By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Norm Rioux was the hero of an entire neighborhood Friday and all it took was a cat stuck in a tree.

For three days and two nights, the people who live on Cram and Ridgewood avenues had been listening to the anguished cries of a cat named Olivia from high above.

“It just tears your heart out,” said Patti Bisson. “It’s the first thing we hear each morning, the last thing we hear at night.”

Since Wednesday, the 7-month-old cat had been perched on a branch roughly halfway up a 100-foot tree. The tree stands in a yard between the two avenues, and the cat’s cries could be heard up and down the neighborhood.

“Her meows have become more distressed,” said Joline Pelletier, who lives on Cram Avenue. “We must have called 20 or 30 people and places today. No one wants to help.”

The problem was the old joke about how you never see a cat’s skeleton stuck in a tree. More than two dozen people who turned out for the neighborhood cat rescue Friday didn’t find it amusing. Emergency workers, however, swear it’s the truth.

“It sounds heartless,” said Lewiston fire Capt. Vic Gaudreau. “A lot of people are concerned when there’s a cat up a tree. But it’s been our experience that sooner or later, the cat will get the courage to come down. They never stay up longer than necessary.”

The Fire Department could not help. The animal control officer was not available. Central Maine Power and Lewiston Public Works had nothing to offer. Pelletier called a local rental company, which offered a truck with a cherry picker. Cost: $500.

Olivia’s owner was getting frantic.

“Everyone keeps telling me she’ll come down when she gets hungry,” said Jennifer Marston. “But she’s not coming down.”

Few things are more effective at rallying a neighborhood together like a cat caught in a tree. By 4 p.m., roughly two dozen people were out in the yard, heads turned up toward the sky. Above them, the first of many rescue attempts were under way.

John Pelletier stood in the back of his pickup truck beneath the tree. A 40-foot ladder rose from the truck bed and up between the branches. Near the top of the ladder, Daniel Fecteau was working to negotiate a long pool net toward the stranded cat.

“We’ve got a can of tuna in the pool net,” Pelletier explained. “The cat can smell it, but she doesn’t quite dare to get in.”

And so it went. For nearly two hours, neighbors tried various methods to get Olivia out of the tree. Fecteau rigged a snare at the top of the pool net, but it proved ineffective. John Pelletier fastened a pillowcase to a metal rod, but Olivia wanted no part of it. In fact, it only scared her further up the tree.

It was maybe two hours from sundown and all looked bleak. That’s when 54-year-old Rioux wandered over from his nearby home.

“Can I get up there?” he said, staring up the ladder. “Can you let me up there?”

With all else failing, Fecteau was happy to turn the ladder over to Rioux. And Rioux wasted very little time in ascending. He climbed to the top of the ladder and reached for the nearest branch. He hauled himself up and reached for another. In a blur of feet and hands, Rioux moved higher and higher up the tree.

Before long, he had reached Olivia, who was too stunned to move.

On the ground, men, women and children looked up in nervous fascination. Rioux reached for the cat and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. The crowd gasped. Rioux began a slow, methodical descent from the tree.

When he made it to the ground, Rioux was greeted by applause. Not even breathing hard, he handed the wide-eyed cat to Marston.

“Now we can all sleep tonight,” he said.

While others gathered around the trembling but healthy cat, Rioux said scaling the tree like a monkey was not much of a feat.

“I’m just an old-time contractor,” he said. “I just wish I was 13 years old so I could do this kind of thing more often.”

Olivia was the focus of attention for several minutes before the neighborhood returned to normal. Ladders and pool poles were carried away and the truck was driven from the yard.

“I’m so relieved,” said Marston. “I owe a really big thanks to all my neighbors.”