Collateral Benefits

I like things that do things. It would be more complete and more accurate to say I like things that do *extra* things, things that are beyond the original things’ primary purpose or reason for being, but which are still nice things to have happening.

It’d be more accurate still to say that I like things with these “collateral benefits,” as I’ve joyously heard them called, so much that (or perhaps because) I *despise* their opposite: stuff that wastes stuff.

For instance, I like my laptop and all, and feel good about it because it was the cheapest Mac they sell, and I got it refurbished and all, and it’s absolutely as much computer as I need. Maybe a little more. Nice ‘n tidy.

But then, of course, I found out about all the resources used in my laptop’s manufacturing, all the chemicals released by mining and forging and shipping and packaging the battery alone, and my heart sank. Not because I’ve become a raging eco-weenie (though I have), but because something deep in my heart has just abhors waste. Always has.

I remember as a kid liking — really enjoying, in a way I couldn’t quite articulate — the idea of Levi’s 501s. I’d heard somehow that they were made differently from other jeans, in some proprietary and time-honored tradition, perhaps with some fantastic fabric beyond run-of-the-cotton-mill denim, and actually *improved with use.* Every time you wore them, the story went, they broke in a little more, got a little bit softer, contoured to your butt a little more precisely, and thus became more your own.

Compare that to the only other item I gave a second thought to purchasing in those days, which was shoes. You whined and moaned and lobbied your mom for weeks on end to buy you some outrageously — really, the Nike guys should have been ashamed of themselves, but definitely were not — overpriced tennis shoes with little bubbles of “AIR” under the heel, and sometimes even a window through which you could peer and see the little capsule of nothingness you just paid for.

Air Maxes were only cool the first time you wore them. After that they were old, and stinky, and probably flecked with mud from whatever puddles you tromped through on the way home from school. Everyone had seen them already, and peered through the window, and nobody cared. Not even you.

Even then, years before I ever heard the acronym for Return On Investment (me in the meeting: “Roy? Is she saying Roy? Why do we have to worry about Roy? Is he sick?”) I knew that cool shoes were just way too expensive, which is another way of saying not worth the trouble. (I’m reminded of the Dean Martin quote, “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.”)

Oh, I tried some 501s once, too, and they pretty much just seemed like regular jeans, only more of a pain to get in and out of.

But man, the *idea* was solid, and ever since I’ve harbored a secret affection for anything that improves with usage, instead of just plain wearing out. Don’t get me wrong; it’s okay if things wear out eventually, as all things must, myself included, but I’d prefer not to be able to draw an equals sign between using something and destroying it.

And so few things are like this. The jeans were an illusion, though I’ve had a couple beloved t-shirts that fit the description over the years, bringing me more happiness (tinged with a bit of wistful awareness that One Day They’d Be Gone) each time I wore them. And, naturally, as naturally as any process can transpire, One Day they were Gone.

So I looked for something similar. I’ve found a few things so far, and I would love to hear about more.

*****

The first is a technology you may have used. It’s (in my opinion) a completely ingenious scheme in which you, well, I’m paraphrasing here, but you basically prove you’re not a computer and decipher books at the same time.

Here: instead of paraphrasing, I might as well just cut and paste from Wikipedia. Accurate description is always the tedious part of writing anyway, and since someone else has already done it, why duplicate labor? That would be wasteful, would it not? “CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing … The process involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human. A common type of CAPTCHA requires that the user type the letters of a distorted image, sometimes with the addition of an obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen. The term “CAPTCHA” … is a contrived acronym for ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’.”

