North to Alaska

I Thought I Saw A Putty Cat!

Remember Tweety Bird’s famous retort, “I thought I saw a putty cat! I did! I did!”? Well, it seems that there was a reason for that. Sylvester was patterned after a clown—with a red nose and those long clownish feet. Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns. OK. Sylvester was not a full clown, but close enough for children. It seems that lots of people are terrified of clowns. “Bestival”, a festival, staged on the Isle of Wight off England, had planned to stage a fancy dress party with everyone wearing clown outfits. However, so many people called in and complained that they were afraid of clowns that the organizers of the event were forced to adopt a new theme. And just a few days later a group of ruffians dressed as clowns attacked a group of people in Fort Steilacoom Park in Washington State. To the dismay of many a parent, the popularity of Ronald McDonald has shown no significant decline. Many experts attribute the clown phobia to such movies as the Fear of Clowns and Stephen King’s IT.
People do take phobias quite seriously. Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, led a campaign back in July of 2003 to change the name of Highway 666, known far and wide as the Devil’s Highway. That number had been used for 77 years. It was so named because it was the sixth road to branch off from the historic Route 66. Now, if you have been around for any real length of time, you can probably recall the TV series Route 66. Historic T-shirts are still sold in every burg where Route 66 used to meander. I don’t recall every having seen a T-shirt with the infamous 666 emblazoned on it. The fear of number 666 is so pervasive that it has it’s own name, hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. When President Reagan moved out of the White House and to his new home on St. Cloud Road in Bel Air, California, he took one look at the address and cringed. “666!” It was quickly changed to 668. South Korea had planned to send exactly 666 troops to Iraq as part of its peace keeping operation—not being familiar with the evil insinuations linked to that number. Not wishing to be offensive, they added seven soldiers to their contingent. And did you know that every bar code contains the numbers 666. Movies have probably contributed to that fear. The remake of The Omen recently made its debut and gives significant play to the Mark of the Beast. Then there is the 2001 horror flick Route 666. Of course, if you have not been to the movies lately, you probably heard that figure mentioned prominently by your pastor. By the way, fear of sermons is known as homilophobia.
Millions of butterflies are flittering through the skies of South Texas--tens of millions, in fact. Unusual weather conditions have led to an explosion of snout butterflies. Trees have been denuded of all leaves. The ground beneath the trees is littered with frazz, caterpillar droppings. Everyone not on the road with his or her cars is thrilled at the sight. Well, almost everyone. Some folks are mottephobes, people who fear butterflies and moths. Experts have determined that 95 percent of the butterflies who have taken to the road are males. As one expert explained, “The older males get most of the matings as the hatch continues. Then the new guys don’t have a shot because of the old guys, and they just say, The hell with this, and they go.” Meanwhile, the females who have mated linger behind to lay their eggs as the rabble of male butterflies scurry off in a wild frenzy on an all but hopeless quest. Only two things are on their minds: fear of cars and fear of being alone for the rest of their lives. Let’s see. That would be motorphobia and isolophobia. Enough big words? That would be hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia or sesquipedalophobia.