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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Hide out, you bears, until it’s safe


In case you were wondering, that's not a dog. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Shannon Amidon home@spokesman.com

When I was 15 and spending the summer with my grandparents in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, I saw a bear walk across the road one evening as I drove home from my job as a busgirl at Hillside Restaurant. I slowed the car and held my breath, as if the slightest motion might turn the scene to fiction.

Breathless, I burst into the living room of my grandparents’ home nearby where they were watching the late news.

“It came all the way up to the hood of the car,” I stammered, stretching my arms high, then wide, to indicate the animal’s size. “At first I thought it was a big dog.”

By now my tuxedo shirt had come untucked from the black peasant skirt of my uniform. “He barely sped up when I drove toward him. He didn’t seem at all afraid.”

I waited in silence for their amazed reaction, but it was not what I’d hoped. My Gram looked at my Gramp with raised eyebrows. He was the one to voice what they were both thinking. “You didn’t see a bear,” he grumbled. “There aren’t any bears around here anymore.”

And that was the end of that – except – for years afterwards at family gatherings I was teased relentlessly about my “bear.” Not just by my grandparents after they’d had a few hearty Manhattans, but also by my dad, my uncles and my brothers.

In fact, two years ago at a family reunion, my oldest brother hid one evening in a tree above a cove of Lake Garfield where his young cousins swam. He’d set them up by telling them my bear story at dinner and had given them a good laugh. But they wanted to believe in bears, being young and in the dark New England woods in summer. They wanted to believe in something wild because they themselves felt wild.

So after dinner the boys filed out and leapt into the smooth water of the lake. My brother waited only long enough for them to be wet. Then he growled, shaking the white ghostlike branches of the birch from which he watched. He got the shrieks he was after.

As years passed there were more bear sightings in the Berkshires. The Berkshires are a spur of the Allegheny Mountains reaching from northwest Connecticut across western Massachusetts, where they dissolve into the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Once my friend Lisa was out for a run in Beartown State Forest, a place where none of us had ever seen a bear. Then it happened. The bear was standing to one side of her path, his head down, concentrating on whatever berries or insects he’d found for breakfast. She was terrified, but she was almost at the end of her run, and turning back meant adding on another four miles. So she kept her cool and her pace, and jogged right by the bear as if she passed it everyday.

Another time my uncle was hiking Monument Mountain in Great Barrington. Just as he got to the peak, he broke through the trees and stepped firmly on a large flat rock where not 6 feet away a black bear was sunning. My uncle was startled into stasis, and I imagine he stepped back into the woods as soundlessly as a cat on a hunt.

A few years ago I used my uncle’s experience to entice my husband Phil to hike the same mountain. I’d wanted to show him the bear spot and secretly hoped we’d see one resting, though not as close. We saw nothing that day but the spectacular view and a few gliding hawks.

Finally came my day of redemption. Actually there were two days and they were both last summer. First, my grandfather had been blaming the fat squirrels all season for knocking his giant birdfeeder down. Every morning he’d go outside and secure it again and every evening he’d hear a thump and he knew it was down again. So he started sitting in the kitchen with the lights off around the time the thump usually occurred. That way he thought he could suddenly turn on the porch light and catch the squirrels at their game. I don’t know what he thought he’d do after that.

Of course, it didn’t take too many nights for him to be in the right place at the right time. When he heard the thump, he rushed to the window and clicked on the light. Much to his surprise he saw, with his own doubting eyes, the figure of a black bear, muzzle facing towards the porch light, eyes wide in confusion. This frightened my grandfather so much that he, a rare Republican in the Berkshires, almost turned Democrat.

Shortly after the bear-in-the-yard episode, I was taking a long walk when I noticed Grampa’s red truck suddenly speeding toward me. The passenger door was thrown open before he was next to me and he was shouting, “Get in. Get in. Hurry. I’ll tell you on the way.” For those of you who are wondering, this is not the best way to approach a person without causing undue worry. Scenes of violent car crashes and sudden deaths spilled through my mind before he finally thought to tell me nothing was wrong. We drove down a twisty dirt road bordering the lake and stopped at an illogical spot. There was no driveway or cottage, just a small bog and some tall hemlocks. “Look,” he pointed up. “But whisper.” There were four of them sleeping in separate trees. A mother bear and three cubs. Grampa had to admit it – there were bears around here after all.

Today I am writing from the place where my husband and I spend our vacations, a cottage in the Berkshires near my grandparent’s house, about 250 feet from the spot where I saw my bear years ago on Sandisfield Road.

Most evenings we come home after dark, and each time our headlights fan the empty screen of woods we are disappointed again. We are careful every day to bungee-cord our garbage, keep our porch doors secured, and turn a fan on when we’re cooking to get rid of the food smells quickly. Even though we outwardly make every effort not to draw bears near, I must confess: yesterday I threw a water cracker just beyond our porch steps, and every night I wake up and turn on the outside lights, hoping. But, so far, nothing.

I think I’ve figured out why. Just last week I read about the newest bear controversy in Massachusetts. There are approximately 3,800 black bears in these woods now, and the possibility of a longer bear-hunting season is being debated.

Hey, these bears may be from the country, but they know a good gig when they’ve got one.

Hiding out a while may be the smartest thing they could do.