The Bear

It's been brought to my attention more than once that I have had experiences in my life that others may want to read about. It's also been suggested that I write an actual book, but that's too much like work. The time has come to document some of these experiences. Hence, the blog begins.

I was thinking about what my first post would be whilst doing some dishes, and in light of the recent holiday, Fathers' Day, I decided to share an experience I had with my dad when I was young. My dad, SFC Gene Stetter (ret), was the greatest man alive. He hunted, he fished, and he knew everything about everything. When he passed away he left me two things...his hairline and his potty mouth. He taught me how to shoot a gun, use a fish pole, build things out of stained glass (that will be a future story) and the Lord only knows how many other things.

When I was about eight years old, we were on a family vacation up in northern Wisconsin, somewhere near Hayward. There's a lot to do up there if you take the time to find it. Some of the best fishing in the world is in that area, and I've had the chance to experience it many times. Northern pike, muskellunge, and many other fish fell to our fishing expertise over the years.

Something else that there were plenty of up north are bears. Bears, in my opinion, are the coolest animals alive. They are my favorite animal to watch and I can spend hours upon hours on YouTube watching videos of bears doing anything from dancing to fishing to fighting other bears. They're just cool. But anyways...back to the story. One of the local attractions up north was this dump where the bears would go to scavenge for food after dark. People would come from all over to watch the bears, bringing loaves of bread and fish they'd caught to toss out for the bears to eat. There were never any grizzlies or kodiaks or any of the bigger bear species there, just your basic black bears that were just as cool. When you're eight years old and sitting in the truck with your old man tossing hot dogs to a bear, you're on cloud nine. 

After we had thrown out a few hot dogs and pieces of bread to the one bear that was there after the rest had left, my old man looks at me and says, "I bet if you take a hot dog and walk up to that bear real nice and slow and don't scare him, he'll take it right out of our hand."

o.O (internet WTF eyes)

I looked at my old man like he had lobsters crawling out of his ears or something, and it felt like he was asking me to take the One Ring into the fiery depths of Mordor or some epic task of that nature. My eyes got as big as quarters, and I pretty much told him he was nuts, however an eight-year-old would say that back in 1981. He assured me that nothing would happen, and not wanting to act like a sissy in front of my old man, I reluctantly took the hot dog (I think it was an Oscar Meyer) and opened the passenger door on his F-150 verrrrrry slowly. I stepped out onto the ground with one foot, and I felt fear setting in. My old man did too, because he said to me "He's more afraid of you than you are of him, so don't let him know you're afraid." Yeah...thanks, Dad. I'll remember that when he's eating my face and laughing about it later with the other bears.

I started of walking towards the bear, which was only about 20 yards from me but felt like an endless mile. I readied the hot dog...arm straight out, one eye closed, head cocked to one side not wanting to look, and my tongue was hanging out like that infamous Michael Jordan picture. I stepped slowly but steadily closer to the bear, and then...he saw me. His big head turned to me, and he started sniffing the air, sensing that there was something edible heading his way. To him, it was the hot dog, but to me it could have been...well, me, for all I knew. Then he turned his body to me and strolled over to me nice and easy. I froze like a deer in headlights...I couldn't have moved even if I had wanted to. The bear was within six feet from me and I looked right at him...and he looked at me.

I was certain this was it...I had mentally prepared myself to be eaten momentarily, and as my hand was shaking uncontrollably, the bear walked up and ate the hot dog right from my hand like I would eat a corn dog. Just grabbed it and walked away...that was it.

I was still frozen...totally unable to move. I then heard my old man tell me to back up slowly and come back to the truck. I did exactly that and to my surprise, I wasn't eaten. I wasn't made into bear food before my very eyes. I still had all my limbs and I hadn't wet my pants. Success =).

I got into the truck and looked at my old man...he just looked at me with the face that says "I told you so, silly...". That was by far the highlight of my summer...not many things I've done to date have been anywhere near as cool.

Thanks for reading...there will be much more in the future.