Yesterday, as I drove down the street to our house, I saw Lisa and Emily standing in front of a neighbors yard looking skyward. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on so, after I parked, I walked over to Lisa to see what they were doing. It turns out a cat, one we see on a regular basis and which likes to harass our cat when we go for a walk, was stuck in a tree and Lisa wanted me to rescue it. The scene brought on a flashback of last November.

Near the end of November we were packed up for a trip to my Mom's house for a surprise birthday party for her 60th. We figured, as we drove, that we would stop off on occasion and do a little Geocaching so we took State Route 2 towards Ravenswood instead of the highway to escape WV. In Point Pleasant WV there is a great park that we've often wanted to stop at; and, since the weather was great, we got out and fired up the GPS to look for a cache or two. We found our first and then had to cross RT 2 to reach a boat launch where a second was supposedly hidden. As we walked toward the cache we heard the plaintive wail of a cat. It sounded like it was coming from closer to the boat launch where an old bearded guy and his truck were resting. We ignored the cat cry and headed onward to our cache. After finding the cache we noticed the guy and his truck were gone but we could still hear the cat. Concerned I decided to head over to see what the heck was going on and Lisa and the girls followed. Unsurprisingly it was very easy to find the source of the wail because it was so incredibly loud and sad sounding - we walked right to a tall narrow tree that was off in a little patch of briers, brambles, and trees and which contained a small pure white cat. The cat was sitting in the nook created by two branches about 40-50' in the air. There was no easy path down and the kitten wasn't looking too brave.

Initially I just tried to talk the cat down and, amazingly, the little guy started to work his way down. He looked scared as hell but kept on pushing forward a foot at at time, head first, down the main trunk of the tree that was no more than 6" thick. He made it about 10' down before deciding to take a detour out on a smaller branch that pointed toward me. This was not the path the cat needed to be taking though. the branch quickly narrowed to about 1" thick and just got thinner and thinner until it tapered off. I quickly pulled off my sweatshirt, spread it out in my arms and plowed through the briers to get under the cat in case it fell; it still had about 30-40' of air to fall through. The cat kept creeping forward and I kept trying, vainly, to tell the cat to turn around. Suddenly, the cat slipped and one of his back paws came off the branch. Then, just as suddenly, he slipped again and his entire body was dangling by just his front paws. He pulled and wiggled his body until he had his body fully supported again but that only lasted a moment before he slipped again and was once more holding on with just his front claws. Amazingly, in a display of sheer power, the cat continued to walk, front paw over front paw, along the branch about five or six more inches while his body dangled precariously. He tried to pull himself up but you could tell he was getting tired and he just couldn't do it and then he fell. He tumbled and did his cat tail twitch to flip his body over and landed squarely in my sweatshirt before bounding, instantly out of it and running into the briers.

Lisa and the girls had been waiting with baited breath on the other side of the briers and, as soon as the cat, hid Lisa called to him and amazingly he came right to her. The poor cat was emaciated and scared but was still willing to trust us so Lisa wrapped him up in her sweatshirt to keep him warm and we carried him back to our car. On the way I called my dad who lives nearby and asked him if he'd like a cat. He agreed to take him! The girls wanted to name the cat Poe if it was a boy or Poetry if it was a girl. We agreed with one caveat; it's full name had to be Poe-a-Tree-fiddy. The "fiddy" part was because we found the cat while also finding our fiftieth geocache. Plus, if you ever watch south park there is a hilarious episode concerning the value tree-fiddy.

Last night, as I sat under a tree in my neighbors yard with my coat extended between my arms to catch a small pregnant cat that was about 15' up I couldn't help but think about the amazing bravery and strength that Poe-a-tree-fiddy showed that day and how cowardly this new cat was being. My arms were getting tired and this cat wouldn't budge. Oh, she'd turn around and stick one foot out and then turn around again and tease me as if she were going to jump the 6 feet or so down to my coat which was extended all the way above my head but she wouldn't commit; so, eventually, I gave up. Of course, as soon as I started to walk away the cat ran down the side of the tree and into the yard. She was probably staying in the tree in order to avoid me.

#MyLife