by Daryl Hopper
When I was a kid in the fifties, we lived in the back woods of Ruskin BC, about an hour outside of Vancouver. We had many cats. All of which were the descendants of the original pair of cats. The male was ‘Tom’, and the female was ‘Suzy’.
There were always cats around, all self respecting mice knew to stay away. The cats did pay rent, because every time they caught and ate a mouse they would leave the guts on our porch. I guess they thought they were earning their keep. I told them not to bother but they kept on doing it. I do not know if I raised them or they raised me.
Tom lived with my uncle Bob in a shack that he built, Bob not Tom. Tom had a broken leg that he limped on. No one knew how he got it. Uncle Bob would cook up some pork chops and they both would chow down on them. Old Tom could not move around too well, especially when it came to catching mice. So, when the mice started running around on the rafters of the shack, uncle Bob would simply get his rifle and shoot them down. I do not think that Tom ate them because he preferred pork chops.
Suzy was Tom’s cat wife. She was pregnant most of the time. Old Tom could not walk so well, but he could do something very good. Suzy was very adventurous, and loved climbing trees. This one time she saw a nice tall tree in the bush across from our house. She probably thought, “Wow what a nice big tree, I can climb that, what could happen?” She started up the tree, limb by limb, higher and higher. She got to the top, about fifty feet up. She looked around and probably thought,” Wow what a view, I’m so good at climbing!” Then she thought, ”Well, I’m hungry, I guess I’ll climb down now. Wait a minute, I’m a cat, I can’t climb down backwards! I didn’t think this through at all! I’m in big trouble, I better yell for help. I’m sure some human will climb up and rescue me.”
I was playing in the yard when I heard a cat crying in distress, I looked up and sure enough, there was Suzy stuck up the tallest tree in the bush. I ran in to the house and told my mother, ”Mom, Suzy’s stuck up a tree in the bush!” Mom ran out and started calling Suzy. “Suzy, Suzy, pss pss pss get down here.” She yelled. Suzy came down a few branches, and thought,”What am I doing, this is too scary, those lazy humans can come up here and get me!” Mom went and got some food, put it in Suzy’s dish and started to bang it on the floor of the porch. Suzy came down a few more branches and stopped. She just sat there and cried. “This is ridiculous. Why don’t those stupid humans climb up here and get me. They look like monkeys; they can climb up here no problem!” Suzy thought.
When dad got home he just looked up at Suzy and said, “Damn cat, it will come down when it’s hungry.” Then he went inside and read the paper. Suzy was up that tree for three days when I freaked out and cried, “Mom, we have to do something for Suzy, she’s never coming down!”
When dad came home from work they talked and finally decided to call mom’s brother Merv. Uncle Merv was a lineman for BC TEL, and climbed telephone poles for a living. He came over, looked up at Suzy and said, “Ok, I think can get her down, I’ll get my climbing spurs out of my truck.” He strapped on his spurs and started up the tree. Suzy was looking down at uncle Merv and thought, ” It’s about time one of those damn humans climbed up here and got me down, it’s been three days, I think, I can’t really tell time. I’m going to fire the lot of them when I get down.”
Merv finally got up to Suzy. Suzy though, “Hello, you’re my hero. I don’t know why you have a bag, I was just going to jump on your face and we can climb down.” That was not Merv’s plan at all. He grabbed Suzy by the scruff of the neck and stuffed her in to the bag. Suzy screamed, “What are you doing? That’s rude, are you sure you’re a monkey?” Merv came down the tree and let Suzy out of the bag. She ran and hid under the nearest bush to compose herself. She thought, “Wow, that was rough, I guess I’ll have to act like I’m grateful because I’m really hungry and I need them to feed me.” She rubbed up against me when I gave her the bowl full of food.
About two days went by without incident, when Suzy thought, “It’s boring around here, that tree thing was kind of fun, after all I was the center of attention.“ Up the tree she went again. When she got to the top she started screaming, “Hey, stupid humans, guess who is up the tree again, get the guy with those claws on its feet, I owe him one!”
Once again mom called uncle Merv to come over. Surprisingly, he actually came out. He was not happy. I heard language that I never heard before. He strapped on his spurs again and up the tree he went, cursing all the way. Suzy was watching all this and was thinking, “Wait until he gets up here, he’s going to get a big cat in his face.” Merv grabbed Suzy before she had a chance to jump on him, and stuffed her in the bag again. “Damn, that didn’t turn out right at all, God, he’s strong.” Suzy thought. Down they came. Suzy ran and hid to avoid getting a spanking.
Dad decided that was enough, he was going to do something. I thought that would be the end of Suzy. But no, all he did was put a bunch of wire around the bottom of the tree to stop Suzy from climbing up. Suzy thought, “Well, I never saw that coming, oh well, there are plenty of other trees around here.”
The wire around the tree thing worked for Suzy, but the squirrels never got the memo. They got caught up in the wire all the time. So, instead of cat screams, we heard squirrel screams all the time. At least we did not have to call uncle Merv for that.