Cleopatra, Queen of Denial: And Her Philosophical Friends

By J. Lamarr Cox

Yes, I know. If one wishes to sell his book, he must tell potential readers that it will give them pleasure, tell them how to fix whatever needs fixing, or reinforce their religious or political beliefs. But I am an old man who is not seeking fame or fortune but is contented with the discontent in his life. There are some hard realities that mos

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Dec 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781647530556

J. Lamarr Cox

Dr. Cox, in his younger years, worked as a steel mill laborer, an electrician, and an electrical contractor. He later, as an electrical engineer, was manager of the research and development department in the manufacturing division of Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, working primarily on the space program. After completing graduate work at Stetson University and Florida State University, he began a new career in social sciences research, first as a research associate at Florida State University and then to at RT I International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. He retired as Senior Research Psychologist after directing more than fifty national, state, and local research projects. Currently he, at age 93, lives with his wife, Julie, age 88, in Cary, North Carolina. The animals in the book are ones with which he was personally acquainted; however, to avoid paying them royalties, fictitious names are used.

Book preview

I

What? Where?

When? Why? How?

The last of earth’s brash Gobblegales,

In seeking something he could munch,

Caught just a glimpse of shiny scales

And craved its owner for his lunch..

In circles tight, at speeds unknown,

Around and round he sought his goal,

And grabbed a tail–it was his own–

And swallowed himself whole.

This had been a peaceful evening with my wife and me propped up in bed reading. But a distant buzzing was getting our attention as it grew closer and louder–too close and too loud. We lived near the airport and were accustomed to hearing airplanes flying overhead. But this was different. This sounded like an airplane in trouble. The buzzing grew into a roar as though the plane was just above our heads. For a brief second the thought crossed my mind that we might be in big trouble. And then…an ear-splitting boomཀ We leaped out of bed. She said, It crashed, didn’t it?

I answered, Yes. She grabbed the phone and dialed 911. I grabbed a robe and slippers and rushed out to see if we were in any immediate danger. The night was unusually thick with fog. But, even through the gloom, I could see flames shooting into the sky at what at first seemed to be right at the far edge of our woods. I could hear people screaming and what seemed to be a series of small explosions. I walked closer and saw that the crash was several blocks away, over at the end of a neighboring cul-de-sac. I rushed back into the house, quickly dressed, and went back outside. The ground in the woods between us and the fire was thick with dry leaves. I wasn’t sure we were safe. Julie, my wife, came out, looked at the flames and asked if we should at least move the automobiles. I was too uncertain to give a clear answer. I was wondering if I should go to the fire and see if I could be of help. But I could hear a woman’s shrill voice screaming, Don’t go thereཀ Don’t go thereཀ And the sound of small explosions continued like strings of firecrackers going off. The flames were shooting higher and the smoke was rolling our way. We heard the wail of the sirens of emergency vehicles as they began to arrive. In minutes, the night was alive with the flashing of lights and shouts of rescue workers. Our road was blocked off at both ends and filled with what seemed to be every fire truck in the county. We weren’t sure we could get out now even if we wanted to. Actually, we could have by using a side street. The couple who lived next door, about 300 feet closer to the fire, drove by, stopped, and told us they were getting out for fear the fire was out of control. And the fire did seem to be spreading. Flames were rising higher and higher and the smoke made breathing uncomfortable.

We decided to go in and see if there was any news on television. And there was, but not much. It said a plane crash had been reported and that emergency crews were at the scene. A six-passenger, single-engine plane had been reported missing. That’s all we would learn until the next day. After an hour or so, the flames seemed to be less fierce, and one or two fire trucks left the scene. But there still was no through traffic on our road. I certainly wasn’t going to the crash scene just to see what was going on. I had seen enough tragedy during my years working as a volunteer in the emergency room of the local hospital. We decided to try to calm down and pack it in for the night.

The following day we learned that the pilot apparently had become confused in the dense fog, a fog that was unusual in our part of North Carolina, and had spun almost straight down into a neighborhood house. Both the plane and the house were utterly destroyed and the pilot and the single passenger were killed. One of them had been thrown from the plane on impact and landed on the pavement at the end of the cul-de-sac. He apparently lived for brief seconds and tried to raise his head. His clothing were on fire and one of the neighbors tried to use a garden hose to put out the flames that engulfed him. But it was a useless attempt.

