85. Misperceptions

A few years ago, we had a neighbor who became wild-eyed while telling Linda and me about the mysterious things that were happening to him. At first, it was his story about a big black stray dog he let into his back door. He reached down to pet it and it morphed right before his eyes into a black cougar. A few days later he was standing on his lawn and had spotted several cougars perched up high in the trees across the street; the next time, he insisted the cougars were sitting in cars, all up in the trees. He was pretty wound up. “Look, there!” he pointed 40 feet up into a stand of firs, “Can’t you see the cougars sitting in in convertibles? There’s one, there’s another! I think they’re ’57 Chevies, right?” Not wanting to upset him, there we both were, shading our eyes and peering up into the trees.  No surprise, the poor man was soon taken away for psychiatric help.

Yet, when I heard a horrible midnight wild animal ruckus in my backyard, the first thought I had was about those wily cougars in the fir trees. It sounded like growling, yowling big cats, fighting or mating, I was certain! OK, it took several minutes to recognize an owlish hoot within the rest of the squabble, and I realized I was having my first hair-raising barred owl experience.  Linda and I still kid each other about the cougars in the trees.

Naturally. I get a kick out of these momentary misperceptions. Some people would be embarrassed to admit they’d been hoodwinked, but I will confess to a couple of times when I was so certain about what I heard or saw—even that something weird or profound was happening—only to have my head spun around, and for a good laugh.

Dewar’s Scotch Whisky

One summer Sunday morning, I was enjoying my coffee and taking in the view out my kitchen window. From my second story apartment I could see a little of the Seattle industrial waterfront along Lake Union and the old ship canal. The Fremont Avenue drawbridge was straight out there only a block away. There was no ignoring that darned bridge—It has the lowest clearance of Seattle’s drawbridges and had to be raised, with a chorus of horns and bells and gongs, for just about every boat with a mast.

In those days back in the 70’s, billboards were still everywhere in the city, and I had a good view through the early haze of a big one advertising Dewar’s Scotch Whisky. As I was absent-mindedly gazing at the image of the kilted Scottish piper, I swore I was actually hearing bagpipe music coming from that direction. It continued off and on, almost inaudible sometimes, then echoing around in the still air when traffic and drawbridge noise let up. I had to know if I was hearing things, so I called to my roommate Dave. I told him “You have to listen closely, I think the Dewar’s sign is playing bagpipes.”

“OK, wow!” he cocked his ear, “Yeah, there was something just now, could have been bagpipes. But do you really think it’s coming from the billboard? I mean, that would be pretty weird if the big billboards started playing sound effects.” We had no choice but to walk over there and see what was going on.

As we neared the billboard, the sound of the bagpipes was definitely real, but we realized it was coming from below and off to the side of the Dewar’s billboard. Peering down from the elevated street we could see into a ground level parking lot. And there he was, a real bagpiper in full regalia, marching and practicing all by himself in the resonant space of the empty lot. To me, this was almost as odd a thing as a billboard coming alive! We found the stairs down and approached the piper. When I pointed up to the Dewar’s sign and described my confusion, the piper was unimpressed about the irony of the moment. He had already assumed we were there to complain about his noise, and started to explain his predicament. He said, “It’s damned hard to find a time and place to practice without bothering people.”

Dave and I assured him it was not a bother. We were each given a chance to try the pipes, but couldn’t get anywhere with it for laughing so hard!