Pole cat

These awesome pix were taken by none other than the mayor of Ashland, Ed Monroe. He called the paper last Sunday asking if any of the reporters were in, but as is often the case, I was the only one in the whole building at that time. He told me there had been this cat stuck up on a light pole for two days and he said the poor feline had finally been rescued by Xcel Energy (our local power company) personnel. He said that he and Xcel had been getting calls from the public all weekend about this poor cat.

I think he was hoping we would do a story, but with the recent crackdown on overtime at the Press, I knew there was no way that was going to happen. Normally, there is a reporter there for part of the time on Sunday - whoever is on the weekend rotation comes in to finish up their stuff for Monday's paper. But Chad already had all of his stuff done and he wasn't coming in. And I knew I didn't have the time to go running out to cover it and I am sure I would have gotten into trouble with my boss if I had.

Speaking of trouble: I didn't know it was the mayor on the phone at first and I must admit I was rather short with him, as I often am with people on the phone on Sundays, my toughest day of the week. I haven't a second to spare to get the damn paper out on time and it seems like we always get the most annoying and idiotic calls then. People must think there is someone there 24/7 just waiting to cater to their every whim. They'll call up asking to put in an ad for the next day's paper (which is just ludicrous) or they want to know why they didn't get a paper last Friday, stuff that I have no control over. I realize most of the time they don't know any better, but it's still an irritating distraction for which I have no time.

Anyway, Mr. Monroe did not tell me he was the mayor, but as soon as he said his name, I knew who he was and a cold chill ran down my spine. Although I hadn't been downright rude to the poor man, I hadn't exactly been all that nice or friendly either. I thought, oh great, now I've done it. I am dead meat for being brusque with the mayor. LOL

But he was very cool about it and said he had some photos of the kitty rescue and asked if we would be able to use them. After we had arranged that he would e-mail the photos, I told him I couldn't promise anything, that I would try to get something in, blah-blah-blah. I mean, the front page is pretty well planned out as far as what is going on there when I arrive. My boss leaves me a daily log with all of the local stories and photos on it and there usually isn't much room to improvise. BUT... when I saw his photos, I couldn't believe how great they were! I knew immediately I had to get them in.

There were a total of four, showing the cat during various stages of its dramatic rescue. I was able to use the best two (the same two I have posted above) in COLOR, mind you, on Page Two. For those of you unfamiliar with The Daily Press, Page Two is a digest page with a main feature photo, a bunch of news briefs, the lottery results and the police and fire reports. But even if there is an ad on the page, there is always a five-col. news hole toward the bottom which we use for a variety of purposes. He had sent a little write-up with some of the background info, so I incorporated that into a longish caption and ran both photos as large as I could - a three-col. and a two-col.

A little later, I was standing by the pressroom door on my smoke break and the perfect caption slug (the ideally clever boldface phrase preceding the actual cutline) popped into my head: Pole cat! LMFAO!!

Here is the complete caption as it appeared in Monday's paper:

Stranded feline rescued by Xcel Energy

POLE CAT - Ashland Mayor Ed Monroe received a call Sunday from resident Margaret Green about a cat that had been stranded on a power pole at 16th Ave. W and 6th St. since Saturday. He contacted Dick Sobtzak, a manager at the Xcel Energy office, who agreed to check the situation out. Sobtzak called his technician on duty, Brian Thewis, who responded as soon as he finished another call. Monroe said the situation was serious "not only because of the danger to the cat, but because of a potential power failure if the cat came in contact with the wires." Ashland police officers Michelle Tudor and John Fangman showed up for traffic control and to locate the owner of the cat. The cat is now doing fine and is recuperating at home.