The person who lived in the house was an older man who lived alone with just his dog. He had somehow managed to escape through a window with only bruises and small cuts. He had several guns and ammunition in his bedroom. The small explosions apparently were the shells exploding. One of his neighbors had intended going into the flaming house to try to rescue the dog. The screaming I heard was his wife. He apparently listened to her, which was fortunate because he never would have made it. Anyway, the dog didn’t need rescuing. He apparently had followed his owner through the broken window and ambled into the nearby woods. After the excitement died down a bit, he trotted in, lay down at his owner’s feet and, apparently, wondered what all the fuss was about.

It would be several weeks before I would drive down that street, partly because of the orange tape all around. What had been a large, two-story house was now a heap of ashes with the fuselage of the plane sticking up from the center. All that was left intact was a boat sitting undisturbed on its trailer in the driveway. The man who lived there had gone to stay with a family member until he could decide what to do next. Now, several days after the crash, the neighborhood was back to normal except for a lingering pungent odor. But the memory remained.

* * *

One morning soon after the plane crash, I awoke as usual to the cooing of doves outside my window. If the local birds had been disturbed by all the commotion surrounding the plane crash, they gave no notice. I glanced at the clock and it was only six o’clock. The bed was warm and the air a bit too cool for comfort, so I thought I’d just lie there for a moment and listen to the doves. I thought of how their peaceful cooing contrasted with the big fuss one of our local owls had made during the night. I always thrilled at the distant Whoo? Whoo? Whoo? of an owl but also found it mildly disturbing. Whoo, indeedཀ I already knew whoo; but I realized one could never learn too much about what, where, when, why, and how. I was getting to be an old man and there were all kinds of facts rolling around in my head. But I had never put them together in a way that allowed me to tell my version of the truths that can make life more meaningful. Close up views of tragedies have a way of making one rethink the meaning of life. The plane could just as well have crashed into our house. Our bodies could just as well have been charred by the flames. Why others and not us?

This weird thinking led to a new direction. I knew I had inherited a reasonably good brain, that I had a reasonably good education, and that I was reasonably contented with my life. And, possibly, there was a small amount of wisdom in there somewhere. Perhaps I owed it to my grandchildren, and to anyone else who might wish to check out my truths, to organize my thoughts by writing them down. There are so many aspects to life, some of which I have a reasonable understanding and some not so much. But I have had three distinctly different careers. So, if you wish to build a new house, I could tell you how to do that. If you wish to fly to the Moon, I probably could provide some assistance. If you wish to do research into the human condition, I probably could help with that. But I’ve been there; done that. At this point in my life, I’m more interested in sharing my ideas about living a fulfilling life. I’ve also been there and done that. And I’m still doing it. And there is a possibility that I might help you do it. Or maybe not. But I believe I ought to give it a try. The balance of this book is the result.

The two acre lot where my wife and I lived at the time I was writing most of this adjoins Umstead State Park in Raleigh, NC. The park is home to a zillion animal types. Many of these lived in or visited our yard and Lake Splash which is a neighborhood pond. I had a friendly relationship with many of them. Can animals talk? Well, if one has sufficient imagination, even rocks and trees can talk. I have a reasonably strong imagination. So, if I talk with animals, humor me and try using your own imagination.

As was my custom, I arose early that morning and moved quietly down the hall and out the back door into the cool, quiet air. I walked down the covered walkway to my workshop, opened the feed bins, and scooped out one coffee can of bird seeds and another of sunflower seeds. I took these to the spot just beyond the walkway where the ground had been pecked and scratched bare and scattered the bird seeds on the ground for my chickadees, titmice, wrens, doves, other bird types and, of course, the squirrels. Squeaks the Squirrel was up early and was sitting on one of the fence posts beside the gate that opened into my small, winter-idled vegetable garden. She was waiting for first pick of the sunflower seeds. She jumped to the ground and stood facing me with one small grey paw folded across her snowy-white breast. I said my usual, Good morning, Squeaks.

Squeaks stared at the can in my hand and asked, Going to put ’em down here or just stand there and hold ’em ’till I starves down dead?

I spread the seeds on the ground for her and the other squirrels who had not yet arrived, and replied, There you are, thank you. It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?

She bounced over, began an eager inspection of my offering and, finally, paused from her munching long enough to respond, Well, could be if you’d keep your voice down so you don’t call in nine zillion other squirrel types.

