Long after dogs estimated that they’d mastered Man by evolving themselves into his “best friend,” cats sauntered back on the scene and took a look at the geography. They estimated that 15000 years of best-friending mankind and kissing up was long enough. At last, the cats came out from the shadows and set up maintenance in people’s mouse-taxed barns and grain fields, which was a great deal more aid than the dogs had offered a farming culture.

The most recent information about the probable date felines came to the fore (bringing with them their five-star talent in the vermin eradication enterprise) is give-or-take, 9500 BCE. On the island of Cyprus, the Eurasian nation set in the eastern Mediterranean close to the coast of Turkey, a crypt recently discovered by archaeologists contained the body of a pet cat nestled beside human remains. So we know at least this much; someone treasured a cat sufficiently to wish for it to be with him/her in death close to 9500 BCE.

Human beings, being more than a smidgen sluggish on the uptake, failed for quite awhile to perceive the service the cats quietly contributed. Perhaps after several bountiful harvests and a large quantity of edible grain left over the following spring, the humans peered around, searching for the devious but congenial gods who created these miracles. And what did the divinities fancy in return? Gods always required something significant in response to their blessings. Imagine the farmer’s shock and awe when the first cat trotted up to him and deposited an exceedingly dead mouse or rat at his feet, then took it away and ate it. Now there was a wee god anyone could worship and esteem, and pet.

That, as we know if we’ve been paying attention to World History, was what the Egyptians did. Cats were worshiped in Egypt as early as 3100 BCE. (Recall that cats appeared on Cyprus in 9500, after taking a boat from Turkey.) The Egyptians believed the glow from cats’ eyes originated in the sun and that cats captured it. Their feline goddess, Bast or Bastet, was first worshiped as a feral, bloody-toothed lioness. Time progressed and the goddess morphed into a sweetly tamed kitty. If an Egyptian citizen killed a cat, he was normally put to death for the crime. In Bast’s honor, pet housecats got first-class funerary treatment. They were properly mummified, like their people.

The historical Greeks and Romans also valued their cats profoundly, although neither society deified them. Feline vermin-control was treasured in the ancient cities of both cultures. The Greeks recognized that where cats kept the numbers of filthy vermin under control, people tended to remain healthy. Roman armies, of which there was a profusion, carried cats with them throughout Gaul and into Britain. The felines worked as watchmen at the army’s supply dumps and were much respected for it. In the fourth century AD, when the Romans withdrew from Britain, they abandoned their cats. No one seemed disturbed by this act of desertion, particularly not the cats. The laid-back Brits fell into a comfortable friendship with the miniature wildcats. Presently, cats outnumber dogs as household pets in England and the United States.

Vikings made use of cats both as companions and as snarers of verminous pests. Cats were considered sacred to the Viking goddess Freya. The Norseman communities bestowed kittens upon new brides in the name of Freya who was the goddess of love and fertility. Additionally, she fostered wars, but that didn’t make her any less affectionate.

Ninety-nine percent of us know at least a morsel of information about the Black Death rampage throughout Europe during the middle ages and the gigantic number of casualties it caused time and again. The European population was whittled down by as much as 60%. Entire villages were wiped out. Many cities were devastated.

Almost certainly the better part of us knows the reason Bubonic Plague wiped out a myriad of people. To refresh lax memories, an order went down from somewhere high up for an expurgation of witches across all of Europe. The common people, frightened out of their short supply of wits, believed cats were the witches’ familiars, their means of communicating with the Devil. It’s no surprise that three quarters of the witches burned at the stake, with their cats, were females. Furthermore, the Jews in most communities were assembled, thrown into a pile and burned alive.

Cat-killing turned out to be a colossal mistake. The big brown rat, profuse and living everywhere there were people, carried the vector for passing on the disease. When there were not enough cats to keep the rats at bay, the populace died by the hundreds of thousands. Thank goodness very few people kill cats nowadays. Those who commit felineside generally get jail time and long-term psychiatric care.

Many of the most famous persons in the world have owned and venerated cats. In her final years, Queen Victoria of Britain had a black and white Persian cat named White Heather. On the Queen’s death, Heather went to Edward VII and became the King’s pet. U.S. President Calvin Coolidge adopted a gray striped stray and named him Tiger. The President was in the habit of walking about the White House with Tiger draped across his shoulders. When the cat went missing, Mr. Coolidge obtained radio time to beg the community’s help in locating and returning Tiger.

