Whittoons

Years passed and I headed to Yellowstone National Park with my wife. Our car broke down just miles from the park entrance. Great I thought, now we were stuck in a back-water town within range of magnificent country. I was very wrong. Ennis happened to be a Montana fly fishing Mecca, so I got some hot tips when I paid for repairs. We set up our tent in the Park next to the designated trout bearing river. It was a pleasant spring evening and we climbed into our Eddie Bauer sleeping bags. (Disclaimer: This is not product placement. My wife and I met when I worked for a couple of years at Eddie Bauer. She had a career there so we eventually were fully outfitted in EB clothes and gear from warehouse sales. We even owned a second hand EB Ford Explorer. This was not the car that broke down in Ennis.)

During the night we woke suddenly to the sound of breaking branches. Were bears prowling? The question of the moment: Do we run for the car or hunker down in place. My cousin got himself into this situation once and ran for the car…but forgot his keys. Dashing back, he managed to grab the keys out of his tent just as bear claws ripped the tent walls open. Not my vision of a good morning.

But then car doors were yanked open and slammed shut. Rapid footsteps could be heard crisscrossing the forest floor. No bears. The temperature had dropped into the high teens and no one was prepared…except for us. Families huddled silently near hastily built camp fires. The scene had the horrific look of The Road.

Next morning, I was conflicted. How hungry were those frozen travelers who had desperate looks in their eyes? I was eager to fish so I reluctantly climbed out of my cozy bag, pulled on some chilly clothes and unzipped the tent flap to assess the situation. No one was drooling for my body fat, so I headed for the river with my fishing gear. I tied on a fly and cast a few times only to find that my hand was curled stiffly, almost frozen, gripping the rod. My commitment could not overcome the lure of my warm bag…so I quickly retreated, to cast another day. I had to admit to myself that I did not measure up to the characters in A River Runs Through It. For them, fly fishing was a religion and no sacrifice was too great in order to be immersed in the sacred waters. I was not among the chosen.

Later we found devoted fly fishermen standing in the slow moving river, casting lines in sinuous arcs towards eddies of crystal clear water. On the banks, hot steam vents blew pure white clouds of mist into the crisp air. This was truly an other worldly scene, almost heavenly. These devotees had found their bliss.

I had never seen wild bears before, so how was I supposed to know that dumpster diving was not a natural foraging behavior. Their home range had clearly expanded to include Yellowstone National Park campgrounds. Why waste time hunting for small animals and gathering berries for hours to get a few handfuls, when a bear could drop by the 24 hour campground deli, and pick up all variety of delicacies. And it was all prepackaged in those nice metal lunch buckets, ready to pop open with a good twist or two.

Sometimes an eager bear might dent the lunch bucket or even leave a few teeth marks in anticipation of the goodies within. And the mess left after a meal…well there were men in funny hats to sweep the deli.

Bears were my companions from an early age…or at least teddy bears played a role in helping me fend for myself in the world. For our trip out west, a dear acquaintance of my grandmother made a sleeping bag with a pillow, and clothing for my miniature bear. This bear fit in my hand, and had articulated arms and legs. Horatio, the bear, often volunteered for role play. He was faithful and stayed by my side day and night. And Horatio was partly to blame for my not putting Bears and Humans in proper perspective. Smokey the Bear was also responsible…and Yogi Bear reinforced this warped anthropomorphism when he arrived on the Television scene.

But I never took my love of bears to such an extreme as Timothy Treadwell of Grizzly Man fame (a documentary by Werner Herzog in 2005). Timothy may have walked among the bears, but he got eaten by one too.

In Suzette’s dream state, she expressed her greatest desires. Her legs moved as she barked (soto voce) and ran to vivid spots where she marked her heroic journey. Then she would be rudely awakened from her day dream, and find herself dragging her butt on the sidewalk.

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And Suzette was terrified of boat horns, train whistles and all variety of sudden, loud noises. If she was alone in the house when the sound shook her world, she would dig out all the pots and pans from cupboards, making even more noise and setting her off into a manic frenzy. The kitchen looked like an earthquake had hit. On our return, she would try to distance herself from the mess, blaming it on the sous-chef de cuisine. This dog needed therapy.

Suzette was a gift to my parents. Big mistake. Who gives a dog to unsuspecting parents? My Dad had grown up with Newfoundlands. Now that is an impressive dog. I am sure that a poodle would not have been Dad’s first, second or third choice.

Yellowstone National Park teemed with a magnificent, if restrained, wildness. That was good enough for me. Impressive and defiant Buffalo grazed, though not in herds of millions. I was thrilled just to see these living monuments of an wondrous historic past. Huge Horrible Grizzlies (Ursa horribilis) roamed in the back country and everywhere else. They didn’t even try to hide out. They lumbered through the campgrounds and preyed upon unsuspecting garbage cans. They hankered for left-overs. At night, as we hunkered down in our sleeping bags, we could hear the tortured clanging of twisted metal as another can bit the dust.

Suzette reached deep down and found her inner beast one day in Yellowstone. We were slowly rolling towards a campground when a few bears were sighted. The wagon came to a halt so we could observe nature in all its glory. One gregarious bear turned and headed right for us. I sat at the nearest window and had a front row seat. My window was rolled down, and Suzette, on seeing, hearing and smelling THE BEAR, sensed imminent danger. As THE BEAR started to rise up to gain access to my viewing window, Suzette went bezerko in attack mode. All of her bear-hunting genes fired up simultaneously. As my mother tried to restrain the rabid dog, she yelled at us in the back seat to close the window. I sat transfixed and astounded. Thank god my brother rolled up the window just as THE BEAR’s face reached the glass. I could have been THE BEAR’s lunch.

Now it is time to take a little detour, and give you a little back story on Suzette. Stay Tuned.

Korczak Ziolkowski had to be insane. He may have worked on Mt Rushmore but this artistic endeavor, commissioned by the Oglala Lakota Chief, Henry Standing Bear, just seemed like a job only Sisyphus could handle. And some among the Sioux did not feel that the mountain should ever have been desecrated.

Yet it was impressive. Unlike Michelangelo’s Prisoner statues that struggle against the stone containing them, Crazy Horse was busting out. Apparently the Ziolkowski family was committed…or should be. No way though would I carry on such a monumental task started by a parent. Thanks but no Thanks for that inheritance. It gave a whole new meaning to a Chip off the Old Block. For Dad, I would gladly step into his boots and ski down a mountain carving turns, not granite.