[Critique Group 1] pieces due and Leonard's submission

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

Word count:  1425words 


 


Hi Group 1,


 


This is to remind you that Wednesday our submissions are due. Mine is below. This is basically thesame story that most likely has already got a publisher.  The one below is very different in itsrendition and is slated to be a submission in a contest. 

------


 


 Visits from OurNeighborhood Bear.

          By

    Leonard Tuchyner 


 


This was really a big black bear.  It was two in the morning, and Diane, my wife,was looking him in the eye as he stood looking back at her. Our sliding glassdoor was between them. He was on our porch, and she was in the livingroom.  In order to reach the porch, thisbruin had to climb two flights of stairs which started at ground level in ourback yard. 


 


I became aware that there was something amiss when one ofour two dogs woke me up with his furious and incessant barking. I could tellDiane was going to wait me out, so I dragged myself out of bed and stumbleddown to the living room which is one story down from the bed room area.  There is a settee at one wall, which isusually occupied by one of our two dogs. Chloe was sitting there with no apparent intention to move. The otherdog, Barney, is smaller. He was at the sliding glass door shaking, barking,growling and jumping like a pogo stick. 


 


I turned on the porch lights, which I can do from the livingroom. This was a futile effort on my part, because I am legally blind, andcouldn’t see anything out there.   Itried to console Barny, but to no avail. So I climbed the stairs again to ourbedroom. I decided to ignore Diane’s act about being asleep.  She would have had to be in a coma to besleeping through the conniptions Barney was going through.


 


“I can’t make him stop,” I said. “There’s something outthere that has obviously caught his interest. I looked, but I can’t see anything. I think you need to take a look.”


 


She grumbled and said a few things I’d rather notrepeat.  Optimistically, I crawled intobed as she schlepped her way downstairs.


 


The next thing I heard was, “Oh my God! It’s a bear. He’s asbig as I am.”


 


That got me awake.  Mysecond trip down the stairs went much faster than my first trip. By that time,my wife was standing a respectable five feet from the glass door. Chloe was byher side, and Barney continued to act like a deranged monkey on a pogo stickright up against the glass.


 


“A bear?” I asked.


 


Diane told me the story. “When I got down here, Chloe wentwith me to the door. The bear was only two feet from me, and going after thebird feeders. Everything is on the ground. It’s a mess. But when Chloe came, hewent halfway back down the stairs.”


 


“Where is he now?”


 


“He was on the first landing.  But I don’t see him anymore.”


 


I approached the sliding glass door, and pressed my nose againstit. I still couldn’t see anything. Someday, I’m going to consult a psychiatristto understand why I look into dark spaces in which I already know I am blindto. 


 


“He’s not there,” I said, despite the fact that there was noreason for her to trust there actually was no one there just because I saidthere wasn’t. 


 


I went back to the corner of the living room where I kept mySamurai sword. That’s right, I keep one there just in case.  I unsheathed it and went back to the door.


 


“What are you doing?” she demanded.


 


“Don’t worry. I’m just going to make some noise so hedoesn’t come back.”


 


“Are you crazy?”


 


“Don’t worry,” I said and was out the door before she couldsay anything else. 


 


Stepping out on the porch, I made sounds to rival those ofmy little dog, brandished the sword and beat it against the porch railing. 


 


“There, that should show him,” I said.


 


Diane said something about what impression I had made on theneighbors in those wee hours of the morning, but I chose not to hear that. Nevertheless,she felt safe enough to go outside and examine the damage Mr. Bear haddone.  Both bird feeders were on the ground,but undamaged.  The metal arms that heldthem up and that were attached to the house were bent out of shape, and the suetcage was stolen. Later we found it on the second landing, where it had beendemolished.


 


Barney continued to bark until sunrise, but I locked him inthe basement so I could get some sleep.  Inthe morning he made a beeline to his doggie door to check out the bear smells.


 



 


That morning, I straightened out the hangers and put thefeeders back in their proper places.  Ourblack bear had apparently foraged throughout the neighborhood the night of his visitto our porch. Garbage cans were overturned and their contents scattered. Myimmediate neighbor, who has a tall fence, had his gate torn off itshinges.  They’ve decided not to feed thebirds anymore. That’s a shame.  


 


My little neck of the world at LakeSaponi in Barboursbville, Virginiahas always had bears, and they have always raided the garbage. But it was tooearly in May to expect that they would be coming out of hibernation. Well, Iguess that’s global warming for you.  Forsome reason, they have never come into my back yard, let alone climb up twostories to our porch bird feeding station. I didn’t think he would be back, because he didn’t get anything of valuefrom us except for the suet. But I was wrong.


 


Two weeks later, he honored our porch with another visit.  However, this time one feeder was completelydestroyed.  Apparently, I hadn’t reallyscared him all that much. We replaced our feeder, and since then, we bring thefeeders indoors every night. That seems to have solved the problem. Nevertheless,I’m pretty sure he has been in our yard at night, gauging from Barney’sbehavior. Diane and I have never felt any anger towards the bear. Neither doesmy neighbor. After all, they were here before we were, and there isn’t anyplacefor them to go.


 


Our neighborhood, like so many neighborhoods, is beingoverrun by asphalt and buildings. There is little natural foraging potentialfor a bear. We were concerned that he might be starving and thought relocationmight be a good idea for him. So we called the local sheriff’s office, hopingthey could lead us to the proper facilities for that sort of thing. Thesheriff, who was very helpful, told us that the game warden didn’t have the powerto help us out; however, he recommended we call the Wildlife Conflict ResolutionHotline. I had no idea that there was such an agency.


 


“We get these calls all the time,” the woman at the agencyinformed us. “We don’t relocate bears any more.”


 


“Why not?” Diane asked.


 


“Because it never works out. There’s already a population ofbears in any location we could consider bringing him to. The indigenous bearsare adapted to their own territory. Oftentimes, a bear who lives close topeople has diseases that the existing population isn’t naturally immunizedagainst.  It goes the other way around aswell.  It’s the same for beavers.”


 


“Oh. I didn’t know that. We have beavers in our neighborhoodalso.” Diane said.


 


“I wouldn’t worry about your bear starving. That doesn’tusually happen. Bears are very resourceful, you know. You might be surprisedhow many neighborhoods have their own resident bear. Sometimes I think that a neighborhoodthat does not have one is the exception to the rule. All kinds of wildlife livein urban areas. Coyotes live in large cities. They do very nicely there.”


 


“Can you make any suggestions of how to live with one thatgoes after your bird feeders?”


 


The agent gave us several ideas, but nothing we reallydidn’t already know. All in all, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she congratulatedus on having a mascot bear.


 


As for myself, I see having wild ife adapting to human habitat a hopefulthing.  If we make it impossible for wildlifeto survive, we will be unable to survive ourselves. I’m firmly convinced aboutthat. 

Having a bear around to liven things up is not a bad thing.  Nevertheless, I hope no one needs to be remindedthat they are not pets and under certain circumstances can be deadly. So enjoyyour local bear, if you have one. Just don’t be too friendly. Like mostanimals, they need their comfort space, as do you. You know that, right?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bluegrasspals.com/pipermail/group1/attachments/20190520/661491a6/attachment-0001.html>