morning I met Ira

Four years ago, as I began a part-time job, a truck arrived, 5:30am; since it was summer, it was bright and light already, at 5:30am -- truck pulls up, the driver had long hair, and a hat.
And a cat.

When I showed interest in the cat ("You have a KITTY!!") the driver told me how the cat found him:
the driver had stopped at a rest area in the state of Iowa, approximately two and a half years before, in October or November, "two weeks after I quit smoking," he said. He noticed the cat, at the far corner of the building. The cat was looking directly at him, and meowing loudly.

The driver walked away, trying to ignore it, but the cat followed him; after a little time, when the cat didn't seem to belong with anyone around there, the driver gave the cat some water to drink, then lifted him into the truck cab. He told me, when he started the motor and the cat didn't freak out, "I decided he must have been somebody's truck cat that somehow got lost from his owner."

The driver took the cat to a vet, to check his health, got cat food and a litter box, and Cat and Man had been driving together for the last two and a half years. He had named the cat Ira.

Ira was on a collar and leash, and seemed comfortable that way. It was one of those leashes that can get longer, or get shorter, if the person needs to protect the pet from something. (The driver told me about a time in Texas when he was walking with Ira, letting him explore in the grass, at night, and he noticed a big owl over on a fence, watching Ira speculatively: the driver described how he picked Ira up, (calmly, so as not to frighten Ira, but quickly, while thinking to the owl, "Oh no you don't...!")

He told me that Ira "has been to 48 states."
And I was wondering where he got a name like Ira.
("Is he, like, a Jewish cat, from New York?")
The truck driver explained: Ira. I - r - a. 'Iowa rest area.'
Because that's where he found him.
The cat found him, that is.

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