Da Bears

It was late summer of 2006. I was traveling quite frequently between Cleveland and Florida. My travels to Florida took me to Gainesville and Jacksonville to manage client contracts.

My friend, G who lives in Atlanta, normally spent a long weekend in the late summer with friends, deep in the woods. The forest was about 2 hours outside of Atlanta and, according to G, had spectualar campsites. No electricity, no running water…however a small river to bathe in.

He convinced me to go. Although I must admit I had a lot of anxiety about not having a blow dryer. I decided I would embrace the experience of connecting with nature, and “roughing it” the way our ancestors used to.

We would be heading to the campsite early Friday morning, with plans to arrive early Friday afternoon. Doing this would give us time to set up the tents, chairs, cookwear, fire pit, etc. and to hit the local grocery store to stock up on essentials for fireside cooking. You know, eggs, green peppers, onions, sausage, beer, and marshmallows.

We would spend Saturday hiking and mountain biking. Sunday we would again hike and then head out early enough to beat the rush of traffic moving back into Atlanta and spend Sunday and Monday recovering back in civilization. A hot shower and a full meal would be the top priority when arriving in Atlanta.

I drove from Jacksonville to Atlanta and arrived late Thursday night. The group of us rose early Saturday and filled the SUV’s with all the essentials and hit the road. A quick stop at StarBucks along the way.

The air was warm, the conversation great and the anticipation of doing nothing too mentally intense and challenging our bodies physically was discussed at length.

“Are there bears in these woods”, I stupidly asked.

“Of course”, G replied.

“So how do we protect ourselves from getting mauled?” I inquired.

“The bears will not come around us. We just need to be sure we don’t leave any food on the campsite and we have to be very careful to rinse down any pot or pan that we cook in. The key is to dispose or get rid of any food scent so as not to lure the bears to the campsite. They are more afriad of us than we are of them” S explained.

“Really? Did you hear about that group of joggers? Last jogger disappeared, only for the group later to discover she was snatched up by a bear. The article was talking about how the bear was probably hunting and seeing the last jogger as the weakest and the easist to catch. Scary stuff.” I rebuttaled. “They didn’t even know it happened until hours later.”

“A bear is not going to come onto our campsite. Besides, if it does and it looks like it might attack, Ill shoot it” M exclaimed.

“Yeah, lets not wait to see if its going to attack. If a bear comes on our campsite, just shoot it.” I demanded.
As we pulled into the small town, we talked about the simplicity of the lives of those that lived in that town. Catering to people like us to experience what they lived every day. We were humbled by their dedication to living the simple life, and their need for nothing too grandiose. Some of us, secretly jealous.

We drove up and down the hilly area, deep into the wooded area and far into a campsite. We pitched our tents at a campsite just along a river. The campsites next to us were a good distance away so privacy was not an issue. A few of us drove to the local mart and picked up our weekend supply of sustanance. As we drove back, I could not but again wonder, ok worry, about the bears. I could tell from how deep and thick the forest area was, and how expansive, that there were probably a plethora of bears. How would their curiosity not get the best of them?

“So, this bear thing” I again said.

M began laughing out loud. “Oh this again!”.

“Yes, I said. Im not buying that a bear wont come onto a campsite. Are you sure we don’t have to worry about it when we hit the sack? I mean, can’t we buy something that we can burn or put around our camp area that would deter a bear if he came around?” I inquired.

“We’ll get so drunk that we wont care if there is a bear on our campsite” M joked to try to make me feel better.

“Uh yeah right, then instead of shooting the bear, the idiot with the gun shoots a person. Real cool M. Sounds like a Dateline story to me” I said.

It was at this moment that I felt vulnerable. I mean, I knew these people well enough, but like a scary movie, who the hell knows what goes on back here in these areas. I freaked myself out.
When we arrived back at the campsite, I decided to grab my mountain bike and head out for a ride. I needed to blow off some steam and get my head back on track. I had myself so worked up over this bear that I was afraid that I wouldn’t enjoy the weekend.