I stepped over her, picked up the garden hose, turned on the yard faucet, and refilled the bird bath. I walked down the gravel driveway to the street and picked up the newspaper. On my way back, I used the toe of my shoe to smooth out the gravel the deer had kicked up on their nightly trips through the yard. I slipped the rubber band off the newspaper and tossed it–the rubber band; not the newspaper–into the trash bin, picked up and trash-canned the few scraps of garbage that had been removed during the nightly raid of raccoons and opossums, and left the still-shadowy yard for the cheerful lights of the kitchen. I fixed a cup of instant decaf, fumbled the newspaper open on the kitchen table, and began reading what someone, somewhere apparently thought was important. Cleopatra the Cat jumped onto the seat of the chair next to me and, using the chair arm as a step, eased herself onto the table and curled up on top of my newspaper, completely covering the article I had been reading. I gave up on the newspaper and picked up Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal that I had begun reading the evening before. I love to sit at the window in the quiet of the dawn’s half-light and read something that seems to be of value while glancing up now and then to delight in the first streaks of orange appearing on the eastern horizon. When my cup of decaf ran dry, I popped a frozen bagel into the microwave, punched a few random buttons to start it growling, pulled a container of low-fat cream cheese from the refrigerator, and ate my bit of breakfast. The smell of food roused Cleopatra from her sleep. She jumped into my lap and insisted on being fed immediately. I got up, reached into the pantry, pulled down a new can of minced mouse, opened it, and fed Cleopatra. I checked in with Julie who sat in her study banging away on her computer and headed outdoors to begin my day’s work.

I hated blowing those stupid leaves. But I had an incentive to at least clear out those that were close enough to the house to be a fire hazzard. It’s always hard to get the leaf blower started after it hangs on the wall all summer. I half-hoped I wouldn’t be able to get it going at all. I poured in gasoline, gave the rope a little tug, and what do you know? It spit, coughed, and then purred like a kitten. No excuse now. I blew leaves, pulled weeds, used the string trimmer, moved dead tree branches, and the morning was gone. After lunch, with a fresh cup of decaf and my book, I settled in on the porch to catch my breath and continue my reading.

Cleopatra, pleased that the outdoors finally was free of the growling of the blower and trimmer, climbed up my leg, jumped to the table next to me, curled into a tight ball, and instantly fell asleep. Casey the Canine bounced over from next door, said his hellos, and stretched out on the bricks of the porch floor. I reached over and patted him on the head. He likes that. He lay there and quivered with ecstasy for about the next half hour. Unlike humans, it doesn’t take much to make a dog happy.

* * *

So, there I sat in the cool quiet of an early-winter afternoon with only the sounds of Cleopatra’s low purrs, the peeping and chirping of the birds, the chattering of the squirrels, and the soft thump thump of Casey’s tail on the floor. Times like these are conducive to sitting, absorbing the stillness, and thinking.

Several years had passed since I stopped going to work every day, and I’d not quite adjusted to the resultant momentous changes in my life. Retirement, some call it. For me, it was more a case of shifting gears. The primary difference was that I now had a bit more time to think. And thinking can be ever so much bother. It is much easier and less painful to stay so busy that you don’t have time to think. But thinking seemed to be an appropriate occupation while sitting there in my chair with Cleopatra the Cat curled up beside me with the claws on one paw dug lightly into my leg. This was her involuntary response to my attention to Casey the Canine for whom she has an intense innate disdain.

I had what I suppose is an advantage over many people in that I could do pretty much anything I pleased with each day. This was considerably more the result, of course, of what pleased me than it was of what I could do. But one of the things I have learned in life is that the only sure way to get what you want is to want what you get. And that afternoon, what I was getting was the opportunity to sit there in my chair, sip my decaf, rub Cleopatra’s ears, watch Casey’s eyes slowly close as sleep overtook him, and think a bit about my yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows.

The first thing that came to mind was concern for the families of the two men who died such a violent death in the plane crash. They never had a chance to say goodbye, nor a last opportunity to say, I love you. I pushed the sadness from the front of my mind and focused on yesterday’s trip to the neighborhood library. There, I searched through past copies of the Home You-Fix-It magazine for an article I remembered seeing earlier in my own copy. I had, of course, discarded my copy, thinking, as I often do when I get rid of something I am certain to need later, that I can’t keep everything. The article was about how to add more memory to a computer. I found the article in the library, photocopied it, brought the copy home, and put it on top of my old computer to remind me to read it later to see if I thought the instructions were clear and simple enough for me to follow. I read the article later in the day and found it to be straightforward enough. I was reasonably certain I could follow the instructions; however, the question of why bother with a near-obsolete computer still lurked in the back of my mind. In light of recent events, it seemed so insignificant.

