Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990 TAG: 9003142538
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gina and Duncan Chapman, who live in the apartment attached to the deck, leave for a bit.
When they return, Bo is gone. Bo is a Siamese cat.
"He went overboard," says Gina Chapman.
Ho hum. I wish I had a nickel for every cat that walked the plank off second-story decks.
So far, it is your basic missing cat story, nothing special: Girl and boy own cat, cat plummets from second story, girl and boy get choked up, partially squashed cat corpse will probably be found in bushes. Happens a hundred times a day.
Still nothing new here: Gina Chapman, beside herself with grief, works up a poster of Bo the cat, nails it to poles, tapes it to windows and prays.
Bingo. Six days after Bo disappears comes words that Bo has been spotted - sort of - 100 miles from home.
In Roanoke, of all places.
Either Bo has wheels or there is more to this story than we know.
Bo knows football. Bo knows baseball. And Bo knows driving.
The cat, as it turns out, hijacks a tractor-trailer load of frozen catfish filets, roars north on U.S. 220, and ditches the truck in the weeds off Orange Avenue while inviting every tomcat in Roanoke to feast on the spoils.
Just joshing.
What really happened, Gina Chapman knows.
"It got really cold the night after Bo disappeared," she said. "Apparently, Bo looked for someplace warm."
Bo found it in the engine compartment of a parked car.
Bo knows heat.
Sleeping off the euphoria of feline freedom, Bo was sawing logs perched on the wiper fluid reservoir.
So exhausted was Bo the cat that he didn't hear, or chose to ignore, the ignition the next morning. By the time Bo figured out he ought to bail out, he was northbound and the time had come to hold on for dear life.
Bo knows extinction.
Gina Chapman won't say whose car it was. The woman was not proud of her role in all this.
The unwitting motorist drove 100 miles before stopping for gas and to check the oil at the Exxon service station on Hershberger Road near Valley View Mall. She opened the hood.
The engine may have been purring, but the pussy was not.
Bo had no intention of riding home on top of that 130-horsepower combustion engine. Bo preferred to take his chances in the wilds of Northwest Roanoke.
Bo knows comfort. Bo bolted.
Gina and Duncan Chapman have no ordinary missing cat. They have a cat missing 100 miles from home.
Dedicated pet owners that they are, Gina and Duncan Chapman drove from Greensboro to Roanoke on Monday. They paused at the Exxon station in question and they posted Missing Bo posters.
Be on the lookout for the engine-straddling Siamese with a haunted look.
Lock your car. Check your engine.
Bo knows a free ride.
by CNB