THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406040003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: George Hebert
DATELINE: 940604 LENGTH: Medium
The house cat that shinnies handily up a utility pole or a big maple in the neighborhood, then freezes aloft with fear, or cantankerousness or some unknown emotion, has become a cliche. The rescues, typically by sympathetic (or irritated) firemen atop ladders, have been the stuff of cartoons and warm little newspaper yarns over the years.
{REST} Not so with our boarder. No hook-and-ladder scenario for her. She's a two-directional aerial athlete.
She comes down from some dizzying perch as easily and as surefootedly as she goes up. On the earthward trip, she sometimes goes face-first, almost running, in fact. Other times, she may back down, still fast and confident.
Doubtless, many among her cousins - and certainly all those in the wild world - can descend as skillfully as they scale. It's just that a close, personal experience with such an artist is unique for me.
For quite a while, she had a favorite route up and out of our fenced backyard - up a dogwood, over the garage, down to the pointed pales of the fence and then a scramble, head-down, to the ground on the other side. She'd come back along the same course.
That dogwood is gone now, but there is another, quite a bit taller, that she just climbs for fun, or maybe to establish a midair lair for spying on other creatures.
Out front, we have two loblolly pines, one quite tall and neither with any limbs for long straight distances up their trunks. And these, too, have no terrors of height for Deb. A passing tom or dog may send her up one or the other as a casual precaution. Other times, she may just scoot up the bark for several yards and then run down again just for the heck of it.
True enough, in one episode a while back, the up-and-down performance didn't come off quite the usual way. This was on a visit to my wife's father. I had taken Deb to his home for a little outdoor exercise, and had the bright idea of showing off her mastery of things climbable. Saying, ``Watch this!'' I lifted her to about my shoulder height and held her out to the trunk of a tree, about 4 inches in diameter and 15 feet or so tall.
Well, she climbed smartly upward, but didn't stay in the tree. A looping jump took her to the nearby house roof, which she padded over from end to end, while we watched and I began to worry. That was when my ``Kitty! Kitty!'' failed to produced any reaction that signaled a contemplated return to Earth.
Worse, she then bounded across about a 4-foot gap between the house roof and the garage, where I finally concluded she was content to stay for a span of time known only to her. Finally, all my bragging about how niftily she would voluntarily come down in a little while, or perhaps when called, lost its point as the time came for me, for us, to leave, and she was just giving cat-grins whenever I could wheedle her to the roof edge.
Fireman-style and embarrassingly, I was ultimately driven to the ladder solution when night threatened to close in.
That was the only occasion I remember - after learning how adroit she was at it - that Deb's climbing has created any worries. And they were all mine.
Not hers.
by CNB