Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Cat in a Box
Continuing the 'critter tales' series:
It must have been around 1962 that, reading the Charlotte Disturber, I saw a long obituary about a local character who sounded pretty interesting. Not that an eleven-year-old boy was in the habit of reading the obits. Something in the header must have grabbed me. His name is lost to me, but among other things he was an avid outdoorsman and a serious prankster. How serious? This serious. He and his friends once caught (don't ask me how) a young mountain lion and were pondering whether to let it go or do something interesting with it. They retrieved an old piece of luggage from one of their homes and put the lion (again, don't ask) into the suitcase. Then they set the suitcase by the side of the highway and waited. This was a two-lane road in the 1930's or earlier. A car went by, then another. Then a big sedan drove by, jammed on the brakes and reversed. Coming even with the suitcase the door opened, a hand reached out and snatched it and the car roared off. For about 100 yards. Then the car screeched to a halt, all the door opened and four men ran screaming in mortal terror. Soon after an ill-used, thoroughly pissed-off young mountain lion stepped out of the car, looked around and vanished into the woods.
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It must have been around 1962 that, reading the Charlotte Disturber, I saw a long obituary about a local character who sounded pretty interesting. Not that an eleven-year-old boy was in the habit of reading the obits. Something in the header must have grabbed me. His name is lost to me, but among other things he was an avid outdoorsman and a serious prankster. How serious? This serious. He and his friends once caught (don't ask me how) a young mountain lion and were pondering whether to let it go or do something interesting with it. They retrieved an old piece of luggage from one of their homes and put the lion (again, don't ask) into the suitcase. Then they set the suitcase by the side of the highway and waited. This was a two-lane road in the 1930's or earlier. A car went by, then another. Then a big sedan drove by, jammed on the brakes and reversed. Coming even with the suitcase the door opened, a hand reached out and snatched it and the car roared off. For about 100 yards. Then the car screeched to a halt, all the door opened and four men ran screaming in mortal terror. Soon after an ill-used, thoroughly pissed-off young mountain lion stepped out of the car, looked around and vanished into the woods.
# posted by Bert Wiener @ 1/18/2006 04:15:00 PM 
