By Dan Bodine

 

“Eclectic” may be an improper crime category for cats. They fit into so many, yes. It’s a weekend reading romp for crime readers, i.e. Stigmatized? Even the Catholic Church linked black cats to satan once.

But there’s a large backsplash of less-noticed victimhood here, too, involving cats. In El Paso early this year a gruesome tale arose about a guy stomping on the head of one and then eating it, i.e.

Who knows? Maybe the guy just wanted to escape. And he heard a voice crying out, “Steal one of the cat’s nine lives and slip away in it! Cats are cats, after all!”

Pobre sito! Maybe he ate the wrong end.

But victims cats are, too, is this message. And here I’m confessing. I climbed atop our house once decades ago and threw our family cat off the roof in a grand experiment. Boys, we were then!

Cats, indeed, are somewhat like utility infielders in baseball.

Found in crime fiction for their antics, they’re generally recognized as clever, intuitive, independent, and adventurous. I’ll leave the negatives hanging, maybe for a follow-up piece.

First, let’s unload a smidgen sample of other real-world shenanigans that some of these feline heroes have experienced.

For starters, here’s one that’s probably a victim of a little red-headed, freckled-face boy somewhere with a pellet gun. Ah, it’s probably the most common offense.

“Another cat falls victim to pellet gunfire; search on for shooter” screams this headline. (links on green)

Trust me, a boy is crouching ‘neath a bush with a pellet rifle somewhere around there. “… (T)he cat had to be euthanized,” the story adds.

—

‘Ya know, when young — e.g., from young boys and girls to young men and women — many of our mamas warned us about evil being everywhere. Indeed, don’t cross the path of a black cat, i.e.

And those warnings stick with you when implanted while young, too. Blame Society?

Maybe it was just the attention cats got themselves that piqued my interest way back then. Especially from my late Dad. He often mentioned, “When cats fall, they’ll always land on their feet!”

 Hijole! He should’ve known his wild-eyed little boy would snap something like that up faster than a duck on a June bug.

Sure ’nuff, I came up with throwing one off atop a house (way up high) in an innocent experiment. Duh…

So yeah, this is a confession of sorts. I was young, mind ‘ya (about 6 or 7; maybe 75 yrs. ago it was).

Furthermore, it was our family cat that went off the rooftop! Yes, as an experiment! I had in mind helping society. Wouldn’t do it to another family’s cat, of course not.

It was when we lived less ‘n a mile north of Cleburne on what was known as the Godley Hwy. (Named for a town later on up it in the SW part of D-FW.)

I carried our young cat, Tab, all the way up the ladder and to the highest point of the roof on our one-story rental house, without even a whimper from her, if’n I’m recalling right.

Yes, Tab was a good cat, alright!

Why throw her off a roof then? one can ask.

No, I wasn’t a mean kid! No! Not me! Lemme explain!

I did it both out of curiosity and, too, somehow I’d convinced myself I was doing an official experiment for the public at large —  e.g., a simple test to determine if cats always land on their feet.

Had such test ever been done? Huh?

Well, sure ’nuff, in this little unofficial demonstration for the public at large, she did!!! I saw it with my own eyes!

Unhurt! Tab landed on all-4s!!!

And looked back up at me, no doubt wondering what was wrong with this idiot now, someone a part of her home?!

Then she quickly disappeared behind the house!

But she convinced me, though, that Cats do land on their feet! Experiment over.

—

Earlier on even, yes, I was thinking about giving this experiment story to the local paper, say, to lay this saying about cats permanently to rest with Cleburne folks! And the world in general, too, I’d probably thought.

It bothered me some, it did. A cat-saying so simple needed to be tested, si?! No one I talked to could tell me if the experiment had ever been conducted.

So I did it, the test itself, just to put my curiosity to rest! First.

End of story, it was, too! After that, I changed my mind on announcing it!

Mom and Dad weren’t home. Claudia, my older sister, was in the house. I don’t know if she’d noticed me climbing with Tab up on the house or not. I don’t think so.

It wasn’t unusual sometimes after school for me to climb up and watch for Dad to come home from work, i.e. He was a house painter, and had several tall ladders.

I just went cold on it then about word getting out, though. Began thinking, probably, maybe kids that age are too young to know what makes cats tick. [What Dad would’ve said, anyway.]

(Hee, hee! Gracias a Dios! Children are somewhat like cats themselves, aren’t they? Largely driven by wild curiosity!)

So, announcing it to the world afterward just didn’t seem that all-important either. My excitement was turning to stone realism.

‘Ya mean, that’s all it took to prove that?!

A life-lesson on reality for my much-too-anxious psyche then, maybe. To gear down — e.g.,Realizing a huge step for a kid wasn’t even piddly to the world?! In the aftermath?

“What came over me?” I probably asked my shocked self. “You wanna admit ‘ya did sumpthin’ that stupid, and git laughed outta town? And probably git a whuppin’ from Mom or Dad, too! By embarrassing them for having such a gobbledygook son!?

But maybe in that moment I was being too hard on myself, too, reckon? The Answer unraveled years later while reading something.

I’d learn cats officially are born with a capacity unlike humans — e.g., they’re able to right themselves in a fall and land upright on their feet.

And if’n I’d been a little older in the hip crowd back then, I probably would’ve muttered something exceedingly profound, too — i.e., Wow! That’s cool! 

But unknown to me at the time of my experiment, of course — despite my questioning — was this ‘cat-landing issue’ already had been settled!

Dum, dee, dum, dum…!!!

Indeed,a respected, highly educated adult had experimented also! Before me! A French scientist named Etienne-Jules Marey in 1894. He called his discovery a “righting reflex!“

“The vestibular apparatus inside a cat’s ear is used for balance and orientation,” [emphases mine] writes the large pet food company, Purina, “and this enables cats to quickly figure out which way is up, and rotate their head so the body can follow.”

So… When I tossed Tab off a roof 55 or so years later, half the world already knew sumpthin’ that simple, right!??

—

Maybe spending my early boyhood in the country with just a mean older sister to play with wasn’t such a bad idea after all, huh?

Because curiosity is what killed the cat once, remember? (Wadn’t me.) Which applies to little boys and girls, too.

Who knows what devilish trouble I’d gotten into back in the days without a strong, loving, God-fearing family to grow up in? And around?

Well, that’s my story. Thank you for reading it. I’ve finally let the cat outta the bag on Tab.

 

— 30 —

 

To Readers: I’m sorry for my delay in posting. Old age and health issues, too. But mostly it’s wasting time in putting longer stories in book form to sell. Little extra pocket change would help in these Trumpian times. Maybe after the first of year I can get rolling on it. Thanks for hanging in as readers and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too. May God Bless us all.