You already know about the Arrie Hecox Rural Ingenuity Award. It honors locals who share something of my late buddy’s gift for spit-and-string inventiveness. Well, in re-reading some of Arrie’s stories, I’ve spotted the basis for still another citation. And so I’m glad to announce the Arrie Hecox "He Asked for It" award, to be presented each year January. Let me explain:

Arrie loved irony. His stories often turned on somebody’s mindless behavior that brought the roof down on him. Even more common were tales about know-it-alls whose stupid doings came full circle and bit them in the butt.

For instance, in the first category is a story I’ve already shared with you _ about the boy who showed how he lost a finger to the electric mower by sticking a second finger into the same slot.

In the second category is Arrie’s tale about his father, by all accounts a brass-bound know-it-all. He showed up on Arrie’s farm one day just as his son was about to feed the hogs. The porkers were snorting and grunting inside a low electric fence _ an early and very powerful one.

"I’ll slop them pigs," the old man announced and snatched the bucket from his son. Arrie started to warn him about the fence, but the old man cut him short. "Nobody has to tell me about pigs!" He slung one leg over the fence and then, for balance as he raised the other foot, he rested the galvanized bucket on the top wire. All his life, Arrie recalled the event fondly.

"Pa danced a real two-step for awhile, one foot on either side of that fence. Then he threw himself over into the sty muck. After that, he never bothered me about the hogs." Then Arrie would grin and mimic the old man’s screechy voice. "Nobody tells me bout pigs!"

After I gave a reading of some past Arrie columns recently, a man came up and laid out a story that’ll be a major contender for the "He Asked for It" award. Here’s pretty much what he said:

"I grew up in a village about 50 miles from here. When I was in my teens, a cat got up in a tree near our four corners. Got up there and couldn’t get down _ or wouldn’t. It was a mangy, loud cat, and pretty soon it had drawn a crowd. The tree was tall and real skinny _ bare trunk, and branches just at the top. Too much flex in it for anybody to shinny all the way up. And when the fire department came, the tree was too bendy for them to lean a ladder on. So folks just stood around listening to the cat yowl and asking each other what to do. Usually," he added, "there wasn’t much excitement in that town."

"After a while here came the town cop in the patrol car, lights flashing. Some folks groaned.

You understand, nobody really disliked this cop, but nobody took him seriously either. He was a loudmouth, and he always had the one right way to do everything. Mostly people just shrugged him off. He was kinda fat, too, and approached the tree with something between a swagger and a waddle.

"He stood there, hands on love handles, surveying things as if it was a crime scene, scowling up at the yowling cat in those top branches and at that skinny trunk. Then he waddled back to the squad car and come back with a length of rope.

"Gimme that board,’ he said, pointing at the sawed-off end of a two-by-four, maybe 10 inches long. (It was lying by a fence, and he couldn’t bend over to get it without giving a king-size moon to the crowd. And he probably couldn’t squat.) A kid handed him the piece of wood, and he put a clove hitch on it with one end of the rope. "Now stand back, all of you,’ he ordered. Don’t want nobody hurt.’ The crowd shuffled back, and the cop started swinging that rope over his head like a lasso.

When he let loose, the wood carried the rope up and around the tree trunk, maybe three-quarters of the way up. The wood swung around the trunk, back over the rope, and snugged tight. Folks were impressed but couldn’t figure what he was doing till he ordered them father back.

"This could be dangerous,’ he announced. And then he began hauling in on that rope, throwing all that weight onto it. When a couple of guys stepped forward to help, he gasped, Get back!’ Didn’t want help, you see. This was his show.

"Soon he was sweating hard, but the skinny tree was bending over. When guys started to chant, Pull! Pull!’ he scowled but kept on dragging in rope. Then came trouble. When the treetop was only maybe 15 feet off the ground, that piece of timber slipped out of the hitch. The rope fell, and the tree jumped back so fast that air whooshed through the branches. It snapped straight, rained down some leaves, but was unhurt.

"The cat didn’t fare as good. It was fired into a long arc that ended badly against a brick dormer across the street. Later, some claimed they saw the cat flying and heard a long yowl. Most scoffed at that, but nobody denied the outcome.

"At first the crowd gasped, then stood silent. They were tore up between sadness for the cat, delight at the craziness, and really wicked glee that the know-it-all had got what was coming him.

"The cop himself turned very purple but didn’t say a word. He coiled the rope, threw it in the car, and drove off without turning on the flashing lights. That’s when the laughter broke out. People fell down laughing _ were still laughing, days later. And for months, that fat cop, waddling down the street, would sometimes hear a cat call from behind him _ a long, despairing yowl that suddenly stopped."

Now, friends, that’s a real "He Asked for It" story. How Arrie would have grinned! I’m half tempted to walk down to the Fly Creek Valley Cemetery, sit by his headstone, and tell him the whole thing, beginning to end.

Read about Jim Atwell’s new book "From Fly Creek _ Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country" at JimAtwell.com.