I spent most of last week in the trailer. I won’t bother with the details of why except to say it wasn’t my fault. What Yvonne doesn’t know is I don’t mind being sent to the trailer in the summertime. It’s being sent to the trailer in the dead of winter that’s a bummer. Let me tell you, it’s no fun when there’s a foot of snow on the ground and a fierce north wind freezes the trailer door shut turning it into a blue and white ice cube.
But I digress. At dusk last Thursday evening I was sitting by the campfire roasting some hotdogs when I saw a shadowy figure lumbering across the field beyond our backyard. I have to admit I was startled. Not scared mind you, but, with nothing beyond that field except a 10 acre stand of trees and more fields, the only thing likely to appear would be a deer, and this definitely was not a deer.
“Get’um, Lily”, I half shouted. Lily raised her head but all I could get from her was a wag of the tail. Her eyes were fixed on the hotdog hanging on a stick over the fire. There was a time when I could say, “Get the squirrel girl”, and Lily would take off like a hound in pursuit of a rabbit; but the poor old girl is going on 100 and her hunting days ended long ago.
When I called Lily’s name the shadowy figure stopped and turned its head toward me so that its eyes glowed like a couple of sparkling yellow marbles. It was 30, maybe 40, yards away and hadn’t made a sound, but I could see it was some kind of dog, or so it appeared. “Maybe it’s a coyote”, I thought to myself. I had good reason to think so because just a few days earlier we had heard a pack of coyotes yelping in the field across the road from our house.
The thought of a lone coyote this close sent a chill up my spine. I’ve heard that a coyote traveling alone is more likely to be rabid, and might attack a dog, or even a person, without provocation. “Here Lil”, I said softly, patting my leg so she would come to my side. She gladly did so, thinking I had in mind to give her the now sizzling hotdog, which I did.
To my surprise, when I stood up to remove the hotdog from the stick the shadowy figure stood up on its hind legs to have a better look at me. It obviously wasn’t a coyote, but what could it be? That’s when it dawned on me; could this be the illusive black bear that has been roaming around Clermont County for the past few weeks? The last I’d heard he was sighted in Clepper Park on Tealtown Road. I figured he would find his way to the Cincinnati Nature Center and hang out there for a while, but here he was in Jackson Township, and practically in my backyard.
Of course, my first thought was to shoot a picture of the bear to put on Facebook but Yvonne had confiscated my phone so all I could do was stand there and watch to see what the bear would do next. It didn’t take long to find out. Apparently he had gotten a good whiff of the hotdogs, and, deciding Lily and I were not much of a threat, he came lumbering toward us.
I’ve had casual encounters with black bears in the Cades Cove area of the Smokey Mountains many times, including while hiking there just a couple of months ago, and never once have I felt threatened, so there seemed no reason to feel threatened by this Yankee bear. I slowly sat down and kept a firm hand on Lily’s collar as the bear approached. I wasn’t concerned about Lily going after the bear, but neither did I want her to do anything that might startle it. With my other hand I reached down and picked up the pack of hotdogs and tossed them in the direction of the bear, about 10 feet past the fire. In a moment the bear reached the hotdogs, quickly tore the wrapper off, and swallowed them in one big bite. Then he looked over at me as if to say, “Do you have more?”
I chose to remain motionless and Lily did as well. She had finally spotted the bear and pressed her head firmly against my leg the way she does when there’s a thunderstorm. The three of us just looked at each other for a minute, then the bear got up and moseyed over to the water bowl I’d put down by the trailer for Lily. He lapped the water up like it was the first drink he’d had all day.
His next move took me totally by surprise. After emptying the water bowl he stood up and began fumbling with the door of the trailer as though it was something he had done before. I watched in amazement as he opened the door and crawled inside. He started ransacking the inside of the trailer, no doubt looking for more food. I realized if I didn’t do something fast he was going to destroy it.
I jumped to my feet and started pounding on the side of the trailer, thinking, hoping, it would scare the bear back out the door, but it was no use. Through a window I could see he had opened the refrigerator and was pawing around pulling everything out onto the floor – eggs, corn beef and baby Swiss cheese, two tomatoes, a half loaf of rye bread, a squeeze bottle of mayo, and three cans of Yuengling lager beer (despite my exile, Yvonne wanted me to eat well.) From the bear’s perspective he’d hit the jackpot, and I was actually glad to see him now eating the food instead of tearing up the trailer. I watched in disbelief as he polished off the food, then popped the cans of Yuengling open and downed all three, lapping up what spilled on the floor.
But when I saw the bear reach for my backpack I’d had enough. With as much courage as Davey Crockett had when he killed a bear at the age of 3, I leaped inside the trailer, grabbed the backpack from the bear’s claws, and shouted, “Bad Bear!” This scared the bear so badly he slumped on the floor and began whimpering like a pup. I think his reaction was in part due to the effects of the Yuengling.
The noise caught Yvonne’s attention from where she was sitting on the back porch so she put her book down and came out to the trailer to see what the commotion was about. I stepped out of the trailer just as Yvonne arrived and the bear came stumbling out right behind me. I wish I could have captured the look on Yvonne’s face when she saw the bear.
As you may remember from news reports, this young male bear has probably been looking for a mate. I can’t say for sure if it was the Yuenling or if he just took a liking to Yvonne, but the bear appeared to be smitten with her and began chasing her in circles around the yard. I’d never seen Yvonne climb a tree before, but she shot up one that night like a circus acrobat. The bear attempted to follow her, but the effects of the Yuengling had taken over. After stumbling around the tree a couple of times, he slumped to the ground, passed out.
You know, a part of me wanted to leave Yvonne up in the tree but, alas, I love her deeply, even if she does sometimes send me to the trailer when I’ve not really done anything wrong. It wasn’t easy to do but I managed to stuff the inebriated bear into the back of my Ford Explorer, and then helped Yvonne get out of the tree. The bear was still feeling no pain when I left him along the edge of a country road in Adams County (I sure hope those ODNR fellows don’t read this.)
Best of all, when I returned home Yvonne had prepared a candlelight supper in the trailer and stayed the night with me!
George Brown is a freelance writer. He lives in Jackson Township with his wife Yvonne.