick Thomas, came out to see what they wanted. The Picketts asked if he had a phone book.
“He said, ‘Yes, I do. Can I help you?'” Pickett said.
The Picketts described the situation to Thomas, who said he knew where the logging road was and told them he’d drive up after work with his brother Danny and see if he could find the kittens. The Picketts decided to head home and wait to see how things played out.
“We didn’t know the gentleman at all and people say things, then don’t follow through,” Pickett said. “But when we got home, at 4:30 in the morning, there was a message from Thomas on the answering machine saying he’d found the four younger kittens. The older one was wild and he couldn’t catch it. He said he was going back the next day.”
Thomas said he went back on Monday and coaxed the older kitten in with some tuna fish.
Pickett said he and his wife were pretty impressed by the effort put forth to help them and the kittens.
“I’m mailing them a check to help them with food,” he promised. “We’re calling these the Santiam kittens.”
Thomas said he took the younger kittens to Safeway and was able to find people to take all but one he is keeping. The older kitten, he said, will take some time to tame, after which he will try to find a new owner for it too.
“Every time I go out there, he hides and watches me put his feed down,” he said. “I figure it probably will take a little while to get him calmed down.”
Pickett said Thomas went beyond the call of duty to help out.
“He spent two days of his time going up there twice, getting these kittens,” Pickett said. “Now he’s finding good homes for them. This man, he’s just one in a million to do something like that.”