It is from bears like this that legends are made

The bear roaming through town this past Sunday weighed well over 500 pounds, was followed by three cubs, and viciously attacked at least one mail carrier and two toy poodles before being brought down by a sniper's bullet. She left a path of destruction not unlike what one might expect from a small tornado. It was chaos! Madness! Panic in the streets!

That's not true, of course. The bear clocked in at about 170 pounds, didn't attack anybody, had no cubs and was a he, not a she. Moreover, the poor, frightened thing beat cheeks out of town at the first opportunity, leaving no path of destruction other than the occasional pyramid of bear scat.

But that doesn't matter; my far superior (and highly inaccurate) story will be the one told around dinner tables and campfires 10, 20, however-many years from now. In many cases the narrator — who may never have seen a bear in his life outside a zoo — will insert himself into the story, generally in a role far more heroic than any he ever played in real life.

It is from such mundane events as a wayward bear that legends are born. Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, the Lincoln Death Train; all probably had their origins in some long-ago, real-life occurrence. All were stories told and re-told, gaining weight with each telling, gathering embellishments the way a grain of sand gathers nacre inside an oyster shell until, in the fullness of time, a pearl is born.

The first paragraph of this column is my attempt to get that pearl started with regard to the bear story. 

Earlier this week I read the accurate, honest account of the bear's trek through town on the newspaper's website and Facebook pages. I related the tale to Sweet Annie, more or less factually, increasing the bear's weight by only 20 or 30 pounds and allowing him to chase after a couple kids who unexpectedly walked out of a restaurant and surprised the critter. Not much of an embellishment, but a start.

When I share the story with my daughter during her visit next week, the bear will have grown larger still, more vicious, and will have chased a hapless state trooper up an oak tree; maybe one of the oaks in my back yard. I may snag a couple torn shreds of blue fabric in one of the lower branches, just to add some semblance of credibility to the tale.

Even with the planted physical evidence, my daughter — who knows me too well — may not believe me. But my grandson, Edison, will. And someday he'll tell the story of the killer bear to his kids, who will tell it to their kids and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo right on down the line.

One-hundred years from now, that lost, frightened bear will be transformed into a 100-foot tall giant whose rein of terror lasted decades and encompassed half the state. He'll have gained a name, one the primitive, provincial yokels of the time (us) uttered only in whispers, their voices tremulous with awe and fear. Caesar, maybe. Or Xerxes. Something to inspire terror in kids as they gather ‘round the fire cooking s'mores. 

And since no legend is complete without a hero, someone to vanquish the unvanquishable foe, and since I'm kind of getting in on the ground floor of this particular legend, I humbly nominate myself for the role. OK, OK, in real life I slept through the entire incident.

Who cares? You think there's really a Lincoln Death Train? You think Paul Bunyan actually had a blue ox named Babe? Not a chance, buddy.

So what's so hard to believe about Mighty Mike the Bear Slayer? It's got a ring, yeah? And who's to say I couldn't wrestle a giant bear bare-handed? (Well, anyone with a modicum of common sense, but that's not how these things work.)

I just wish I could be around 100 years from now to hear of my exploits.

mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions.com

(616) 548-8273

Am I just sick, or a harbinger of the Apocalypse?

Being sick is no fun at all if you're doing it alone. I'm in bed as I write this, home with the flu. At least I think it's the flu. Then again, maybe I'm Patient Zero, harbinger of a new pandemic that will sweep the planet in a matter of days, killing 99 percent of the population and leaving the world a savage wasteland in which my dog and I will drive around in a souped-up, former cop car looking for open Wesco stations offering fresh donuts.

Nah, I couldn't be that lucky. It's probably just the flu, or something like it. Whatever it is, it kept me up all night and it's keeping me down today.

I wouldn't mind, really, except for the fact I'm living alone. That means there's no woman here to baby me, which is the only reason for ever being sick.

Sweet Annie's a real Florence Nightingale whenever I'm ill, but she's an hour's drive away and has things to do today that don't involve homemade chicken soup or cool washcloths placed gently across my feverish brow.

If I had a dog, he could sit near the foot of my bed and gaze at me with concern in his canine eyes, the way dogs sometimes do. But I don't have a dog, much less one that's worried I'm sick.

A cat, which I also don't have, wouldn't care one way or the other about my health unless I got so sick I forgot to feed her. If that happened, the cat would start counting the days until I died, after which she would have plenty to eat. Cats have a strong survival instinct and no discernible conscience.

Upon my friend Kelly's advice, I bought a couple hermit crabs the other day. I don't believe they're concerned for my well-being, though it's hard to say for sure. The moment I put them in their elaborate and fairly expensive terrarium home, they buried themselves in the cedar bark substrate and haven't been seen since. 

Kelly assures me they will eventually emerge, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. I should check the bottom of the cage to see if they've somehow managed to tunnel their way to freedom.

But I digress. It's easy to do when you're running a fever so high you keep forgetting what it is, exactly, that you're writing about. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with being sick, at least at the beginning there. Let me check.

Yup. Being sick it is; that and the fact there's no woman here to baby me through this bout with the cooties.

