Someone called today and asked me what was a “whampus cat?”

This person said he remembered me refering to one some time in the past but forgot the details.

I remembered trying to explain “whampus cat” some years ago, but I could not remember exactly how I defined it.

So I told this person that it was undoubtedly the biggest, most fiercest cat he’s never seen.

“You mean it’s a made up thing,” he asked.

“I guess you could say that,” I said. “Or you might call it a rural legend.”

I can’t even remember the first time I heard “whampus cat.” But I know I was just a kid, and just the sound of it gave me the “willies.” Willies is what you get when something is bigger and badder than a spider. Spiders give you the “heebeejeebies.” One of those blue-tailed lizards can give you both if it’s in the dog food bag when you go to dip old Blue a pan full of chow.

I’ve often wondered why the grownups back then made up such a creature. I think it was to make us kids be careful when we played in the woods. I had always thought of a whampus cat as a self-righteous bobcat with a terrible attitude — something that might do battle with a hogbear.

And before you ask, I’ve never seen a hogbear either. I’m guessing it was a small black bear colored with much legend. But we heard a lot about hogbears, and we even had a hogbear cave, which was nothing more than a depression under the roots of a big oak tree from which a spring flowed.

All of these things were much bigger back then. In today’s lingo, I guess one might say a whampus cat is a bobcat on steroids.

“What’s that noise!?” someone might ask pointing his flashlight up in the trees.

“Sounds like that old whampus cat!” someone might have responded.

We eventually learned that there were no really dangerous creatures of feline DNA indigenous to our part of the country — at least there were none left. Of course “dangerous” is a matter of degree impacted by time and place.

Now that I’ve spelled it out, let me put that in a sentence for you much like we used to do in spelling bees.

“Dwain disocovered that trying to give his 17-pound tomcat a bath was a dangerous proposition.”

In retrospect, when you are young and in the woods at night, your imagination often is more powerful than logic. One could never tell when something might mutate — not excluding our national debt which is now an incredible monster with fangs and claws that will scare the “beejeebers” out of our kids and grandkids for years to come. And I truly don’t know where “beejeebers” fits in there with “willies” and the “heebeejeebies.”

Excuse me … I almost got into politics there.

Back to the “whampus cat.”

I think rural legends can be just as intriguing and/or frightening as urban legends. And maybe back then we romanced the idea of a “whampus cat” because man has always had notions of things bigger than himself that go bump in the night. I give you Loch Ness monster, Big Foot and the Yetti. Most of the efforts to prove these things ever existed or that they still exist are little more than smudged tracks, eerie background music and fog on a swamp — all of which could reveal a barefoot boy carrying a cane pole, slopping through the mud and singing a Merle Haggard tune off key.

Curiously, we never imagine that we are being stalked by the Pillsbury Doughboy or the Michelin tire dude. I’ve tried to imagine those two when I think of the dimensions of our national debt. But it just doesn’t work for me. That imagery gives way to the creature from the dark lagoon.

Oops! There I go again getting into politics.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnes.com)