If you’ve ever left a comment on a blog, you’ve probably seen this and know what I’m talking about. Well, the new “official implementation” of CAPTCHA, as decreed by the system’s inventors at Carnegie Mellon and IBM, is reCAPTCHA. reCAPTCHA earns my love by doing what 501s cannot: it truly accomplishes two things at once, with one occurring as a direct result of the other. It’s like if, oh, driving your car somehow improved the environment, by generating oxygen instead of depleting it let’s say, and the further you went the greater the benefit.

reCAPTCHA is a magical tree car because it takes those squiggly words you have to to decode and uses *real* words, from *real* books, books that computers have been working on digitizing. Teams working on book preservation scan thousands of pages of text all the time, and when their computers hit a word they can’t read (because the page is wrinkled or the ink is smudged or somebody doodled in the margins), they give you a shot at it. And if you guess it, they let another person try. And if you both agree, presto — case closed. “I guess it says ‘following,’” thinks the computer, and goes back about its optical character recognition.

30 million times a day. Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon all use reCAPTCHA, and their users (you perhaps among them) collectively give Carnegie Mellon University approximately 3,000 man hours of free labor, day in and day out, to help in the preservation of books. And you do it all while protecting those sites from “bot” programs that are set up to flood websites and send you spam.

Collateral benefits. A two-fer. Free lunch. Whatever you want to call it. All I know is it’s awesome.

So what else? I plan on jabbering about this all week long, and I welcome any and all submissions you’ve got. Help enlighten the world on things that do extra things, and know that as you’re spreading the word, you’re also literally warming my soul. Measurably, in degrees Kelvin. Which is a nice little bonus, wouldn’t you agree?

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Do It Yourself

Last weekend I helped lay a tile floor in my father-in-law’s kitchen. I had previously worked on a couple of tile installations, but only as a helper, so that’s pretty much what I set out to do last weekend — carry boxes, haul mortar, sweep the floor, and so forth. Tom and Jack handled the more challenging, calculation-intensive tasks of laying out the pattern and measuring and marking the tiles for cutting. (We had decided to lay them all diagonally, which is trickier but ends up looking much fancier.) One thing I did a lot of, much like the last time I helped out with a floor like this, was cut tile.

A tile saw, for something that hooks up to both a garden hose and an electrical outlet (!) and features a whirling, diamond-tipped saw blade, is actually pretty straightforward in use. Nothing happens too quickly; you turn on the blade, push the tile into the rotating edge and it just kind of gnaws its way through the ceramic, an inch every few seconds or so. Compared to other parts of the job, like spreading the mortar evenly or figuring out the angles in the corners, it’s almost idiot-proof. Just follow the line.

In our system, Tom was up in the house marking those lines, in black crayon, or pencil if the crayon got lost. It was up to him to determine where exactly the 45-, 30-, and 60-degree notches needed to be removed from each square. As he marked each one, sitting on the floor with a measuring tape and mortar-caked hands, he handed it to Jack, who carried it out to the driveway, to me. Then I’d glance at the tile and the faint black line, give Jack my most capable-seeming nod, pull on my earmuffs and fire up the tile saw to start the cut.

Most of them came out pretty well, I’d say. Straighter than I’d imagined, especially since we couldn’t use a guide, and you kind of had to just eyeball the blade along the mark the whole way through. Only a few of the tiles ended up cracking before they could be installed, and practically none of those were my fault. By 10 or 11 hours into day one, we were all pretty sure it would come out looking good.

Here I should mention something about laying tile: it basically sucks. The results are nice, of course, but there’s no getting around the fact that you’re hauling thousands of pounds of rock, trying not to get dust and glop everywhere, and spending the better part of a weekend hunched over on the floor. To be honest, I had been secretly hoping Jack would change his mind about the whole project, or perhaps just put it off a couple months longer. And when the time did come to get started, I resigned myself to a forfeited Saturday and Sunday and just hoped the job went somewhat smoothly.

A few hours later, as I stood soaked in cold water, hunched over, pushing the 90th or so tile into the whirring blade and hoping against hope that I wouldn’t chip this one, I had for the most part gotten exactly what I expected. Hand me the tile, let me cut it, here you go, give me another one. Let’s get this over with.

*****

In the late afternoon of the second day, Tom cut his arm pretty badly. I knew something was wrong by the way he called my name from the next room — there was something in his tone that told me this wasn’t just another “Hey Colin, can you give me a hand with this?”

