Da Bears!

Okay, it’s not about a bar, but is an adventure and drinking was involved, so it should fit. My family on my father’s mother’s side has a family reunion every year. Now, normally we (Donna & I) can’t make it due to Wheatland falling the weekend before or after depending on the year. However, one year it was earlier and we attended.

Over the course of our relationship, I have explained over and over to Donna that I am a redneck and proud of it. I like guns, fishing, beer, trucks, football, NASCAR, and yes, I have even been known to watch the high drama of professional wrestling. I also feel that duct tape is proof there is a God and 99% of life’s problems can be solved with a really large hammer. I just consider myself an “edukated” redneck. One that has adapted to city life, but still a redneck.

I don’t think Donna fully realized how much redneck ran in veins. She had only met my immediate families, who have lived most of their lives in civilization. She was now going to meet the folks from down “home”. It was a going to be a bit of a culture shock for Donna.

Now, I like going down “home”, even though I never lived there. There is about 8-10 house in the general area, so we call it George Town, but it isn’t even close to a town. It does have a post office, but that is it. The older generation, i.e. my dad, say there used to be two bars, but they burned down long before I can remember. George Town is located in the hills on the Ohio/West Virginia border and it is in strip mining country. This means lots of curvy roads that lead to no where and a lot of abandoned things to explore.

Anyways, we were spending the weekend there for the reunion. We were at a hotel about 30 miles away and decide to take “back roads” to get to the reunion. As we are driving along, we go around a curve and out of the corner of my eye I see a dog in the yard of this house. I use the word house only because it had a roof and some walls. It looked like a single room house that some one had added another room on to every year for the last 5 years using different color siding, different shingles, plus a lot of plywood and paint on each section.

About 45 seconds later, my brain finally registers what my eyes actually saw. It looked like a bear cub. I stop and look at Donna. Donna says “Was that a bear?” I replied, “It sure looked like one.” I turned around and drove back slowly. Sure enough it was a black bear cub. It was collared and on leash. It was in a fenced in area, so we couldn’t get close, but we got out and began taking pictures.

As we were standing there, a young boy came out. He was probably around 7 or 8. He was definitely from the area – barefoot, dirty face, NASCAR t-shirt, and bib overalls. He walks up and we nod in greeting to each other. He says “Ya like the bare?” We nod yes. He says “Ya want to pet the bare?” We immediately say “Yes” and the boy opens the gate. In we went and it was sooo cool.

The bear cub was about 7 months old. I would guess it was around 70-80 pounds. When it was on its hind legs, the head would come up to my chest. It had about 2 inch claws and fairly sharp teeth. It was very puppy-like and liked chewing on your shoelaces, pant legs, fingers, whatever was available. The fur was thick, but very dirty and slightly smelly. We petted it and played with it for about 10 minutes. We had muddy bear prints all over our clothes, but it was well worth it. As we are playing with it the boy asks, “Do you want to see the big bare?” We looked at him and dumbly asked “Big bare?” The boy said, “Yah, we got this one because our big bare was getting lonely. Pa found out that if the big bare got lonely, it might get out of its box”. Donna & I looked at each other and said “sure, lets see the big bear.”

The boy leads us out and takes us around the house/trailer. As we are walking by door a young girl, 5 or 6, comes out with a baby raccoon in her hand. The boy tells her we are going to go pet the big bear. The girl asked if we wanted to pet the raccoon. Of course we did. As we are scratching it’s ears, the girl asks if we want to see the squirrel. Donna and I look at each with “What the F**k” expression on our faces. I ask “Squirrel?” “Yah” the girl says, “It was hurt, so we’re fixin it.” “How many animals do you have?” I asked. This began a debate between the children as they started counting. In the end, they agreed they had the following – 2 bears, 7 dogs, 6-8 cats, 2 raccoons, 1 squirrel, 1 cockatiel, and they were not sure how many chickens. Only the 3 of the dogs, 2 of the cats, the raccoons, the squirrel, and the cockatiel lived in the house/trailer. The rest roamed free or was in the barn/shack.

The squirrel was in a cage in the house, so with scenes of Deliverance going through our mind, we declined to go in. We continued on to the back and yep there was a “big bare”. It was an adult male black bear. It was big. It was about 5 and half feet tall and heavy. The books say they average 400 pounds and after seeing one in real life, I would agree. They had it 10’ x 15’cage that was made out of some heavy duty fencing material. They fed it dog food also. While we were watching it, it rolled around rub against the fence, and was basically very cute. We petted is back as it rubbed against the fence and generally were in awe.

The boy was standing next to me. He looked up and asked “Ya want to feed it? It likes apples.” He reaches in box near the cage and pulls out an apple. He puts in the palm of his hand and sticks his arm through the fence. The bear came up and took the apple from his hand and eats it. The boy then hands me an apple. The internal fight begins.

Civilized me – This is stupid!
Redneck me – This is cool!
Civilized me – It can bite your hand off!
Redneck me – This is cool!
Civilized me – It doesn’t know you & it can bite your hand off!
Redneck me – Watch this!

Yep, redneck me won, so I stuck my hand in and fed the “big bear”. The bear was very gentle as it took the apple from my hand. I was very grateful that it left my arm intact. The boy asked if I wanted to feed it another one. However, Donna had that “why are men stupid” look on her face, which helped my civilized part take back control, so I declined. As we stood there the bear decide to show me how stupid I was. There was a cast iron bathtub in the cage with bear. It looked like it weighed a couple hundred pounds. The bear began using it as toy. It put one paw on it and flipped it to the other end of the cage. It walked down to the other end and flipped it back. There was no effort on its part. The thing was casually flipping 200#’s as if it was a pillow. Nothing like seeing raw strength in action to remind a person that man may be on top of the food chain, but only because we don’t go one on one with animals.

We thanked the boy and girl and continued on our way. Donna had taken several pictures during our time there to confirm we were not hallucinating. Alas, the store we dropped them off to be developed at lost the entire roll of film. However, “da bears” & the redneck petting zoo will live long in our memory.