A Chicken and a Bear

I know a lady who can conjure up a bear.

How many people can say that?

Her name is Chicken, and her story is here. It's amazing and kind of scary and she tells it well.

And it reminded me of my father's bear story.

Round these parts, we have quite a vigorous recycling and composting program. We all have huge green compost bins that are emptied every second week by a company with big stinky trucks. I'm assuming that the trucks are stinky, because our compost bin gets pretty stinky and when you multiply that by thousands, that's a whole lot of holding your nose.

Stinky compost bins attract critters. In the spring we have hungry critters of all kinds, but especially, it seems, bears who are just waking up after a long sleep and a good yawn and stretch and a lot of scratching of their birthday suits, and who are getting a bit on the peckish side. And they have very good noses.

And every so often, out in the country where the bears live, those noses bring them to a stinky compost bin. Bears aren't too particular about what they eat, in spite of those pictures you see of them picking anti-oxidant berries and catching low-cholesterol salmon. If there's a pizza box in the compost - even without any pizza, just the smell - they'll chew the cardboard. But usually there's more in our bins than cardboard, and bears learn fast. They visit the Green Buffet whenever possible.

Now, if I saw a bear in my compost bin, I'd probably shriek a bit, and run around holding my head with both hands, because, I'm embarrassed to say, that seems to be my reaction to scary things, and then I might calm down long enough to call the authorities and tell them about the bear. But my father? Nooooooo. He ran outside in his sock feet, hollering at the bear. And then he threw his sneakers at it.

The bear ran away.

Lucky for my father.

And maybe lucky for the bear.

It's been almost one year since my father died, and I've been having a lot of tough memories this month. But the bear story made me remember better times, when Dad was mobile and feisty and altogether a get-'er-done kind of man.

Thanks, Chicken, for bringing that good memory back to me, and for reminding me that even stories with bears in them can have happy endings.

"Is that Donkey's picnic lunch I smell, or is it a COMPOST BIN?"
 That doesn't say much for my picnic lunches, does it?
 (Thanks to Pixabay for the cute free photo.)