Sadly for all who loved the cat that was the toast of the Spring Street neighborhood of Freeport, Static had to be euthanized Feb. 4.

Weeks later, people are still posting remembrances of the 22-pound, 18-year-old orange cat’s antics on the Facebook page of his owner, Susan Rock. They’re still talking about Static at the Hilton Garden Inn and Brookside Village retirement community, where he was a frequent guest.

Static is the stuff of local legend.

Brookside Village is located at 7 Spring St., across the street from where Rock lives with Charlie Burnham at 4 Spring St. As he did everywhere, Static made himself at home.

“He would go down there and make the rounds,” Rock said. “He rubbed around people, went into people’s homes and laid down to be petted. He went in and out of everybody’s houses. If they weren’t home, he’d move on to the next one.”

Static and his late brother, Cling, were named after the Bounce brand dryer sheets that Rock used. Rock got both cats when they were kittens from a Freeport woman who had sought homes for them.

“A true creation from God, Static got  his name when he was brought  home with his brother Cling,” Rock wrote in an email to the Tri-Town Weekly. “At that time, being only 6 weeks old, these two busy kittens were all over the house, trying to explore their new surroundings. My daughter was helping with the laundry. The washer was in the trailer hallway, the dryer was located in the kitchen. Clothes were brought from the washer to be dried, a Bounce sheet tossed in, and we promptly started the machine. Two or three rotations with the clothes in the dryer made a loud ‘thunk,’ as if there were sneakers tossed in with the clothes. Opening the dryer, there, on top of the colorful towels, were the two kittens, safe and sound. They apparently jumped in upon retrieval of the clothes to be put into dry. On the corner of my eye I saw a box that said, ‘eliminates static cling.'”

Static also enjoyed upscale accommodations, and the Hilton Garden Inn is just across Bow Street on Park Street.

“He belonged to the Hilton in a sense,” Rock said. “He could trigger the door and let himself in. He’d lay down by the fireplace and make himself at home. People thought he lived there. They took pictures of him. When the tourists came by in the summer, if anybody left their car window open, he would jump in and take a nap on the back seat.”

Hannah McKernan, who staffs the desk at the Hilton Garden Inn, said that the inn is not pet-friendly, in the strict sense of the term. Employees would sometimes escort Static out of the hotel. Sometimes not.
“He’d frequent our patio,” McKernan said, “especially when there were a lot of people on it. He wanted to go over and say hello. He loved the attention and people gave it to him. Sometimes we’d catch him wandering around the lobby. He was a cute cat.”
Jackie Fournier, who lives at Brookside Village, spares no superlatives when speaking of Static.
“That cat should have been in the movies, he was so intelligent,” said Fournier, mother of Freeport Fire Chief Darrel Fournier. “He was almost human. He was beautiful, wonderful and intelligent. Everybody in the neighborhood loved him. He would sit on your lap and purr.”
Fournier said she saw the cat all the time.
“He’d come over and whine at the door,” she said. “I couldn’t feed him because Susan didn’t want me to. I’d give him a treat, though. I didn’t tell her until after (he died).”
Lottie and Roland Roy of Jay used to go camping with Rock and Burnham, and often visited the couple at their Freeport home.
“We’d bring our camper over for a cookout,” Lottie Roy said. “He was the most amazing and loveable cat. He was all over that neighborhood. I’d holler to him and he’d come running. You’d have to watch where you were walking. He’d be right between your legs when you were walking and he’d weave with every step you’d take.”
The Roys paid Static a special vist six days before he died. They returned on Valentine’s Day, and it wasn’t the same.
“He understood every word you said, he was so smart,” Lottie Roy said.

Rock talked about the time that two former secretaries from Charlie Burnham Heating Services, Sharon Harrison and Faye Davenport, gave Burnham a large open bird feeder.

“It had shade, and was mounted on a sturdy fence post,” Rock said. “Thinking they could all feed the cardinals, little did they realize, this was Static’s dream come true: a place to lie flat, protected from the eyes of the bird above, all he needed to do now was stretch out and lie there very, very still. The food came to him. Sometimes the birds pecked around him, then before they knew what happened, were rolled up neatly on his tongue. A lot of times, he just came inside, carefully setting the bird down on the floor. Howling loudly, you needed to say, ‘Good boy, Static.’ Then scoop bird up and let it go.”

Static had a tail that “looked like a big pom-pom,” as Rock put it, because it was pointed upward. And he had triple paws on his front feet. Static was unmistakable, in appearance and in nature.
“He would lay down in the street and people would stop and pet him,” Rock said.
“If you had a pen, laying down, he would try to maneuver it with his paws,” she said. “He had every cat in the neighborhood down here to eat, and then he’d let them out.”
Static had friends everywhere.