My family used to go camping alot during summer vacations, and one of the most memorable camping trips of my life, was in the Smoky Mountains, in Tennessee. It was there that I had my first real live encounter with a bear.
The black bear, or Ursus americanus is quite common in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. They have signs posted everywhere that read "DO NOT FEED THE BEARS". As a young boy, who loved animals, I failed to grasp the significance of the signs, and had to learn the hard way. On the particular day in question, I was minding my own business, which usually meant that I was looking for trouble. I had a jar of Tang instant breakfast drink, and some potato chips, and I had managed to give my parents the slip, so I decided to look for a bear.
We had seen several fine looking bears when we entered the park, but they had seemed overly friendly, and had ruined the paint job on a car ahead of us when the passengers tried to feed the hungry animals out the windows of their car. I believed that bears would have a natural instinct for friends, and I could feed them if I wanted to. After all, I wasn't driving a two ton motor vehicle, and polluting their natural habitat.
I got lucky right away, and spotted a small scavenger bear at the edge of a deserted campsite. He looked hungry, so I walked up to him, and offered him some of my chips. He took his time deciding whether or not to eat my food, but when he saw that potato chips were the only thing on the menu, he devoured them happily. I was glad to see that he and I liked the same kind of food.
Sure enough, the little bear took to me right away, proving that all the horror stories I'd heard from adults were just lies designed to keep little boys such as me ignorant of the delights of making four-legged friends. It was okay to have a dog or a cat, even a bird or a gerbil, but nobody wanted a bear for a pet. It was probably because of the fact that bears ate too much. I didn't care what anyone else thought though. I felt different about bears, my little bear in particular. I wanted him for a pet.
The little bear allowed me to rub his furry back while he munched on the potato chips, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't get him to follow me back to my family's campsite. He didn't understand English, and I didn't speak bear, so we definitely had a communication problem. I had a bright idea when I spotted a large trash barrel near the road, that snaked throughout the campground. I tossed the remaining potato chips on the ground in front of my bear to keep him busy and went to retrieve the barrel.
My dad always told me not to litter, but I took exception to that rule also when I dumped the trash from the barrel on the ground beside the roadway. Someone would pick it up eventually, and I needed the barrel for something important. I hauled the barrel back into the campsite, and was relieved to find my friend waiting for me, finishing the last of the chips. He looked up at me with interest when I dragged the barrel right up beside him. Now all I had to do was capture him.
Perhaps he thought that the barrel was full of food, but whatever he thought, he didn't expect me to upend the barrel on top of him, and I abducted him without any problem. He didn't really like the barrel, but he got the idea when I began dragging it backwards, keeping one hand on the bottom to prevent him from escaping.
I was smaller than the barrel, but somehow managed to pull both the barrel, and my new pet along with me. My mom and dad and little brother were in for a big surprise when they saw what I had! I got my own big surprise though, before even reaching the roadway. I heard a voice behind me, and turned to find a couple of uniformed park rangers looking at me like I was doing something wrong, and the biggest one asked me what I had in the barrel. Since I had been taught that honesty was the best policy, I proudly told him that I'd caught a bear, and I was taking him back to my campsite. I watched as the other ranger started edging back nearer to their truck, and I figured that he was going to use their radio to call for back-up. I had seen that on television, but I had no intention of running off and leaving my new pet.
The more gallant ranger, probably wanting to save me, spoke in a calm voice, and tried to talk me into leaving the barrel, and coming over to the truck, which I figured was just a plot to take away my bear. I wasn't going to let them trick me, so I stood my ground, protectively guarding my bear. I didn't realize just how silly I must have looked to the park ranger. The Tang I'd been eating with the potato chips had turned my mouth and lips a bright orange, and he probably thought I was either crazy, or infected with some rare exotic disease.
It was about that time that my fuzzy companion started complaining about the delay in getting to our destination. He must have known that there was something wrong. He let out a muffled bawling sound, punctuated by a whine and a squeak when he realized that his language wasn't getting the point across. He knew better though, and was calling for back-up of his own kind. What I was not aware of, since my attention was focused on the park rangers, was that his mother had already arrived.
Aside from running up and grabbing me, the park ranger was running out of ideas as to how to rescue me. He finally risked having me run off into the woods in terror, and told me to look behind me, and when I did, I saw the biggest bear in the world, reared up on it's hind legs, looking very angry. Female black bears are usually about five and a half feet in height when standing, but from my viewpoint, as a child, this one looked much taller. The sight of the mother bear's gaping mouth, full of pointy teeth, and the long wicked looking claws on her front paws, served to petrify little ol' me, and I froze, just waiting to be attacked.
From the barrel, Junior let out another mournful bawl, and his mom responded by moving toward me menacingly, but not attacking.
She was either nearsighted, or confused by the sight of a relatively hairless little creature standing where she had heard the cries of her baby. Whatever the reason, she paused, and the heroic park ranger chose that moment to rush forward, pick me up, and run to the safety of the truck with me in his arms. I was mad because I'd lost my bear, but I got over it.
I watched from the safety of the truck as the little bear tipped the barrel over, and emerged unharmed, only to get a real scolding from his mom. She smacked him in the head, sending him rolling for cover, and chased him back into the cover of the woods.
So much for the great bear hunt!