Randy Russell - Ghost Cats of the South

ALSO BY RANDY RUSSELL (WITH JANET BARNETT)

Ghost Dogs of the South

The Granny Curse and Other Ghosts

and Legends from East Tennessee

Mountain Ghost Stories and

Curious Tales of Western North Carolina

JOHN F. BLAIR ,
P U B L I S H E R
1406 Plaza Drive
Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27103
www.blairpub.com

Copyright 2008 by Randy Russell

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address John F. Blair, Publisher Subsidiary Rights Department, 1406 Plaza Drive, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27103.

First John F. Blair Publisher hardcover edition October 2008

Manufactured in the United States of America

All photographs property of the author

Jacket and interior design by Debra Long Hampton

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Russell, Randy.

Ghost cats of the south / by Randy Russell.

p. cm.

Companion to: Ghost dogs of the south.

ISBN-13: 978-0-89587-360-6 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-89587-360-5 (alk. paper)

1. Animal ghosts. 2. CatsMiscellanea. I. Title.

BF1484.R868 2008

398.2097505dc22

2008023025

www.blairpub.com

Contents

As a ghostlorist with three previously published titles in the field of Southern folklore, I am often asked whether or not I believe ghosts are real. Yes, I do. I have collected literally hundreds of first-person ghost experiences from across the South, encounters shared with me by the people who lived them. I have researched three hundred years of published folklore and have become familiar with the myths and legends of ghosts as well.

Sadly overlooked in published folklore are peoples encounters with the ghosts of past family members of the four-legged variety. Conversely, visits from departed pets are easily the most common ghost experiences I hear when people share their real-life encounters with me. And cats refuse to be left out of most anything.

Cats are tied to place. No domestic animal is more territorial than the cat. When a cat moves in with a family, it likes to believe it has found a forever home. Forever means just that to a cat.

Two rather famous cats vie for historical honors as the Souths oldest example of a cat ghost.

The woodland beast that is half woman and half cat continues to be seen throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains. The fable of the Wampus Cat had its origin among the Cherokee of East Tennessee and western North Carolina at the time of the American Revolution.

A small cat is still seen today by visitors to an old Spanish fort in St. Augustine, Florida. The lithe animal was brought to America in the 1740s, according to legend. I am happy to share this well-established ghost cat in this collection.

In historical folklore, cats are often symbolic companions of witches. Cats see well at night. Witches want to. There are plenty of witches in the South, and I include in this collection more than one example of the continuing folk stories involving witches and their cats.

More important, perhaps, is the vast array of cat ghosts that populate our everyday lives. Many of the stories in this collection involve people just like us, and cats just like yours.

Ghosts hang around longer in the South than elsewhere. Its warmer here. The folklore is rich and fertile. All of the stories in this book are based on researched folklore of the South or were nurtured from the hundreds of ghost experiences shared with me by others when a comfortable corner, and a moments confidentiality, could be found.

I would like to thank the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee for regularly offering week-long seminars in folklore for the benefit of teachers across the state. I would also like to thank Cherokee artist and mask carver Davy Arch for his generosity in sharing the culture of his people and the stories told among his family and friends.

I thank the entire staff of John F. Blair, Publisher, in Winston-Salem. Blair published my first book, coauthored with my wife, Janet Barnett, in 1987. Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina has remained in print since that time, due in no small part to the continuing enthusiasm of this important and historical publishing house for Southern folklore.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who warmly and companionably provides a domestic cat with a forever home and a forever family. Cats are their own reward, of course. Just ask one.

I also need to offer a caveat to those who love cats no matter what they do. Ghost cats, like cats themselves, dont always behave the way we would want them to. In short, not all ghost cats are good ghosts. But all ghost cats have one thing in common. They exist.

NONESUCH, KENTUCKY

Oh, darn! she said. Arnie, were out of gas again!

The van heaved to a sputtering stop on a narrow Kentucky country road south of the interstate. It was a route Arnie had chosen on the spur of the moment to bypass traffic on the approach to Lexington. He and Pam were on their way to Florida and then back along the Gulf Coast to perform at the more crowded winter resorts. Arnie and Pam were street musicians, at least until they could get a song to take off on youtube.com and make money selling their CDs.

Arnie would get them there, to a place where they could perform one day as stage musicians to large, adoring crowds. Pam was sure of it. He was tall and handsome, with thick, curly hair. Arnie sang and played the sousaphone on the street. Pam played accordion. He was thirty now. She was younger. They danced around and had fun with it.

They covered all the classic rock songs and could knock out a polka in a heartbeat. It was quite a show. People loved it. Arnie and Pam always made enough money to eat and pay their motel bill. Sometimes, they saved enough to rent a house in a tourist area and stay in one place for a while.

Arnie and Pam, trying to reach more people and see more places, had tried the Pacific Northwest for the summer. Pam was only a little pregnant when they left. Seattle was a bust, as was most of Oregon. The streets of the South were where a sousaphone-and-accordion band belonged. They had barely put back enough money for gas.

The couple had spent the trip thus far sleeping in the van at state parks along the way. And Pam found she needed more sleeping room. Shed never expected to be this big this soon. A sousaphone and an accordion take up a lot of space in a van. Not to mention Arnie, who slept sprawled out like a starfish.