Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter
“In September 2010, I’d been dating my future wife for a while and had successfully turned her from a dog person into a cat person. OK, I don’t know that I so much ‘turned’ her as I exposed her to cats and made her realize how cool they are. Living in apartments at the time helped as well, since dogs weren’t an option. For her birthday that year, I bought her a kitten from the Baltimore animal shelter. We named him Ringo because we’re Beatles fans and it suited him. I also call him ‘Buddy,’ as in ‘Little Buddy,’ because he spent a lot of time with me and my cats in Baltimore, adapting to his new family, and would follow me around, weaving in and out of my feet, before we’d settled on a name. To me, he is ‘LB’ from that time. I’m typing this downstairs as Ringo is upstairs dying.” (11/13/25)