‘Postman’ Cat Helps His Owners Make An Unusual Pen Pal

The image of neighbors engaging in social contact has been fading like an old photograph from the middle of the 20th century. In 2000, Harvard public policy professor Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, a study of the decline of trust in (American) communities. Putnam documented how, since World War II, people have slowly become more and more disconnected from the traditional civic institutions of American life—things like local government meetings, church services, voter participation, and union membership; technology has been “individualizing” leisure time, testing the bonds that hold society together. But you know who can save them from cracking? Cats.

Just take a look at Billy, for example.

His owner Olga Shipunova, 29, and her partner Zack King, 37, became pen pals with one of their neighbors, and it was all thanks to their furry little buddy. One evening, Billy returned to their home in Hackney, London, with a note tucked under his collar, and it just escalated wholesomely.