PICTURE OF CAPTAIN BLUE

AN ENIGMA: THE STYLE & DIGNITY OF THE FERAL CAT

Dogs, we love them. And their faith to companion and friend, undeniable. But, the cat, especially feral, there is something there boring on enigmatic. I have noticed it too often to sluff it off as episodic. There is a dignity & style to the cat we see in the wild of our civilized world. It is as if these miniature creatures from the Serengeti know something we don’t.
They appear to straddle our world and some other place with which we are not familiar.
They can be in the direst of straits, yet they maintain a nobility. Do they know something we don’t. How can the alley cat in Chicago or feral little beast in Aspen maintain a cool in a situation that would make me sweat bullets ? Who thought up the name “cool cat” and why is it so appropriate ?

Faithful dog, cool cat. The terms we accept as appropriate. Both are honorable. But, we would never juxtaposition those adjectives. Do not look to a cat to improve your self-esteem. Dogs will jog with you, cats won’t. Don’t have to. They are in out-of –this-world shape. Did you ever notice that before she jumps six times her length to the top of your dresser, kitty seems to stop and do a calculation. Not one of them yet has shared with us this algorithm. It is rumored Renee Descartes, philosopher & mathematician, kept a notebook that studied the supreme leaping geometry of 17th century felines.

Why, when I first met my feral friend, who was clearly in need of food and water at The Pentagon, did he give me a swipe on the head ? Was this to set the ground rules of a relationship that would enrichen my life ? Did he know something I did not ? Thank God I acquiesced. Or I would not have had my glimpse into his wonderful world. These creatures are certainly the great witnesses to history – from the noble Egyptian felines watching the construction of pyramids (they know the secret) to my own cat’s relatives w/the force recon Marines (see my short story) @ the Citadel of Hue.

And finally, Ernest Hemingway, Miles Davis, Jack Kerouac. Cool guys. Is it me or did you also notice pictures of them with cats ? I’ll bet those cats had been feral. Just a hunch. Oh, and one other thing. When they rub up against us, are they marking us with a message for their other colleagues on the street ? In their sophistication is this marking now bar-coded, or has it always been bar coded (and we humans in our IT are hopelessly behind) ? And this bar code, is there a special star to denote those who had the privilege of being with their cat when he passed on to a better world ? I wonder about this daily as I walk the streets of Carbondale, CO. Cats come out of the woodwork: from under cars, off front porches, out of alleys. I am their pied piper as they exhibit various salutations.

I guess we’ll never know. I am on the way to believing. Let’s keep observing and see if we can attempt to understand. I believe they know something we do not: they have one paw in this world, our world. The other paw is already straddling the next world – about which they know and we do not.

I suggest we should start with a little episode involving my feral cat, Capt. Blue. Metaphysical is the operative world for him and his world. Oh, and, by the way, the nickname of my alma mater Northwestern is “wildcats”. Figures. Predestination ?