I was stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, Western Spur, by Exit 16-W, the heart of the Hackensack Meadowlands. There was an oldies station playing on my radio, and an old chestnut from Squeeze came on; “Cool for Cats”. For years, I though they were singing “School for Cats”, and I used to wonder exactly how anyone could teach a cat anything. I found out years later that “Cool for Cats” was about a dance place for hipsters.

Then, I remembered back to 1977, and a place - not even a mile from where I was now sitting – that was, indeed, cool for cats. I was attending the Newark School for Fine and Industrial Art on the G.I. Bill, and also working as a security guard; a non-taxing way for a student to hold down a forty-hour-a-week job. I could also do homework on the job – another plus.

One factory where I was stationed for a few months was a plastic factory in the swamps, in the shadow of the Meadowlands Racetrack, near where Route 3 meets Route 17. They made foam plastic in this factory, for mattresses and such.

Liquid plastic was mixed together, and whipped up, much like cake batter, then sent though an long oven on a metal conveyor belt, with metal sides. It came oozing out the other side as a steaming “cake” of foam, six feet wide by two feet high, where it was cut into ten-or-twelve-foot long sections. Farther down, on another, side less conveyor they’d cool, and team of workers would store the foam in the warehouse.

There was also a similar oven/extruder for round foam. The foam cylinders were three feet in diameter, and were also sliced into different lengths. Later, they would be “peeled” by a fast moving band saw. These cylinders also were stored in the warehouse, stacked sideways, like logs, fifteen feet high, with one-foot wide rows between the stacks.

On the north wall of the warehouse were the loading docks; outside was the bay, where eighteen-wheelers would back their trailers up to the doors and wait for cargo. Off to one side of the bay was a large pile of sand – most likely for ice in the winter. Across the street were the creeks, cat-tails, snakes, muck, and muskrats of the Hackensack Meadowlands.

Inside the warehouse lived a large community of feral cats. They’d lounge around on the stacks of foam, like prides of lions, looking cool and nonchalant. It certainly looked like a school for cats, and it was definitely cool for cats. When a human got too close, they’d scatter. The cats were clean; when they had to go to relieve themselves, they’d slip out through one of the loading dock doors and use the sand pile as a litter box.

When I’d walk my rounds, I’d sometimes look between the stacks; deep down, I’d see a larger-than-usual feline silhouette, a bit shaggy. It usually had a pair of yellow, glowering eyes. These cats - if that’s what they were – never came out of there. I never saw a rat or rodent in that warehouse the whole time I was there.

Every hour, the security guard had to make the rounds. To prove he had done this, he carried a time clock with a roll of paper tape inside that advanced as the clock ticked away the minutes and hours. Along the guard’s route were seven metal keys, chained to the wall. Just insert the key into the time clock, turn, and the key made an impression on the paper tape.

The overnight guard, over the course of two weeks, managed to “lose” the keys, one at a time. The keys were replaced, of course. Soon, he had a complete set in his pocket. The overnight workers told me that he’d come to work, set up a cot and alarm clock, get into his pajamas, and go to sleep. The alarm went off every hour. He’d wake, take out his set of keys and punch the clock in a few seconds, and then would go back to sleep.

The daytime guard was a big, beefy retired dock worker from Jersey City. “Don’t talk to me about de cats!” he’d tell me. “I don’t like cats!” A few weeks later, he was transferred to another location. On his last day, he confessed, “I gotta tell ya; I been feedin’ dose cats. Dey’s good company.” He made me promise to look after them as best I could.

We found a nest of abandoned kittens in the warehouse. Perhaps the mother had been hit by a truck. I took one home, and she was with the family for five years, ‘til she ran off one day, a la Call of the Wild.

There was one large feral cat that was white with a black saddle of a patch on his back, and a smaller black patch over his left eye. He’d come up to you and rub the top of his head on your shin, looking for a scratch. He wasn’t afraid of people – or, apparently anything else. One day, he climbed up on a truck rig and looked in through a side window at the driver’s Doberman, who went crazy. Separated by only a pane of safety glass a quarter inch wide, he cat was nonplussed and just stared, which only made the big dog angrier.

“Look at that cat!” laughed a trucker.

“He’s got real balls!” said another admiringly.

And that’s how “Joe Balls” became the mascot of the factory. I once saw the cat track a dragonfly that was fifteen feet in the air, coming in for a landing. When the dragonfly got close enough to the ground, Joe took a leap that a ballet dancer would envy and caught the insect in his mouth. He swallowed his snack in one gulp.

The truckers, warehousemen and factory workers would feed him and scratch his head. Whenever a truck pulled in, the first thing the driver would ask me was, “How’s Joe Balls doin’?”

On the way home from work, I sometimes think of Joe, and ask myself that same question. Even after thirty-one years, I’ll bet he's doin’ fine.