Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 27, 1990 TAG: 9004300221
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Things began, as they did most places, in a quiet and seemly fashion. The day was mild, the sun bright and the grass high. My man John came, as agreed, to mow the lawn - an undertaking, it being Sunday, of which my mother would have sternly disapproved, but which changing times and habits has rendered acceptable if not wholly respectable. My partner in crime planted trees, mulched plants, trimmed out weeds and wire-grass, did a lot of purposeful and furious muttering. This was entirely satisfactory, and I settled down, in a spot John had mowed, to read the newspaper, the New Yorker and sundry clippings about the state of the environment.
I was not, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, as observent as on other days our mad world makes necessary; so I did not see at once the extraordinary amount of activity taking place, had I paid attention, out of the corner of my eye. When I did, which was slowly, I realized that something small, gray and of an astonishing furriness was raising dust against the corner of the house next door.
This, had my wits been present, would have told me sooner that it was Hodge bent on mean errands; and so it was. Hodge is a cat of almost mythical domesticity most of the time, inclined to long, frequent meals, the laps of whatever human beings are available and up to 60 naps a day. She is not often to be seen running down her own meals, let alone contributing anything but her regal presence to familial occasions.
She had obviously decided to contribute, so to speak, to Earth Day, however, even if the contribution was inappropriate. What she had decided to do, once it became apparent that the event was not for her, was to kill something. The first thing she found was a small bluejay, and it was her battle with the bluejay - and, perhaps, her own record of utter cowardice - that had finally caught my eye.
I was not taken in. Though I often suspect that she can be more carnivorous than she seems at times of domestic bliss, she has proved a downright failure as a household mouser, and her record for eating birds is sorry: she only attacks things smaller than she is.
Still, there it was, nature dealing in death as well as - what I suppose Earth Day symbolized - life and living; and though I was not comfortable with Hodge's bringing the jay ostentatiously in her mouth up to my chair, then on, trailing a bit of blood as she went, to a place beneath the yard bench, I did not want to argue with nature.
The bird was not yet dead, alas for it, and Hodge made a great little drama out of letting it go for a few moments only, when the poor wounded thing tried to limp away, to smack it down and into her mouth again just as it showed it might, just barely, escape.
This went on for a while, entirely for my benefit and to demonstrate that no occasion could be quite as happy as it might have been had it been in her honor. Then Hodge, who is nothing if not emphatic in her messages, dropped the dead jay and sulked off, having shot me a parting glare that would have turned a weaker man to stone.
I suppose all of this must mean something worth knowing about Earth Day and the fragility of our natural habitat; for when I went inside there were Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak denouncing environmentalism as if it were a non-event conceived by Madison Avenue. But I know a non-event when I see one, or two of them talking head to head about the glorious contributions of American business to the protection of the environment; so I zapped the screen. Nonetheless Earth Day had been ruined.
There remains the problem of Hodge, who craves recognition; and what we have decided to do is to have Cat Day. Cats are hardly an endangered species, of course, but their overpowering vanity, like that of politicians, must be satisfied. Hodge, who belongs to P.D., will be in charge, and we are asking Hodge, owned by that eminent British mysterioso P.D. James - I am not kidding - to serve as honorary co-chairman, or co-chair if you're finicky. The religion of the tribe holds that the world is balanced on the back of the Great Cat, and we have not tackled that issue yet; but the site will be Katmandu.
by CNB