DADDY AND THE BEARS
This particular camping trip was the biggest and bestest one we had ever been on. We had an Apache pop-up camper and a tent that would hold 3 folding cots. Whenever we went camping, Grandmother, Mommy's mother went with us following along behind in her car with me in tow (Grandmother and Grandad played favorites and I was it). This camping trip along with Grandmother came Mommy's sister, Aunt Mary Helen. The trip to get to the Great Smokey Mountains, I believe we made it there late evening of the first day of our trip. It was a long and tiring trip to make from central Indiana,make it we did. Once we arrived at our campsite, the first thing on the agenda was to make the coffee. Regardless of where we were camping or ow tired us kids were they had to have their coffee. While the adults had their coffee the 3 of us kids went "exploring" around the campsite. Along the backside of camp was a thin line of trees so, we went beyond them to see what we could see. What we found was a small mountain stream. The adults began hollering for us to come back and help set up camp, so off we went to do our assigned tasks all the while talking non-stop about the mountain stream. After camp was set up Daddy had us put on our swim suits and we went back to the stream. Never having been in the mountains before it was all a great adventure and we felt so very lucky because here we were with a stream flowing right behind our campsite!! Daddy stood there with his 8 mm camera and told us to go ahead and get into the water and play and rinse the sweat away from the trip. So...off we went running to see who would reach the water first. I'm not sure now just who hit the water first, but I do know none of us stayed in it long because it felt like we were wading through a stream of ice cubes!
The next morning we got through our camp chores and got ready to go site seeing. We didn't get very far before we began seeing real live black bears along side of the road with tourists looking on, taking pictures and breaking the cardinal rule, "DO NOT FEED THE BEARS". Well, at one of the pull offs along the road there awas a bear wandering around. You could just barely see a pair of bear cubs she thought were good and hidden from view. Well, Daddy took the video camera (when looking through the site on it things look further away than they truly are) and he squatted down in front of the bear which at that time was a safe distance from himself. But, as I said, the bear was just sort of moseying along and Mom began quietly saying,"Bob,Bob get out of there the bear is almost on top of you!" He didn't hear her (Daddy had selective hearing). Mom was beginning to get hysterical, so a gentleman stepped out of the crowd and slipped up behind Daddy, touched him on the shoulder and said, "mister you'd best put that camera down and get out of thee before she swats you and your camera down." made Daddy angry so he lowered the camera to tell the gentleman to mind his own business but the first thing he saw was this huge momma bear close enough to kiss him on his nose. He stood slowly and as quickly as possible got back in the car and he told the rest of us to get back in the cars so we could be on our way. That was the excitement for that day, with the exception of all the teasing Daddy took from Grandmother.
We went hiking and site seeing the next day and came back to camp had supper and relaxed. Around 10:30 people started calling it a night and so did we. Mom, Daddy and sister, Karol and brother climbed into the camper and Grandmother, Aunt Mary Helen and I retired to the tent where Grandmother read, Aunt Mary Helen wrote to Uncle Bill and I colored. There was a light behind us like a street light. About a half hour after calling it a night, all of a sudden there was something standing hunched over, growling and scratching at the tent. All 3 of us in the tent began screaming hysterically believing it to be a bear. Then after letting us scream a bit, Daddy began to laugh, telling Grandmother that was for a lof her teasing. They all laughed, but I like to never got to sleep the rest of the night.. The next morning Daddy got up and wet down to the out houses. When he returned, he was white as a sheet!! He sat down on the picnic table while he told us all about what he'd just learned. It seems that at the same time he was pulling his little stunt there was a real live bear 2 camps down from ours who had torn into a cooler and eaten several pounds of bacon and some steaks! Daddy decided it was tie to movetho Chatenooga...
Experiences like these make me long for days gone bye.
Daughter, sister, wife, mother, nanna and great nanna but most of all a believer in CHRIST JESUS
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