We had a great Friday night. We cooked, we chowed, we drank beers, we talked, we listened to music, we discussed theory, philosophy, current events. The evening was long. Each person showed respect in allowing another to voice their opinion at length and we really dug deep into some life topics, rather than just scratching the surface. At about 3am, we all retreated to our tents, pairing up. As I stumbled into my tent, I jokingly shouted out to the other tents

“Hey M, you got that gun handy right”.

“Go to bed” M responded. “Ill protect us all if need be.”

I laid my head on the pillow, inhaled the fresh air deeply and slept like a baby.




The next day, I rose to the smell of coffee perculating on the smoldering fire.

“Good Morning” G said to me as I exited the tent.

“Good Morning”, I said as I stretched to the sky and again inhaled deeply. “My God is it gorgeous here”.

It was early enough that the fog in the forest was low. The temperature had dipped in the evening and the September heat had not rose yet to burn off the fog. Suns rays darting through the tall pine trees, the sound of the river rushing by, and birds chirping.

I took a quick dip in the river. Talk about a way to wake up! It was so frigid, every inch of my skin tightened as I entered the water. “Who needs a pour minimized mask at a spa when you’ve got this” I chuckled to myself.

As the others arose, we nibbled on eggs, sipped our coffee and prepared for our day of hiking and mountain biking.

After a physical day, we all headed back to our campsite about 4pm. Exhausted, covered in mud, our muscles aching, our minds free. We all again bathed, prepared our meal and began our evening fesitivties.

Chicken, cous cous and asparagus was the meal. M prepared the meal with great attention under my influence. We flavored the cous cous with rosemary and pine nuts. Again, another great evening of food, conversation and alcohol indulgence. This evening, however, we were heavily influenced by alcohol. It was near 4am when the last of us decided to settle in and rest. We did a quick once over of the campsite to be sure the garbage was in the dumpster, the pots and pans cleaned, the beer bottles disposed of and the picnic table and seating area watered down to rid of any food droppings.

I had closed my eyes for what seemed like only a minute.

“CRASH” was the noise I heard from just ouside my tent. The firepit was still slightly burning, so it gave off a amber glow. I sat straight up. The noice of the crash was familiar. It sounded like the cooler full of ice had been dumped over.

A loud grunting noise came from outside the tent. I knew what it was immediately. My body froze. My heart raced and I could hear it pounding in my ears. I lightly shook G awake and as she opened her eyes I covered my lips with my index fingering signaling her to keep quiet. She sat up. She looked at me and could tell I was frightened. She sat up and saw what I saw. The amber glow from the fire outlined the body of a bear, just outside our tent rummaging through our campsite.

There was a gentleman whose campsite was across from ours. He was very familiar with the campsite as he frequented the camp every weekend in the summer. He and a few good old boys spent their weekends at the campsite. I heard him from afar,

“Holy shit, look at that bear over there on that campsite!” He shouted.

Effing fantastic I thought to myself. He is an expert and even he is surprised. I could not hear the others in their tents and most imporatntly, M. He had the gun. Was he awake? Does he hear or see the bear? Will the bear attack? The bear is less than four or five feet from my tent. If the bears comes over to the tent, how do I respdon? Do I try to scare him? Do I play dead? Do I yell? Do I escape out the backside of the tent and run? Will that put others in danger? I had no idea what to do. I regretted that I did not read up on how to handle such a situation when my instincts had warned me that this was a possibility. Where the eff is my blackberry so I can google, “How to Scare A Bear”. I felt totally and completely helpless. Although I did not know what to do, what I did know for sure was that this would all be over soon, and I had to do the best that I could do and deal with it. Better to deal with it in confidence than in total fear I reminded myself. You’ll make a better decision if you tell yourself you can handle this!

The fear was paralyzing but I needed to do something. I wanted to see and know what I was up against. My hand shaking, I pulled the front flap of the tent, which was not zipped, to the side just a smidgen. What I saw was a large brown bear on the picnic table. I watched for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes. He would smell a morsel on the table and use his large paws to try to pick up that morsel from the table and would sit back on his hind legs and lick his paws. When he sat back on his hind paws I would guess he was six feet tall, maybe even seven. He was massive. I knew that if he approached the tent, I would not be able to defend myself. But I watched him, his every move to anticpate what was next.