We Heart Cats

I was searching the Internet for stories about cats that might spark the writing fire. I know when I have been out-written, though. This story you just have to read for yourself from the original author.

The Boat Ramp, the Mouse, and the Cat by Hardy Jackson is both a disturbing and hilarious bit of fact finding and commentary. It seems that wealthy land owners are attempting to halt construction of a boat ramp by claiming an endangered mouse population, but that mouse population is non-existant due to feral cats being introduced years ago by a developer who didn’t want his construction halted for the mouse. The cats are still there; the last survey found no trace of the endangered mouse. As a native Alabamian, I can assure you that, even without being intimately familiar with the facts of this case myself, it is just outrageous enough to be absolutely true.

You see, in Alabama we take our feral cats for granted far too often. If you have ever been in the southern US, you have no doubt been introduced to our pest population. From wood roaches big enough to make a German Shepherd cower under the front stoop to the swarming love bugs that emerge twice a year to coat autobody paint jobs, you cannot escape Alabama’s varmints. Without our feral cat population, the only species brave enough wage the war year-round against the various and sundry creepy crawlies, the region would be uninhabitable.

I still remember a great aunt that had a house full of cats. She must have had 30 or 40 of them crouched in every window and doorway and on every wooden porch rail and utility meter. I can also point out dozens of men I knew in my childhood, and still do, that fit Mr. Jackson’s description of the cat hunters. What may seem absurd to the rest of the world is just a part of rural life in the South.

To get a clear picture of our heritage, you have to combine the ridiculous with the commonplace, wrap it in equal parts humor, alcohol, and ammo, throw in a pinch of overblown machismo, and then bake it in the sweltering humidity that blocks certain neurological functions. What you get is stories like The Boat Ramp, the Mouse, and the Cat.

While younger, more modern Alabamians may groan at one more such tale, Mr. Jackson proves that we have yet to venture too far from our stereotypical Southern roots. However the situation plays out, I have no doubt the feral cats will be snickering right along with me.