During his life, the American author Ernest Hemingway had thirty cats living on the grounds and inside the house he owned on Key West. He named every one of them. And every one of them was polydactyl – 6-toed. Hemingway had been given a six-toed kitty by a ship’s captain. Soon there were dozens of 6-toed cats on the Hemingway property. Each feline received a then-popular entertainer’s name. Therefore you could find Gertrude Stein, Lionel Barrymore, Hairy Truman, Emily Dickinson, Spencer Tracy, Charley Chaplin and a striking orange male called Pablo Picasso in Mr. Hemingway’s yard. No autographs, please.

As mentioned earlier, the British nation took to cats quickly and strongly. It could be the reason there are so many cat-based idioms in the English language. Here are a few:

A bag of cats: a sour-tempered person. Cats stuffed in a bag together would be ragingly ill-tempered.

Another breed of cat: something entirely different from anything else. Cat got your tongue: Liars and thieves were castigated in the Middle East by losing their tongues or their hands. The Shah’s cats got the body parts for their dinner.

The cat’s meow: invented by cartoonist Thomas A. Dorgan (1877-1929) who signed his work “Tad” to describe something extraordinarily fine or interesting. Cat’s whiskers: another Dorgan conception. The cat’s whiskers are considered outstanding in nature and they are extremely sensitive. Copycat: probably refers to kittens copying their mother’s motions while she’s teaching them how to hunt.

Like a cat on a hot tin roof: just imagine how nervous a cat would be on anything as hot as a sun-baked tin roof. Tennessee Williams did. Make the fur fly: begin a fight in which, as with Eugene Fields poem, “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat,” there’s nothing left but shreds at the end. To bell the cat: to do the impossible.

(I can verify the fact that cats and bells are not compatible. Our family’s first cat was an all-white, part Siamese tom named Sam. Sam loved to come up behind me while I was doing something mindless, like washing dishes or ironing and daydreaming. He would stand close to my heels and meow at maximum volume as only Siamese cats are able. More often than not, I hypothetically ended up hanging from the ceiling, striving desperately to catch my breath. So, I put a dandy, loud bell on a thin collar and placed the collar round Sam’s cushy white neck. That amazing, shrewd cat could trot through the entire house without allowing the bell one trifling tinkle.)

Sir Walter Scot was precisely correct when he wrote, “Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There’s more passing in their minds than we are aware of.”

Mark Twain said: “When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.”

Mark Twain again: “Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat.”

Ernest Hemingway: “One cat just leads to another.”

H.P. Lovecraft said, “It is a very distinct tribute to be chosen as a friend and confidant by a cat.”

Lovecraft once more: “. . . the cat is cryptic and close to strange things which men cannot see.”

Anonymous says: “A thing of beauty, strength and grace hides behind that whiskered face.”

Every cat lover who ever lived knows this one: “Dogs have Masters. Cats have staff.”

Jeff Valdez says: “Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.”

Michelle Gardner says: “Don't think that I'm silly for liking it, I just happen to like the simple little things, and I love cats! “

Robertson Davies: “Perhaps God made cats so that man might have the pleasure of fondling the tiger...”

Unknown: “Everyone knows cats are on a higher level of existence. These silly humans are just too big-headed to admit their inferiority.”

Megan Coughlin on why she'd make a good cat: “I'm aloof, I like to run around outside, but I also like to curl up in warm spots. I eat fish.”

Anonymous: “What are the chances of a cat starting a nuclear war? Pretty negligible. It's not that they can't, they just know that there are much better things to do with one's time. Like lie in the sun and sleep. Or go exploring the world.”

Charlotte Gray "After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference."

Bruce Graham: “Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer.”

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About the author Cate Lane: Born in Minnesota and raised a temperate progressive, I was carried off to Texas 10 years ago by the tsunami that was my husband's retirement. Texas is not Minnesota, not by a long shot. However, I hear that Minnesota isn't Minnesota anymore either.

Writing was always my first choice in life. I began writing at the age of 8, small books about pioneers heading west. Little did I know then that I would be living in the most "western" of all the states, Texas. No one told the Texans that they are simply Southerners who, like Bugs Bunny, took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and wound up here.

I am sneaking up on 70 years of age and now own a vast store of useless knowledge. Happy to share any or all of it with you all.

Email: CthlnLn@aol.com

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