I thought about all the clear, straightforward instructions I’ve seen and heard in my lifetime. There are instructions on almost every conceivable subject: how to tune your automobile engine, how to make a million dollars, how to lose weight, how to get a wife, how to get rid of a wife, how to get the cheapest airline tickets, how to have better sex, how to make Christmas decorations out of colored popcorn, and a million other things both useful and ridiculous. Also, there is endless advice urging you try different products and services. Added to this, the ministers, priests, rabbis, psychologists, sociologists, economists, politicians, bartenders, hairdressers, and others constantly offer instructions and advice on all aspects of life. We perhaps have good reason to call this the information age. With my computer Internet connection, I literally am able to access mountains of information. The local library, as well as the shelves of my own study, is filled with more information than I will ever be able to use. Virtually everything the human animal has ever put into thoughts is available from one information source or another. If all the world’s instructions and advice were laid end to end, they would reach from here to eternity and back–with nine miles or fifteen inches left over.

But, I wonder, why is it that, even with all these instructions, information, and advice, we seem to have so much difficulty getting our directions straight? I remember an experience I had some years ago flying in a small plane through a stormy night between Denver and some obscure town in western Kansas. The pilot remarked to the six or eight passengers that we had a strong tail wind and, thus, were making excellent time. And then he added, Unfortunately, I’ve just discovered that some of my communications equipment isn’t working and so, right now, we are lost.

When recalling that night, I wondered about the wisdom of our hurrying through life without having our directions straight, without having a plan or a goal for our lives. Why, I wonder, do most of us, if we ever stop running long enough to think about it, have such an empty, sinking feeling that we don’t quite understand what’s going on with us and the world around us? It seems to me that most of the instructions, information, and advice available to us deals with the trivial incidents of life, but not with life itself. Each of us is traveling through a strange land without a map, without a compass, and with only a few hints as to where and why we are traveling. We see the bits and pieces of life but are unable to see the whole of it. Seeing the whole of life requires, perhaps, the courage to be fully aware and the discipline to act on our awareness. And this can be a difficult, painful, and risky thing. It is not surprising, I suppose, that we hide from ourselves behind the humdrum of daily activities. But even the pilot who is making good time needs occasionally to rise above the clouds and get his directions straight. That is, unless he is willing to let the fates determine where he will land when he can soar no more.

As I thought such long thoughts, it was clear to me that the instructions on how to update an old computer were of only minor importance. I could easily get along without a computer–well, maybe not. But more important is to have a reasonable understanding of life–and death. I have seen and felt, so it seems to me, in my lifetime, an eternity of unbearable suffering, sorrow, misery, and pain. I have seen and felt desolation, loneliness, fear of the known, and even greater fear of the unknown. I have, of course, also known and seen such wondrous things as joy, happiness, kindness, caring, sharing, and love. But, often, even in the midst of the goodness of life, I have seen lost souls searching vainly for meaning in a life that seems to them to have no meaning, and for direction in a world where the darkness obscures the few guideposts that might have helped mark their way.

And I, too, am not always certain of my way. I want to be fully aware not only of each detail of my journey through life but also of why I’m traveling and what destination I’m attempting to reach. I want life to make sense to me. I want the pain, suffering, and despair to make sense to me. I want to know how the glad, secure, growing times fit in with the sad, scary, stagnant times. I want to know why the world is the way it is and how I fit into it. It seems as though I have spent most of my life climbing a mountain. The higher I climb, the better the view, the better the opportunity to see and understand. However, this clearer view also reveals the fuzzy outline of many more new things that I do NOT understand. So, I need to climb higher. I need to climb to the very top of the mountain so that I can see clearly all that my physical and mental makeup will permit.

* * *

A pair of crows flew in and their raucous cries aroused Casey from his sleep. He raised his head, yawned, and began again the thump thumping of his tail on the floor. I looked down at him and said, Casey, you always look so contented and happy.

Of course, he responded. Aren’t–woof–you?

Well, I admitted, Mostly but not always, not completely. I have my ups and downs.

Woof, said Casey. "Happiness is a big bone with some meat on it.

Happiness is…woof, why aren’t you always happy?"

Well, I said, I think it has to do with sometimes wishing I could find a more perfect understanding of what life is really about.

Woof. Have you sniffed around in the kitchen and looked around in the yard for it?

I decided to tell him the truth, even though I knew he would not understand. I’ve tried looking outward at the larger universe, I said. But mostly all I see is uncountable lights twinkling in endless darkness. To get a better perspective of what planet Earth is like, I also have, in my fancy, often traveled to the moon and, a few times, to distant stars for hints of things I might have missed from my usual close-up view. This, I regret to say, has not been particularly productive. It simply showed Earth to be a relatively tiny and, perhaps, insignificant part of the whole.

Woof, said Casey. No meat bones there. Woof.

In an attempt to gain a different perspective, I’ve used a microscope to explore the tiny worlds that make up our world, I said. But, looking inward, I see only an infinity of the same things I see when I look outward. Also, I’ve used my mental time machine to try to shift into a different time perspective and look at life from the past and from the future. From both, I see mostly the same things I see through the telescope and microscope, countless lights twinkling in endless darkness.

All was quiet for a minute and then Casey spoke up on a completely different subject. I have–woof–been wondering, he said. Where did you come from?

Again, though sure he would not understand, I answered. I am an alien here. Are not we all? I’m a stranger in a strange land. We are merely passing through this time and place. We understand that we came from the dust of the earth and, inevitably, return to the earth. But, we suspect that’s not all there is to it. We don’t really know from where we came. We don’t really know why we are here. We don’t really know where we are going. And we are not really sure how to find out.

Oh, is that where you came from? asked Casey, shaking his head in bewilderment. I–woof–came from a kennel.

I was too deep in thought to pay much attention to where Casey came from. I said, I wonder why finding meaning in this alien world is so difficult? Could it be that I avoid a serious search for eternal truths for fear of what I might find? Does some part of me hope for ready-made, easy, simple truths to be handed to me without effort on my part? Is truth out there" somewhere waiting to be pounced upon, or are the pieces all about and within me waiting for conditions to be right for them to come together and be known?

A wee meorl came from Cleopatra who supposedly was asleep. I looked over and saw one eyelid ease open about an eighth of an inch. She gave a wide-mouthed yawn and said, You well know how wise, beautiful, generous, sophisticated, sympathetic, and polite I am. I have been listening to you and I have a kind word for you. And that kind word is ‘Just SHUT UP!

So, I suppose you have all the answers, I said.

Of course, she said, Ask me about your distorted perceptions sometimes when I am not so busy. And she was asleep again.

Casey stood up, stretched, yawned, scratched, and said, At times like these–woof–dogged if I’m not simply delighted to be simply a simple, delightful dog. Got to go home now and–woof–chew bones.

I patted him on the head and told him he was welcome over any time. Casey was off. Cleopatra scowled after him, grumbled to herself, jumped down from the table, and scratched on the door to be let into the house, and growled, Get away from me if you are going to go all mushy over that stupid flea bag. I let her in and returned to my chair to be alone with my thoughts.

Cleopatra probably was right about my distorted perceptions. All of us really do need to get our directions straight before we get too tired. Perhaps a more objective vision would show the sun always shining, eternal promises always kept, and a life and death that have deep meaning and eternal significance. What new truths, I wonder, might one discover if one had the courage to be aware, the will to work, and the patience to wait?

II

Do We Have Choices?

I fear I chose imprudently

The day I judged that she

Had choices, too, and callously

Chose to misjudge me.

There are days when I wander and days when I wonder; today was one of the latter. Early on, I found myself standing in the middle of the kitchen wondering if I had fed the birds and squirrels and brought in the newspaper. Yes, there it was on the table, not the birds and squirrels, just the newspaper. Sometimes, early in the morning, I operate on autopilot while my mind is elsewhere. I had been asking myself whether or not we always operate on autopilot even when we think we are fully alert and making our own decisions. That’s when I realized I was standing in the kitchen staring at a blank wall. So I decided to stop standing there, go out on the porch and, if it wasn’t too cool, sit and read a few more chapters of the book I started the previous night. I started toward the door and then stopped to reconsider. Do I have to go sit on the porch and read, or can I choose to do otherwise? I reasoned that, because I could think of at least fifty things I could do if I wished, I really must have some choices. I may be a puppet in some ways, but in other ways I can pull my own strings. Or can I?

So, whether pre-ordained or by choice, I continued on my way to my porch chair. I sat there and continued to think long thoughts. Some of my friends are what I suppose you would call conservatives. They are mostly eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth people who tend to believe willful bad behavior should be punished. If a person robs a bank or poisons her husband, judges and juries have to decide the INTENT of the wrongdoer: whether the person planned the act and did it on purpose or whether she was suffering from temporary insanity, post-traumatic stress disorder, premenstrual syndrome, or whatever. If there was no intent, so my conservative friends seem to believe, there is no need for punishment. If there was intent, the offender is considered to have acted of his own free will, to have deliberately chosen to do bad stuff and; therefore, should be punished with fifty years in the electric chair, or whatever.

