TO: Mailing List FROM: Stan Browning As a means of trying to liven up the southern WV mailing lists, I have presented a few personal stories from my past to illustrate how things were in southern West Virginia when I was growing up. My hope is that others will do the same. We all, because of age differences and backgrounds, have unique stories to tell. In my case, some are good and some are bad as illustrated by this, my latest offering. Note some of the ways youngsters amused themselves in those days. Were we any different from many of the bored youngsters of today? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I believe it was 1938 and I was spending the summer with Aunt Ruth, Uncle Sefton and Junior Workman on Coon Branch, Matheny, West Virginia. It was before I went to live there permanently. An old yellow Tomcat had taken up at their house and all efforts to get rid of it had failed. That was one ill-tempered and all-around mean feline. He terrorized the other cats and even tried to intimidate old Kump with his hissing and threats. Old Kump, the family dog, just ignored him or was simply too lazy or tired to respond. Aunt Ruth would make a pet out of any animal that would let her, so in spite of the fact that she wanted the cat to leave, she continued to set milk out in the yard so that he would not go hungry. The rest of us loathed that animal. There was no way to convince Aunt Ruth that a well-aimed shotgun blast was the solution. I don’t know who suggested it, but somehow Junior and I came up with what we thought was a perfect solution. We would tie a tin can to the cat’s tail. We got our can, put a handful of gravel in it, attached a short piece of string and took off to look for our victim. We finally cornered him in the woodshed and one of us held him while the other attached the can. To this point, “ole yeller” did not realize the serious trouble he was in. However, when we shook the can and rattled the pebbles inside, he had no doubt it was time to hit the road. And hit the road he did. He broke all speed records in trying to get away, but he couldn’t shake that noisy demon that he was convinced was chasing him. It matched him stride for stride and continued the loud rattling noise all the way. Finally, our subject sought refuge under the floor of the smoke house, which was a special room attached to the woodshed, and there was no way we could coax or scare him out. By then he had lost the can, but he insisted on staying put nonetheless. After a couple of hours, Aunt Ruth arrived on the scene and sized up the situation. She then announced emphatically that we were responsible for that cat going under the floor so we had to figure how to get him out. There was only one way, and that was to empty all the junk from the wood-shed room and dismantle the floor. The task took the better part of an afternoon. The cat emerged as hateful as ever. He left on his own accord a few weeks later. Owing to our experience with the cat, we decided to try the same trick on old Kump. Old Kump was not impressed, but he tolerated us anyway as we attached the can to his tail. When we shook the can and rattled the pebbles, he simply rolled over and went back to sleep.