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“Singin’ the blues while the lady cats cry, ‘Wild stray cat, you’re a real gone guy.
I wish I could be as carefree and wild, But I got cat class, and I got cat style.” — The Stray Cats
I saw another news item about big cats in East Texas last week. There was a huge one up near Longview that ran out in front of a police cruiser at 3 a.m.
Identified by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department as a mountain lion, the feline lost its battle with the law-enforcement vehicle. The incident left unsettled the popular feud as to whether big cats really roam East Texas.
I’m not a hunter. Not even much of an outdoorsman if there’s any chance of encountering snakes, mosquitos, chiggers or having to get up before sunrise. And communing with nature? My favorite camping style is a hotel room with a nice view of trees.
My first sort-of camping adventure was during grade school with my neighbor and friend Eddie Dial in Mount Pleasant. We roughed it under a tent created by throwing a couple of old bedspreads over the backyard clothesline.
“What’s that noise?” Eddie said in the middle of the night. Then, just as we were ready to make a run for the house, Mom’s house cats poked their noses into our makeshift tent, expressing curiosity about the backyard visitors and snacks.
Camping trips with Coach Parker’s Boy Scout troop never involved cats, just cat sounds from older Scouts making noises to scare the tenderfoot campers. Even weeklong excursions to Scout camp in the hills of Oklahoma offered nothing but a herd of wild hogs one night.
James Briscoe, a Mount Pleasant High School teacher turned camp counselor, demonstrated hog-calling skills we considered entertaining — until a herd rumbled through our tents in the middle of the night.
But big cats? Nope. None in Oklahoma.
Not in Arkansas either, I guess. Mom and Dad spent their vacations camping at Albert Pike. I joined them on weekends a couple of times. Arriving the first time after dark on a Friday night, I looked at their small camper and asked, “Where do I sleep?”
“Here’s a sleeping bag,” said Dad. “That picnic table under the canopy looks like a great spot.”
“But what about mountain lions and stuff?” I asked.
“They don’t have them in Arkansas,” he laughed. “At least I don’t think so.”
Sleeping with one eye open, all I saw were big mountain raccoons rummaging in trash cans in the middle of the night.
It was not raccoons, however, that I heard one night several years ago visiting the lower latitudes of Shelby County, down between Possum Trot and Goober Hill. Yes, those are real places — check your Cracker Barrel road atlas.
Air conditioning did not grace the dirt-road residence I was visiting near the Sabine National Forest that night. And being spring, windows were open allowing pleasant East Texas breezes for comfort.
It was way after dark when I heard it: a blood-curdling, ear-piecing scream.
“That’s just a panther,” someone nonchalantly said.
That was 40 years ago, and I didn’t dare dispute my host’s opinion. Who was I to say, anyway? My big-cat experience in East Texas was limited to lions, tigers and all kinds of ferocious felines at zoos in Tyler and Lufkin.
I still remember that growl — a cross between Mom encountering a mouse scampering across the kitchen floor and the epic shower scene from “Psycho.”
These days, I see cats daily. They’re just city cats that call my house home. They are big, only if you count extra pounds from regular feedings of good quality cat food and sleeping upwards of 20 hours a day. And I see them sometimes from the travel trailer I bought a few years ago. I’ve enjoyed many nights camping in it. Right where it’s parked in my backyard, a few steps from the house.
They’re always the same three regular cats: Lover Boy, Fluffy Bottom and Marshmallow and two occasional walk-ons nicknamed Scrappy Cat and Mouthy. I just set an extra place at the food bowls when they show up.
If there really are big cats in East Texas, like the mountain lion that ventured out in Longview last week, I just hope they are not fond of good quality cat food and sleeping upwards of 20 hours a day.
I don’t need another cat … of any class, style or size.
— Contact Aldridge at [email protected]. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com
