My first grand hunting expedition was with a group of half drunk coasties. I took exception to one shooting a raven, a big no-no with the law and native belief systems. So, I had to walk back to base. I encountered a very large brownie. I decided to fire awarning shot. Unfortunately, ignorance and overzealousness resulted in copious amounts of oil freezing the action solid. Bear looked at me with contempt, woofed something about california coasties and ambled off. I got an after duty hours job cleaning the base exchange. I'm stripping the deck and swabbing a new coat of wax. In the perpetual twilight of winter, I backed full force into a mounted, upright bear, claws raised, fangs exposed in a perpetual Sylvester Stallone saliva dripping lip curl. It's rocking on the pedestal, shadow flickering over me like some Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon. I scream, run, hit the wax and slide across the room and into the wall. I see the stuffed bear, look around to see if anyone was looking in at this moment of my humiliation and feel like an idiot. years later I make friends with a canadian snowbird here in sunny California. Everyone is staring at his chest, thinking he went through a plains indian sundance. Somebody finally asked about the scars. Seems he was hiking in B.C. and encountered a momma blackbear. Bear reared up and clawed him. He punched her in the nose with 3 rapid hooks and uppercut. Bear fled. My friend was a provincial boxing champion. Later I managed to meet the late,great Bart the Bear. His table manners were better than mine. I'm no Timothy Treadwell. I tried to tell him ( along with countless others) that he was doing the bears as great a disservice as gun magazines with lurid graphics and logos about choosing the right gun and load for rapist bears. Meanwhile, theres a mosquito in my room and West Nile virus is in Southern California. Where did I put that SMLE? <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />