The Bear Song

“What kind is that?” Margaret was watching me polish the apple on my fleece pullover.

“Cosmic Crisp” I replied.

I had stopped by the main office to drop off some documents in my weekly travels. She glance at her computer and then turned to me again.

“I have a question”

“Certainly” I stopped short of the first bite.

“When you are out hiking, do you encounter any wildlife?”

I looked at her, my eyes narrowed as I parsed the question. I knew where this was going.

“You mean such as bears?”

“Well, any sort of wildlife, but yes, bears as well”

I nodded. If you hike in the woods, folks always assume there must be bears lurking behind every tree, and that they are waiting to ambush you. It’s always a scene from Legends of The Fall, with Brad Pitt wrestling with the grizzly at the end of the movie.

I took a small bite. Some juice ran down my chin. I wiped it away. I acted as if I was considering what to say.

The fact is, in more than a decade hiking in the wilderness, I’ve never encountered a bear. I saw a moose once. Driving through Vermont, watching me from a hill off the highway. In upstate New York it’s deer. Lots of deer.

I swallowed and spoke.

“Nope, never have I seen a bear in the woods. Bears are smart. They know where the food is. If you would like to encounter a bear, I would look behind a restaurant in a dumpster, or wake up at dawn at most campgrounds. They might wander through. That’s were the food is.” Humans are slobs, and leave their smelly food trash wherever they exist.

I studied the apple, planning my next bite.

“The last bear fatal bear attack in New Hampshire was in 1784. Bears dislike people, even more than I do Margie. They can smell you coming and hear obnoxious hikers blabbing away on the trail.” She laughed.

“If you surprise a female bear with cubs on the trail, that could be a dangerous situation. They say with black bears, you back away slowly, never run. Hold your trekking poles over your head to appear larger. speak in a clear even voice. Try to identify yourself as a human, not prey.”

I took another bite. It was a very sweet apple. I always kept a bag in the office. They all knew I had an apple addiction.

“They’re not the same as brown bears. If you are attacked by a black bear, you should fight. With the brown bears, play dead. ‘course, there are no brown bears in the Northeast.”

Her phone rang, but stopped even before she could pick it up. Someone in the office must have taken the call.

“Besides,” I said. “I always make enough noise on the trail when I hike alone. I sing out loud.”

Margie raised her eyebrows.

“What do you sing?” she asked. I had taken a second bite, but not a big one.

“I sing the bear song”. She looked at me quizzically. Her phone began to ring.

I began to back out of the office door.

“One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, Ninety- nine….