
Molly McNeal
Country Roads' new mascot, Marge
One Tuesday just before Christmas, my wife and I capitalized on having both college-aged kids home by meeting them at the Magnolia Café for lunch. It didn’t take much convincing. As anyone who’s set foot in St. Francisville knows, the Mag is an institution that’s built a durable place in the hearts (and dietary preferences) of generations of St. Francisvillians. Our kids, who literally got off the school bus out front of the restaurant, are no exception, and no visit home is complete without multiple Mag visits for French dip po-boys, nachos supreme, and other flavors from their childhoods. Meeting at the Mag is also convenient because Country Roads’ global headquarters now occupies a small cabin in the 3V Tourist Court, which shares the same parking lot as the Magnolia and Birdman Coffee. Each morning as we arrive for work, this campus, if you could call it that, buzzes with the activity of a busy restaurant prepping for the lunch rush. Trucks unload supplies. Cooks and servers step out for a smoke. And cats scatter hither and yon.
"How ironic that my wife’s lifelong antipathy to inside pets finally falls victim to empty nest syndrome disguised as a ragamuffin, black and white kitten. I’ll admit it’s quite cute, but I’m still a dog person at heart."
As long as the Mag has been there, so have the cats. Attracted I suppose by the prospect of easy pickings and the kindness of strangers, the area around the Mag sustains one of the highest-density cat civilizations I’ve ever seen. They sun on porches, skulk through shadows, stalk unsuspecting sparrows, and reproduce energetically. Case in point: In late October we found ourselves following the progress of one queen with interest. After waddling about for a month or two looking increasingly pregnant, she suddenly disappeared for a week. Afterwards, there were kittens everywhere.
[Read about Country Roads' initial move home back to St. Francisville back in 2022.]
I do mean everywhere. Suddenly, on a nice day you couldn’t leave the door open without a kitten blundering in. They were under the floorboards, in the flowerbeds, skittering about as vehicles came and went, and evading capture in the coon traps the Mag staff set out to catch them for spaying. They were cute in a semi-feral kind of way, but since none of our family would hitherto have described themselves as “cat people,” at work we adopted a policy of benign coexistence—as if our office just happened to be situated on the grounds of an unofficial cat shelter. After lunch at the Mag on the day in question, my wife and I went back to work for the afternoon while the kids took a car and headed home.
So, imagine our surprise a couple of hours later when our son, Charles, texted a photo of a tiny, crazed-looking kitten halfway up the wall of our carport, with the three dogs going berserk beneath it. An obvious offshoot of the Magnolia colony, this tenacious beast had somehow hitched a twenty-mile ride on, in, or possibly under, our car. By the time we got home, Charles, who is a softie at heart, had rescued this kitten from its perch, plied it with milk and dog food, and installed it under a blanket on the couch, where it was purring noisily and looking ominously comfortable.
A month later, both kids have gone back to college but the kitten looks like it’s here to stay. Firmly ensconced, it seems delighted dividing its time between the couch and the kitchen, where it gorges on bespoke cat food while our three “outside” dogs (and one elderly, sociopathic barn cat) seethe with contempt on the other side of the porch door. How ironic that my wife’s lifelong antipathy to inside pets finally falls victim to empty nest syndrome disguised as a ragamuffin, black and white kitten. I’ll admit it’s quite cute, but I’m still a dog person at heart. So, until the inside pets rule gives way completely, perhaps I’ll make a point by dressing our three dogs up and entering them into the Krewe de Canines Dog Parade and Costume Contest, happening February 22 at St. Francisville’s Parker Park to raise funds for the West Feliciana Animal Humane Society. God knows, five pets is our limit, so until there’s a home for every dog and cat born in a barn or a restaurant parking lot, we need our animal shelters. Please support yours, and Happy Mardi Gras.
—James Fox-Smith, publisher