Date: 2008-02-02
To: The Bear Story
Miles today: 0.0

Andrea has been occasionally asking me to write an entry for some time now, but, rather intimidated by the prospect of composing something approaching the quality of her prose, and further convinced that years of writing nothing but philosophical essays had rendered me inept at conveying my thoughts in anything but the most prolix and pretensious of manners, I came up with this and that excuse for delaying the entire affair. But no longer! This morning it had apparently been written above that a journal entry idea would escape my lips¢only to be forced back into my hands¢at the very moment Andrea asked, ¢What should I write my trail journal about?¢ ¢Animals,¢ I said. ¢Like how you always look for slimy salamanders when we¢re in the woods, and how you get everyone to help you search for them.¢It was apparently also written above that this proposal would be rejected, and that I, consequently, would say in passing, and without realizing where the comment might lead, ¢Did I ever tell you about the bear story?¢¢The bear story?¢So here I am, recounting to you the unfortunate tale. ***        When I was a teenager, I attended a summer outdoors camp in the North Carolina mountains, where we got to hike the AT for a few days and then go white-water rafting. To that end, I had geared up with all the things that seemed to be essential the last time I went hiking, but which were regrettably not on my person: a functioning rain-jacket, boots, a flashlight that wouldn¢t turn on inside my pack, a bivy sack, and an orange plastic trowel. I was especially happy about the trowel: no more worries about kicking in a suitably-deep hole when that time came, no more awkward moments when said hole indeed wasn¢t deep enough¢¦nope, that beautiful orange trowel with the measuring marks would see to it that that never happened again!Indeed, that trowel seemed to me the very symbol of intelligent back-packing. A few others on our excursion had one, and we regarded one another with the mutual respect and understanding reserved only for the members of this our accidental but nonetheless earnest trowel society. Our high self-regard was only further elevated in contrast to the frequent lapses in judgment of our hiking cohort. Like Meredith, who insisted on packing her makeup kit and body lotions, James, who went hiking in cotton socks, and unfortunate Susan, who used stinging nettle as toilet paper. But these were all trifles compared to what happened to Steven.We had just arrived at camp on our second day when Steven approached me, looking rather green. ¢Hey, Hank, may I borrow your trowel?¢ he asked. Now under normal circumstances this would have been like saying, ¢Do you have any underwear I might use?¢ But Steven seemed desperate, and, recalling my past misfortunes under similar circumstances sans trowel, I consented, requesting, however, that he return the instrument clean after he had taken care of other matters. So Steven made off down the grassy knoll into a clump of shrubs, orange blade in hand. Not five minutes later he reemerged, face now white, bum exposed, running at full sprint while attempting to pull up his pants. ¢Bear! Bear!¢ he shouted. From what I later gathered, Steven, in his bowel-induced panic, had evidently not noticed that he had set up his place of business beside a foraging black bear, who then reared up on its hind legs and began making whatever sounds bears make in those circumstances. My orange trowel never returned. Perhaps it¢s still waiting there, under those bushes, for me to find it when I pass through this summer.