This is the bear that almost mauled and/or devoured me.
Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. What actually happened was that I was visiting my mom’s cabin in Wisconsin. I was sitting on the end of the dock by the lake, reading a Dennis Lehane novel, when I heard a rustling in the bushes right next to the dock. I assumed it was my mom or my wife, so I didn’t think “Eeeek! There’s a sinister rustling in the bushes!”
And then a bear walked out. It looked at me and stopped, as if to say “Whoa! Didn’t expect to see YOU there, buddy!” As it stood there, I had two thoughts:
1. The odds of this bear actually walking onto the dock were all but non-existent. Despite what you may have read in my novel I Have A Bad Feeling About This, available now from Sourcebooks, bears do not just charge at people.
2. Still…there was a frickin’ bear thirty feet away.
I sort of wanted to take a picture of it, but there are times when it’s best to devote your full attention to the situation that is occurring in front of you, and I didn’t want my legacy to be that of the dumbass whose final action was to take a picture of a bear. So I just sat there, and after a few moments the bear went on his merry way.
Once the bear was a safe distance away, I hurried up to the cabin to make sure my wife and mom didn’t miss their chance at a bear sighting. Then a text from my mom came through, informing me that there was a bear outside and that I should stay on the dock until it left.
Anyway, my wife took the picture above from the safety of the cabin, and no parts of me got eaten by a bear, so all is well.
August 10, 2014 at 4:50 pm
the literary world is a richer place for the bear leaving you alone to continue to entertain us.
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August 10, 2014 at 9:27 pm
Indeed.
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August 10, 2014 at 8:36 pm
I would have channeled grizzly adams and made friends.
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August 11, 2014 at 7:05 am
My beard isn’t long enough.
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August 10, 2014 at 11:21 pm
I hoped you named him Owen and will visit him from time to time over the next 57 years.
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August 11, 2014 at 7:05 am
No way. That ends tragically.
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August 11, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Tragic but beautiful. There was no other way to end it. It had to be that way. Have you watched the movie stranger than fiction. It is an achingly beautiful will Ferrell flick.
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