If there were, I'd be having the time of my life. Being sick with a good woman in the house is one of life's great experiences. Chicken soup, or "broth," if you really, really ill. Toast and tea. Bland food you would never, ever eat under normal circumstances, but which for some reason tastes great when your belly's not up to the rigors of burritos or pizza.

A woman will bring you these things if you are sick. You don't even have to get out of bed. Frankly, I've known men (me) who have faked illness on a Sunday afternoon just to get the free room service. I probably shouldn't admit to that, since I may want to do it again someday, but this stupid fever is diminishing my naturally occurring masculine deception skills.

Maybe it's a good thing there's no woman here to ask me incriminating questions. Fabricating answers seems like too much trouble at the moment, and I firmly believe the truth should only be used as a last resort when all else fails.

So I guess I'll just lay here alone for the rest of the day, whimpering like a newborn with a misplaced pacifier, wishing I had someone to bring me tea and toast, Kleenex and the occasional hit of NyQuil. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. Unless Annie drops by with some homemade chicken soup, a cool washcloth and soothing words of comfort. If she does, it may take a couple extra days to fully, ahem, recover.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 548-8273

The perfect pet was right there all along

My new lakeside apartment is so small, it's like a (cue Rodney Dangerfield voiceover) "Hoo! I'll tell ya! My new apartment is so small..." joke. You know, "I've got to step outside to change my mind," "Even the mice are hunchbacked," "I turn around and bump into myself"...that sort of thing. It is, by far, the smallest place I've ever lived.

Over the years I've stayed in a lot of hotel rooms, all of them bigger than my new apartment. Those brightly-painted cement barrels that once were a staple of elementary school playgrounds? Yup, even those were bigger than my new apartment.

It's small.

I don't mind. It's large enough for my current needs. Thanks to the gradual diminution of my worldly goods over the past couple years, all my "stuff" fits inside, and what doesn't fit inside fits inside the garage (which also is bigger than the apartment). The view of the lake is spectacular, my futon is surprisingly comfortable, and there's plenty of cupboard space. Things could be worse.

The only downside is, I'm living there alone. Don't panic, this isn't a Lonely Hearts Club whimper; I have Sweet Annie, a brilliant blonde (they do exist, despite numerous jokes to the contrary). I see her on the weekends, which is just about as much of me as she can put up with, so that's fine.

What I need, what I miss, is a pet. A dog, a cat, even a bird would do. But there's no room.

I could get a little dog, but I'm almost never home. You can't leave a little dog home alone all day unless you want to open the door every evening with a pooper scooper in your hand and a forgiving nature in your heart.

Cats try to make you think they don't give a damn about your company, but most of 'em do. Cats are like beautiful women; they hate the idea of you knowing they need you. They may not even admit to themselves that they need you. But ignore a cat for a couple days and you'll likely find a "surprise" in your laundry basket. Passive aggressive little monsters.

In the warm-blooded critter category, that leaves birds and rodents. I had my share of rodents when the kids were younger; hamsters, gerbils, mice, rats, guinea pigs...my kids had them all at one time or another. And they all eventually escaped their cages and came to bad ends, usually behind a refrigerator or inside the walls, where your nose could inform you as to their demise, but where there was nothing you could do about it but wait for the long process of decomposition to run its course.

Birds I like a lot, but there's no place for a cage in my apartment. It really is that small. I could hang a cage, I suppose, but — again, due to space constraints — it would have to hang directly over: a) where I eat, b) where I sleep, or c) where I cook. I do not want to eat bird seed or anything else a bird might kick out of its cage during the day. Likewise, I don't want to wake up with molted feathers in my mouth. So a bird's out.

Fish? There's not much by way of interaction when it comes to fish. An aquarium can be a nice piece of home decor, but I've always thought of the fish themselves as either food or bait.

Reptiles? Again, the kids had them a'plenty when they were younger. For the most part, these also escaped their cages and ate the rodents who hadn't already died on their own. And, as is the case with fish, I just don't have much to say to the average iguana.

So I'm pet-less. Or nearly so.

There is one other "life-form" sharing my apartment. She's living in the shower, up in one high corner, above the shower-head. She was there when I moved in and I haven't had the heart to evict her.

Charlotte (of course I named her Charlotte) is a fairly large spider, about the size of a silver dollar. She's pale yellow with no clear markings I can see. Based on the number of insect corpses in her neat, little web, she shares my love of murdering flies and mosquitoes; another good reason to leave her right where she is.

And like I said, I need a pet. Granted, Charlotte may not be as cuddly as a puppy or kitten, she may not be as colorful as a Gouldian finch, she may not produce a lilting canary chirrup, but she doesn't take up much room, I don't have to feed her, and she's completely cool with me being gone most weekends.

In that desert island movie, Tom Hanks spent years with no company but a soccer ball named Wilson and he got by. For now, at least, Charlotte will have to be enough for me.

Mike Taylor's book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available in paperback from mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or in eBook format from Amazon.com. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@staffordmediasolutions.com.

mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions
(616) 548-8273