Sure enough, the utility knife had gotten him good, and he knew he’d need a couple stitches. And, because he’s Tom, he elected not to go to a local clinic and pay the insurance co-pay, but to instead drive himself the three hours back to Beaufort, bleeding, and go to the free Naval hospital.

I realized I wasn’t going to change his mind, so I wrapped a few loops of electrical tape over his makeshift bandage, gathered up a few of his tools and wished him luck on his drive.

I knew he’d make it just fine. I also knew there was still the better part of one room and a section of hallway left to tile, and I went up into the house to see what he’d been working on when the accident happened. (I didn’t spot any blood spatters that needed to be cleaned or anything; he must have closed the wound as soon as it happened.) It was good; he had accomplished quite a bit since the last time I had come in. But still, there was a ways to go. I sat down on the floor, stared at the open space that would have to be finished, and started measuring.

It was slow going — about three or four times slower than when Tom was doing it — but eventually I figured out how to mark the tiles accurately. And since Jack was still at the store, I would carry my marked tiles out to my station in the driveway, fire up the saw, pull on the earmuffs and cut the line myself.

As I pushed the tile into the blade, and started the first half-inch of cut, I noticed that it felt different. As the saw dug into the ceramic, the tiny gouge following the line I had drawn back in the house, I could picture how the tile would lay once it was cut. I could see where the edge defined by my line would go, and I remembered how I had drawn it — a little generously, actually, so that if I cut too much it would still fit well.

Knowing that, it was much easier to make the cut. My mind focused on following the line, and on holding the tile steady, and not rushing the blade. (If you push too hard, the saw blade binds in the tile and slowly grinds to a stop as the electrical motor emits a low, loud hum that sounds a lot like one of those “wrong answer” buzzers.) And when I was finished, I toweled off the tile, carried it up into the house and set it into place. It fit nicely.

That made it easier to measure the next tile, and I realized that the marking part wasn’t so hard after all. Besides, if I made a mistake, no big deal. I’ll just cut another one and try again. And each time I carried another freshly-marked tile out to the driveway to make the next cut, my mind was already envisioning not only the cut, and which side of the line the blade should follow, but the next tile I’d be cutting, and how many tiles it would take to finish the room, and how well the overall job was coming out.

The last 40 or 50 square feet of floor took me almost six hours.

Tom had done the rest, several times as much area, in not much longer. And even though it was the end of the project, and my hands were tired, and my back hurt, and I was covered in crusty tile adhesive, those six hours went faster than any other part of the job. I actually knew what I was doing.

*****

The next morning I went into work, still a little sore in my legs and back, and got going on the week’s assignments. We get daily “traffic sheets,” which list all the pending projects, and mine listed three or four ads, brochures and other things to work on that day. After the morning meeting I went back to my desk and started writing.

It was a fairly productive day. I made some client-requested edits, made some creative-director-requested edits, re-saved and reprinted some documents, and wrote a few headlines I liked. It was everything they had asked of me for that Monday.

And when I walked into my boss’s office at the end of the day to tell her I was quitting, I really just wanted to get it over with. I knocked quietly on the open door, asked if she had time to talk, and sat down. “I’ve decided to go freelance” I said. “Full time.”

She gave me a stunned look and didn’t say anything. I took a deep breath and explained that I had been wanting to try writing on my own for a while now, and had done a few projects here and there, but didn’t anticipate leaving until I had more steady work. But a client had just offered me a six-month freelance contract, and I’d have benefits and everything, and, well, I had to take it.

“I’m sorry,” my boss said, getting a distant look in her eyes. “You’re going to have to say all that again.”

Over the next two hours we discussed my decision, how it had come about, and why she felt it was a mistake. She explained that, even setting aside her personal interest in the situation — the agency’s only other writer had just left a week before — she really thinks it’s something I’ll regret.

