Before I got too old to climb, I would climb a tree to gain a new perspective. I loved being up high and looking at nature from aloft. Trees with lots of limbs were my favorite although it was fun climbing on without them.
In
discussion the other night I mentioned about “swinging out trees” and the thrill
of slowly drifting back to the ground. Someone said that was called skinning a
cat. I have said and heard the phrase “there is more than one way to skin a
cat.” I always thought it referred to skinning a catfish, not a real cat. I
thought it too grotesque to skin a cat. I have had fun with cats but never
cruel to them.
It
seems that “more ways than one to skin a cat” has origins back to the early 17th
century. In John Florio’s 1611 work Second Fruits, he writes
"there is more than one way to kill a cat. I thought that it was a good
Chiltonian (Chilton County slang) term.
I
found out that the expression was popularized in the 19th century. Seba Smith’s
1840 short story The Money Diggers uses the phrase to illustrate
multiple ways of achieving a goal using adaptability and problem-solving. And I
thought I was just figuring out how to swing a tree to the ground or skinning a
catfish. Well, I guess that was solving a problem.
I
did find that Robert Frost wrote this in his poem Birches.
When
I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
When
I was in high school working for Hiwassee Land Company, I had plenty of
opportunities to swing out hickory trees. Hickories were my favorite swinging tree
because they are tough. Weighing about 150 pounds I would find a hickory tree
about six inches at the bottom, climb it to the top, then swing it softly to
the ground. Most of my friends at Hiwassee could not climb as did I. It is one
of the great thrills of life that I miss as an old man.
One
time I attempted one that was stronger than I was. I shimmied to the top, bent
it out, and started my ascent back to earth only to be caught between sky and
earth. I could not ride the tree down nor could I get it to stand back up.
After several attempts I used adaptability and problem-solving considering all
my options and finally dropping about fifteen feet to the ground. As I hung
there I thought of Absalom hanging in a tree by his hair.
My
cousins and I were swinging out trees and one of them climbed a pine tree. None
of us saw him climb it but we did hear his descent as he plummeted to earth skinning
off pine limbs as he fell. The limbs softened his fall. We reminded him that
pines were not good trees to swing to the ground.
“More
than one way to skin a cat” may be an idiom for options or climbing trees. My
fellow Alabamians the musical group ALABAMA wrote “Climb a long tall hick'ry
Bend it over, skinnin' cats” in their song Mountain Music in 1982. All I
can say is, “Well done Randy. Ain’t nothing like it.”
My Savior hung on a tree for the sins of the world. The only way for Salvation is Jesus.
And Absalom met the servants of David. And
Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great
oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the
heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away. II Samuel 18:9
KJV
And
we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and
in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Acts 10:39 KJV
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