Bottle Rockets and Bears

OK, like any red-blooded American boy, I keep a stash of fireworks, and today that paid off pretty well. First let me start off by explaining, we keep our garbage can in the garage with the door always closed. Although we don’t see them very often, bears do wander our neighborhood, and their favorite past-time is overturning garbage cans. If bears held the Olympic Games, the events would revolve around lifting up, flipping over or prying open trash receptacles.

Today, I planned to do some touch-up paint work on the back of the house. I opened up the garage and found the paint can I wanted and stirred the paint a bit and grabbed a paint brush. As I walked around to the back of my house, I heard this huge crash emanating from the garage. I thought the ladder that I had propped up near the door had fallen over, which would be bad thing since it most likely would’ve landed on my car. What I found was worse, much worse.

I walked out to the edge of our deck where I can see down into the garage, and the ladder hadn’t fallen but instead a black bear had overturned our rolling garbage can and was nosing through the contents. I shouted and clapped my hands, which by the way is what you’re supposed to do to startle a bear. The bear looked up at me, gave me a look of disdain as if to say, “You pale-skinned hairless fool, what are you going to do about it?”

The bear, however, was ignorant of my fireworks arsenal so I ran around to a cabinet where I keep a stash of bottle rockets for such bear incursions. I grabbed a bundle of them, the finest of course Black Cat, which rarely ever have a dud. I found a lighter and considered myself ready for a bear hunt.

By the time, I ran back around the house and peered down from the safety of the deck, which is about 10 feet above the driveway, the bear had pulled some of the garbage to the edge of the garage and was preparing for a feast. I lit a rocket and lobbed it at the bear like a small hand grenade. It hit the pavement and skipped into the garage. The ensuing explosion reverberated out and the bear beat a hasty retreat. I decided to harass the bear further and circled around the back of the house and as I came around to the front, I lobbed another rocket, which forced the bear to retreat back toward the driveway.

 I walked cautiously around the corner of the house and there the bear stood maybe 10 feet away. He was good sized boar maybe weighing in at 300 lbs. I shouted and he retreated, but he stopped after about 30 feet and began to stare me down—not a good thing because he wasn’t giving ground—which is the first sign he’s thinking of charging.

 Of course, I had no intention of letting him turn the tables on me, so I lit another rocket and tossed it. It flew wide by a good 15 feet, but the rocket's report panicked the bear, and he bolted for the safety of the woods. I threw another for good measure ... ka-boom! And he disappeared into the forest, gone—hopefully for good. Bears are smart and have excellent memories, they usually don't like to return to places that have caused them some consternation in the past. Here’s hoping this bear learned his lesson.