“Think about it, Colin,” said the most persuasive person I have ever encountered. “I admire you for what you’re trying to accomplish; I really do. And I think it’s a brave thing to take on, but you’ve got a lot of opportunities going for you right here. It just doesn’t seem like you need to leave here to pursue your goals.”

In the end, I agreed to think it over. Cathy is a very smart person, with a lot more life experience than I have, and I truly believe she had my best interests in mind. And, being Cathy, she made a lot of compelling points.

“Why couldn’t you take more responsibility and ownership of your work right here?”

“Why gamble your livelihood on something uncertain when you’ve got a promising, secure position already?”

“Why not wait a month and see what it’s like around here without that other writer?”

But her most resonant inquiry, the one that echoed in my head throughout that evening and into the next day, was the same thing they asked when I turned down another full-time, on-site copywriting position:

“What makes you think this other situation — doing basically the same thing, except for an agency 250 miles away — will be so different?”

I never really had a good answer for that. It’s just something I feel, I guess, and truthfully, I feel it’ll be completely different. I’ve been an ad agency copywriter my whole career so far; it was my first job after graduating from college. I’ve been at several great agencies, no two alike, and learned a lot at all of them. But since the beginning, I’ve always gone into an office every day at 8:30 and sat down at a computer and did whatever people told me. I’ve always gotten a deposit into my bank account every two weeks, no matter what, and in exchange taken care of any writing the agency needed, no matter what. And Cathy knows that — it’s part of why I’m good to have around.

So when I went back into her office two days later, looked her in the eye and said, “I have to go through with it” I don’t think she was all that surprised. She sighed, and tried to wish me the best, and we briefly discussed things like what projects were pending and when my last day would be. I didn’t think of it at the time, but if I had I could have told Cathy about the tile cutting and what happened after Tom cut himself.

Then again, it may be a good thing I didn’t, since I’m sort of symbolically stabbing her in the arm.

*****

I think this new decision will be different because I’ll be more mindful. I think I’ll see what I’m doing as something I chose, not just what was set before me. I think I’ll learn things I couldn’t have learned otherwise, about project management and self-promotion and presenting my ideas and writing and even, yes, discipline. I think it’ll be hard.

But I’ll have Penelope here to help me, and I’ll get to work here with her and Vince and our cats. I’ll get to take on new clients and learn about their businesses directly from them, and not hide behind a cheerful account executive who’s paid to be more presentable and likable than me. I’ll get to write invoices myself and chase down payments myself, and listen to myself haggling over money. Reeeally looking forward to that.

I’ll get to know that when something went wrong, it was my mistake, and nobody else’s, and that when everything goes right it’s still a miracle. I’ll get to take a walk around the block when I need a few minutes to clear my head, or not take a walk and know that nobody is stopping me. I’ll get to buy my own notebooks, and get the cheapy kind instead of the oversized, hard-bound fancy agency kind I carry around now. I’ll get to know how the afternoon sun moves across the dining room, where I guess I’ll put my computer.

I’ll get to wake up early and write before Penny gets up, when my brain seems most active, and spend two hours writing my ideas and another hour writing the email that explains them all. I’ll get to meet my friends for lunch sometimes, I hope, and listen to their stories about what’s going on at the agency with great interest, and have new ones of my own to share. I’ll get to be in every meeting about my projects, for better or worse. Most of all, I’ll get to stop wondering what it would be like and actually go and find out for myself.

I finally get to see what happens when I follow my own line.

Posted in answer buzzers, independence, tile saws | 4 Comments »

Cordless Motoring

Hey, it looks like the Plug-In Hybrid Coalition of the Carolinas, which works to research and promote technologies I can scarcely comprehend, has put two new posters on its website!   Look in the lower right and click to see what design whiz Ryon Edwards and I came up with for the coalition.  http://www.plugincarolina.org/

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

For Once, Alan Thicke and I See Eye to Eye

Now, I’ve gone on record as taking issue with some of Dr. Jason Seaver’s decisions, particularly regarding his discipline policies with that lovable scamp Mike, but on this we’re taking a unified stance: kittens and birds who are friends are cute.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Hush Yo’ Mind

On the way to work each morning, I listen to the radio. It’s weird if I don’t; I drive along a few moments in silence, start to feel strange and lonely and quickly click it back on. The NPR announcer comes right back, in his comfortingly flat, dull, midwestern tone, and resumes feeding my brain things to think about.