Most of my friends are what I suppose you would call liberals. To them, so it seems to me, free will is an illusion. They tend to believe individuals behave the way they do mostly because of their heredity and environment, neither of which are particularly subject to the individual’s control. Therefore, the bank robber and husband poisoner are not to be blamed. Instead, society is at fault for creating or permitting the bad environment that caused the bad behavior. My liberal friends can never quite explain why society is at fault. After all, if you follow their line of thinking, isn’t society just doing what was dictated to it by its own heredity and environment?

I suspect there is a middle ground. Certainly we are powerfully shaped by our heredity and environment. But I can’t believe that completely frees us from responsibility for our behavior. Someone said our heredity and environment determines what we are likely to do but not what we have to do. And I agree. The problem, as I see it, is that we have absolutely no way of knowing how much choice another person has. Thus, our best route, so it seems to me, is to keep a tight rein on our own behavior while cutting a lot of slack for others. As for punishment, I can’t see that punishment for punishment’s sake ever did any good. In fact, I’m somewhat offended by the word punishment. Maybe discipline is a better word. And maybe discipline should be used only when it seems likely to do some good, either for the offender or for the greater society. A ruthless killer, for example, can’t be allowed to remain free to keep on killing people; he must be separated from society. Even then, having to force conditions on people who behave in antisocial ways is a tragedy. Rather than getting carried away with it as the perfect solution, perhaps we should use it judiciously while following my liberal friends’ admonition to do something about the social conditions, such as poverty and poor parenting, that lead to antisocial behavior.

As I continued to puzzle over the degree to which we have choices and over the factors that seem to impact on our behaviors, I looked over at my chair-side table where Cleopatra the Cat was sleeping soundly. My thoughts drifted back to a time sixteen years earlier when she seemingly made some decisions that I still didn’t fully understand.

* * *

Her screams were heartbreaking, but we had done everything we knew to do. She had been high in the huge poplar tree for three days and obviously was growing weak from hunger, thirst, and exposure. She was just a kitten. She had been only six weeks old when we adopted her, and she had lived with us for less than a year. We had named her Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, after her predecessor who had died peacefully in her old age. Cleopatra, from the beginning, had been a great climber, but never before had she climbed such a large tree. The trunk of the poplar was over two feet in diameter, and Cleopatra was stuck on a limb thirty or forty feet up. Something drastic had to be done that day, but we had no idea what to do.

I reviewed what we had tried thus far. We had spent endless hours trying to call her down. I had leaned my sixteen foot ladder against the tree trunk, climbed as high as I dared, and tried to coax her into meeting me half way. Our teenage son had used pure logic and veiled threats in a vain attempt to talk her down. Our daughter, who was nine years old at the time, wept dramatic tears and promised the cat virtually everything I owned if she would just please, please come down. Two of our neighbors decided that, with a rope over a limb, one of them could climb the tree and get her down. They tried tying a string to a stone, throwing the stone over a limb, and using the string to pull a rope over the limb. The string kept slipping off the stone. They substituted a golf ball in a sock but none of them could throw hard enough to get the ball over the limb. They tried a bow and arrow, with a string tied to the arrow. They had only two arrows. These got hung up in the tree and likely are still there. The neighbors gave up and went home.

My wife talked to the vet who said cats usually come down on their own if you leave them alone. But, after three days and three cold, rainy nights, he didn’t seem quite so confident. He suggested another vet who specialized in wild animals. My wife phoned the new vet but was told we would have to bring the cat to his office; he did not make house calls.

Next, we called the police. They could do nothing because the cat had broken no laws. They said cats in trees was what fire departments were for. We phoned the fire department and were told they did not do cats. We asked them what they thought we should do. Their advice was to get a long ladder and ropes and go up after her. I asked where I might get such a long ladder. They said the only place they knew of was the fire department. I thanked them for their advice and asked when they could bring the ladder. They asked if my house was on fire. I said I didn’t think so. They said I should call back if the house caught fire and then they would bring ladders. I phoned a tree service and asked them if they did cats. They said they would be glad to cut down the tree so I could retrieve the cat myself. When I declined their kind offer, they suggested I call the power company. I did. I