By Bruce Cummins
Sometime during late 1950's or early 1960's my dad, Boot, bought himself a nice new recliner that had a built-in vibrator to soothe his back pain from working long hours next door, in our general merchandise store. After a few years of serving its purpose, the recliner finally wore out. However, the vibrator was still working. Not to throw something away that still had life in it, dad came up with an idea to convert the vibrator to an alarm that would alert him if someone were to break into the store when it was closed.
He mounted the vibrator on the wall in his bedroom and wired it to a switch inside the store. There was one door connecting the back storage room with the front display room and dad decided this would be the perfect place to locate the switch. Anyone entering either the front or back door would eventually open this door and activate the new "alarm system" that would only be heard inside the house, next door.
One night, just after midnight, it worked as planned, the alarm sounded. Dad sprung out of bed and into action. He grabbed his 12 gauge shotgun which was always loaded and hung above his bedroom door.
He first checked and found both back doors of the store locked. Wearing nothing but his shoes and underwear, he proceeded across the street in front of the store and crouched behind a bush where he could see through the front windows. He soon observed movement inside the dark store building. Next, he slipped back across the road to a back door and quietly unlocked it and eased inside. The middle door was closed so he gingerly poked the barrel of his shotgun through it with the safety released. Immediately, the "Cat" burglar let out a loud squeal and jumped from the top of dads roll top desk that sat next to the door. How he kept from pulling the trigger and shooting up a nearby glass display cabinet and killing my cat that accidentally got locked inside when the store was closed, at the end of the day, was nothing short of a miracle.
It was also a miracle that my cat knew to stay out of sight for the next few days until dad had time to calm down and hang that 12 gauge back over his bedroom door..