My brain gets fed all day long, actually, and all evening too, with emails and articles and mp3s and blogs like this one and notes to myself and client feedback and phone calls from friends and interesting anthills I pass on my walk to lunch.

If I have a moment of “down” time, when the thought onslaught momentarily slows up, a million song lyrics and movie scenes and forgotten conversations immediately flood in like unwanted guests to refill my brain. They mingle and chatter and tell boring stories and repeat themselves to no end.

It’s worst when I’m riding my motorcycle. I know it’s supposed to be relaxing and mind-clearing, but I must be doing it wrong. All I can think about, unless the road is especially twisty or hilly or unfamiliar, is how far until the next curve, or whether that’s a hidden path off the main road up ahead, or whether I should have taken a picture of that abandoned house I just passed.

I think that’s probably why I spend so much time shopping for accessories for the bike — trying to bolt on some distractions or gadgets to occupy my mind while I’m in the process of just sitting there, waiting to get somewhere.

“Should I put a compass there? It might be cool to always know what direction I’m pointing. I wonder if it’s too close to metal, and the readings would be off? Or I could just mount a GPS over… there, on that space for a bracket, and run the wire along… how long until the exit?”

They do make some pretty good headphones you can use under a motorcycle helmet, and I’ve considered ordering those. They seal out the wind noise quite a bit, which would be nice, and replace it with music from an ipod or satellite radio receiver or whatever. Part of me thinks that would fix the problem. I could even wear them when I’m mowing the lawn, and protect my hearing at the same time I’m entertaining myself.

But I’m not so sure. I really find myself envying people who can drive long distances in silence — like Penny — or do simple things like kayak down a stream without driving themselves absolutely NUTSO IN THE KABUTSO with their constant need for stimuli. I wish I could just turn my brain off, or down at least, at will, but it doesn’t work.

And it’s not like I’m insanely productive either. Like I mentioned, most of these thoughts are just stale rehashes of previous thoughts, or half-formed notions that may have been great ideas or may have been random jibberish, but it doesn’t matter either way because they’re quickly left in the dust as my brain speeds off to the next noisy nowhere.

So I’m asking: should I just get the headphones? Would that calm my brain enough to make motorcycling and lawnmowing and flying on planes a genuinely peaceful experience, and give my thoughts a much-needed rest?

Or would I just, as I suspect, be making myself worse by intentionally lading myself with one more distraction from the life that keeps slipping through my fingers?

How have I let myself get so addicted to input? Is it still possible to learn stillness and serenity? I want the feeling I see in this picture, of escape from racing thoughts.

How can I have peace and quiet when peace and quiet drive me crazy?

Posted in kabutsos, meditation, placidity | 4 Comments »

I Almost Accidentally Hit This Button

I Almost Accidentally Hit This Button
Originally uploaded by This Guy Colin

Free joey with a large coffee!

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Things I Genuinely Wouldn’t Touch With a Ten-Foot Pole

hornet’s nest

sleeping bear

core of earth

nuclear warhead

ebola

faberge egg

Constitution

Tila Tequila

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Not Sure What To Make of It

On the way to work yesterday, the guy on the local college radio station brought up I’m Not There, the new movie I’ve noticed being billed as “Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician’s life and work.”

He said it sounded good, and I agreed, but what struck me was the way he introduced it: “So yeah, there’s this movie… and it’s… about Bob Dylan.”

I’d heard of it, so I chuckled a little at his blunt summary — I mean, it’s a friggin’ Biography, man. What else would it be about? And besides, Bob Dylan is too big to be captured in a 135-minute film. He evokes a whole generation, embodies an era in American History, stands as a universal touchstone for all the folk singers who preceded and followed him. The man wrote “Don’t Think Twice,” for crying out loud.

But when it comes down to it, that is what the movie is “about.” I’m sure it covers beatniks, Greenwich Village, alienation, motorcycles, and more, but yeah, Radio Dude, you’re right — when it comes down to it, the movie is about Bob Dylan.

So I started thinking more on the word “about.” Wondering about Aboutness. Such a big idea, such a nondescript phrase. Imagine making a whole movie, two-and-some-odd hours long, taking up months if not years of your life, and having it boiled down to a couple of words. And fairly so!

I thought about other notions that seem too vast to comprehend, but actually could be succinctly summarized with a little effort. “If that movie’s about Bob Dylan,” I wondered, “And it’s just that simple… what, then, is my life about?”

And that kind of overwhelmed me. I may have swerved the car a little bit. So I thought maybe I could post here about it, and pose the question to you: What is your life about? And who decides?

But that all seemed way too cosmic. I knew I was in over my head, so I tried to think smaller. Maybe it’s ridiculous to assess the entirety of your existence in a couple of words. Maybe that’s crazy.

What, though, about individual moments?

I bet, if I tried, I could decide what today was “about,” or at least this afternoon. Maybe just this moment. Still, it’s a start.

And it reminded me of something Penny says sometimes, as a way of pointing out bewildering behavior. It’s perfect, what she does: “Dude. You’re wearing a wool sweater without an undershirt? What’s that about?

So maybe it’s a good question. And I guess, next time, when life — or just a little sliver of it — seems overwhelming or inexplicable, or both, apply that funny little word and see what it shows you.

“What’s this about?”

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Day at the Dome

Just like last year, my friend Larry and I went to the rally at the South Carolina statehouse to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

And once again, it was inspiring and unforgettable, full of moving speeches and a general spirit of goodwill. In fact, the man at the microphone when we arrived even urged the 7,000 people in attendance to be respectful of the anti-NAACP, pro-Confederate flag demonstrators who were gathered across the street. “We have gotten reports,” he said, “that some of you have made hostile or vulgar comments to some of our guests. We will not stand for disrespect toward anyone here, and the next person to make such comments will be escorted off the statehouse grounds.” Pretty impressive, I thought. I didn’t see that coming.

The big difference from last year, aside from a whole lot more secret service agents standing around and the temperature being about 20 degrees cooler, was that the speakers included three presidential candidates: Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

Larry and I felt very fortunate to get to see them all in person. Each one said something that made the back of my neck tingle with excitement, which admittedly may also have had to do with the cold weather.

Senator Clinton was particularly impressive in winning over the decidedly pro-Obama crowd and getting them to listen to her message, and in making what I thought were insightful, relevant points.

It was the first time for Larry or me to see any sort of presidential campaigning in person, having come from Virginia and Indiana, respectively. SC, as a swing state that holds its primaries relatively early, gets attention from the national candidates. And since we live here in Columbia, and work downtown (for an employer who inexplicably stays open on this national holiday), we had what we both recognized as a rare opportunity.

Posted in chilly rallies, confederate flags, secret service agents | 1 Comment »

His Trusty Siamese

I’ve always been surprised by men’s objection to cats. I mean, sure, if a new dating arrangement forces you to cohabitate with a prissy Persian who sheds out of spite and only eats braised veal cutlets, yeah — that’s bound to be annoying.

But I’m talking about real cats. Cats who greet you in the morning and again when you come home, and amuse themselves during the day. Who go off on their own for hours at a time, and make plans and hunt bugs and take naps and meow once — in a clear, distinct voice — when they need some attention or they’re out of water. And if you’re not around to refill the dish, they man up and drink out of the toilet. Those kind of cats.

It seems a guy could appreciate that kind of independence, that “take me as I am” mentality, and recognize a kindred spirit. But not usually.

I’ll quote here* from perhaps my favorite 5″x7″ book published by a diamond retailer, “How to Bribe a Maitre D’”, which came in my mailbox one day in 1999 and has resided in my desktop reference library ever since:

What to Name Your Cat

Cat? Cats are goldfish that shed. Real men have dogs.

(Now hold on. Honestly, we have nothing against cats. Cats are wonderful creatures. But when you think of a man in his prime, in his element, outdoors, he’s likely accompanied by his trusty sidekick, the dog. Do you remember this passage from classic American literature? “Bill fought through the blizzard toward the light of the cabin at the mountain’s summit, his only companion by his side, his trusty Siamese.” Of course you don’t remember it. In manly moments only one pet will do.)

Dogs. Big dogs with short names. Dogs that bark at the mailman. Dogs that watch you leave for work and run in circles when you return. Some say men like dogs because we just want someone who loves us blindly. But they don’t see us wrestling like children with our dogs. And they don’t see us crying when they’re gone.

Name your dog whatever you want.

So I was particularly pleased to find out, thanks to Wikipedia, about Ship’s Cats. It turns out that sailors have liked having cats around for some 9,000 years, for a variety of reasons. Obviously, an onboard feline will take care of any rodent problems you might have, which prevents damage to ropes, woodwork, and food stores, as well as cutting down on the spread of disease.

A bonus feature of ship’s cats, which would be particularly helpful out on a long voyage into uncharted territory, is their sensitivity to atmospheric conditions. Sailors frequently noticed that the cat was more accurate than the barometer at predicting inclement weather.

But they also found that cats are just good company. They’re funny, and often friendly, and a superstition arose that if a if a cat approached you on deck, it was a good omen. (It was unlucky if it came only halfway, then retreated.) Some would even do tricks, like jumping through your arms if you angled yourself just right.

The best ship’s cats were said to be polydactyl cats, with the extra toes providing additional balance on a tippy ship. (Another fan of the polydactyls was, of course, Ernest Hemingway, otherwise known as “Papa” or “Manliness In Excelsis.” Hemingway got his first six-toed cat as a gift from a ship’s captain, actually.

There are lots of stories of famous ship’s cats, particularly in the British Royal Navy during WW II. My favorite is U-Boat:

U-boat was another ship’s cat aboard a Royal Navy vessel of the Second World War, who would take ‘shore leave’ whenever his ship came into port. He would spend days on shore, usually returning only just before his ship sailed. One day, U-boat failed to return in time for roll call and his ship was forced to sail. As she pulled away from the quay, U-boat was seen running down the dock after the departing ship. He made a death-defying leap onto the ship and succeeded in making it aboard. He was reported to be undaunted by his experience, proceeding to wash himself on deck. The crew members were apparently delighted their good luck charm had returned.

Sadly, the Royal Navy banned cats on seafaring vessels in the mid-’70s, for hygiene reasons — ironically, one of the main reasons for bringing them on board in the first place. But ship’s cats still sail, and some, such as Chibbley, who has circumnavigated the world twice on board the tall ship Picton Castle, even get fan mail.

And here on land, it’s been photographically proven that dudes like cats. I certainly like mine…

And my brother-in-law Tom likes his, I think…

And my friend Matt warmed up to his pretty quickly…

And even my other brother-in-law Dyrs, who could give Hemingway a run for his money in a manliness contest, has been documented not hating cats.

So maybe this long-standing enmity is just another outdated stereotype. We’ve been friends with felines since about 7500 BC.

All it took was a boat.

*In addition to contradicting my point, this wonderful essay irritates me another way — by exposing my total theft of its phrasing. Goodness, but I ripped this author off! I had no idea when I wrote the intro paragraphs; honest. I guess I must have read that booklet at a pretty formative time in my writing development.

**There was even a book written on the subject, which I just remembered, called “The Silent Miaow,” all about how a stray cat completely won over a gruff sportswriter / fencer / deep-sea-fisherman type. No boats needed.

Posted in cats, manliness in excelsis, polydactylism | 2 Comments »