Diary of A Juvenile Bear - Page 2

February 6th, 2015 - Bear Junction Broadcasting Club (BBC)

 

Mr. Bear School Principal has decided it is high time we become more modern in Bear Junction, and he wants us to have our own radio station. It will be based in the physics laboratory, and we will learn everything about operating a radio station. First thing we did was quarrel about a name for the station. Someone very sensibly suggested Bear Junction Broadcasting Club. This would be abbreviated to BBC, and that of course will not work, because we already use BBC for the Bear Junction Boxcar Club. The boxcar club organizes annual races, which are hugely popular. All Bear-Moved Wagons (or BMWs) can participate, but it is essential that they are not motorized - they have to be BMUMWs - Bear Moved UnMotorized Wagons.

 

Usually the boxcar races take place in the fall, shortly after the official honey hunting season has ended. Before the races there is a contest for Worst Stung Bear, and the winner usually gets a free snake oil treatment, or if he is really bad off he gets sent to Bear Hill University Hospital, where Prof. Ointment, the Scratch Expert who is in charge of the Special Scratch and Sting Unit, gives the winner a free treatment.

 

The races themselves are fun to watch, as there really are no rules, or at least not very many rules. Only two really, come to think of: firstly, every Bear or Team of Bears must finish the race with their own wagon. That rule put a stop to some Bears stealing another team's wagon during the race, and sometimes even winning with a stolen wagon, usually after  destroying their own by crashing into a tree or something. And secondly, no biting each other during the race. Mr. Bear School Principle, who acts as umpire for the race, maintains that we spend enough time fighting as it is, and that the race will be a civilized affair if he is to preside over it. So no biting each other until after the medal ceremony.

 

February 8th, 2015 -  Geography Lesson

 

Had geography class in school today. Learned about countries in South Bearmerica. Like Bearaguay, and Bearlivia. Isn't it amazing where you can find Bears on this planet? Some even climbed the Mount Ebearest. But my favourite place to travel to is Bearbados. Living in North Bearolina is quite good, especially if you live in the Abbearlachians like we do. But sometimes it would be nice to have the beach close by, and I am sure Bearbados has enough beach and sand and sun for me.

 

February 18th, 2015 - Three Bears in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Wasp)

 

It has been quite warm lately, and Beartram and I decided to take a boat trip up the river. We invited Christobear, the bear we made friends with at Growling Practice, to come with us. Mama Bear prepared a big hamper full of food for us, and said she was quite happy to be rid of us for a bit, since Papa Bear had gotten himself hurt crashing with his tricycle on the way to work, and couldn't move about as much as he liked to for another week or so, and needed her attention.

 

When we came to the river we found that the boat had some leaks, and we repaired them with bark and tree gum. The patches didn't look very professional, but we thought the repairs would hold up for the trip, and then we could always do some more repairs before taking another boat trip in the summer. We decided to go upriver, and then go up the first Southern tributary, where there are a few nice pools below some waterfalls, and where we had not been for quite a while. First Beartram took to the oars, he always likes to show off his boating skills, and we made nice progress, even though the river was quite high from some recent rain, and running a bit faster than usual.

 

Shortly after branching off into the Southern tributary the accident occurred. Beartram was still at the oars, I was enjoying the new fresh green all around us, and everything seemed fine. That was when I heard a faint humming noise. I wanted to ask the others if they noticed it, too, but that never happened. The wasp had come close to Beartram's snout, and that set of a chain of events that almost lost us Mama Bear's precious food hamper and all it's contents.

 

Now Beartram's mother says the reason why Beartram is so afraid of wasps is that as a small cub, after eating some raspberries, he was stung in the snout by a wasp. His mother faithfully applied snake oil, but that only seemed to make it worse, and poor little Beartram had a sore snout for days, and could not chew properly for a while. Beartram himself, macho bear that he is, denies being afraid of wasps, and says that all wasps are evil creatures and have to be destroyed wherever they are found. What exactly he wanted to do to this particular wasp is still unclear to me.  The wasp, having reached the vicinity of Beartram's snout, and no doubt set on some most nefarious course of action, is probably still alive and well. The only thing Beartram succeeded at when he got up and started beating at the wasp with the oars was to immediately upset the boat, and since everything happened so suddenly I had swallowed a good, healthy dose of river water before I reached the riverbank.

 

Back on the river Beratram hung on to the overturned boat, and Christobear, who is a little older than we are and had been on several boating trips before, saved the situation by going after Mama Bear's food hamper which was floating downstream fast. He shouted to Beartram to go after the oars, which were also floating downstream, and Beartram pulled the boat to the bank and set off downriver. He returned a little later, grinning foolishly, and joined us sitting on the bank and munching on Mama Bear's tasty sandwiches. Which she had very wisely packed in some waterproof fabric, and thus had survived the incident without harm. When we returned home and told Mama Bear that the waterproof packaging had come in very handy, she only replied that she was used to boating trips with Papa Bear, and she would not dream of sending out his son with food that was not packaged absolutely foolproof.

 

We started upstream again a little later, this time with Christobear at the oars, and me having the food hamper within easy reach. We passed the day very pleasantly at the falls, dozing in the spring sunshine in a meadow after we had eaten the rest of Mama Bear's delicious food supply. It was late in the afternoon before we set out downriver, and the journey back home passed uneventfully. The swift river current carried us and we hardly had to do any rowing at all. It was quite dark when we finally arrived at Bear Junction.

 

March 2nd, 2015 - Uncle McBear

 

Next morning I woke up to wild honking in front of our cave. I looked out of my window and saw a huge vehicle parked in the road, and a bear in livery and a chauffeur's cap opening the back door. Out walked Uncle Dagobear McBear, wearing a high hat, and holding a walking stick with a golden knob in his left paw.

 

I made a dash for the door, because when Uncle McBear comes for a visit he always pokes me with his walking stick and asks me if I have made my first billion yet. But in the kitchen Mama Bear put a stop to my escape plans. She said that if I left her alone with Uncle McBear for the day she would be unhappy, and so I went to the front door, where Papa Bear was already greeting our visitor.

 

Mama Bear made her delicious blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and since Uncle McBear never buys himself any decent food because he is so mean, he was very happy to get a decent breakfast. After we had finished eating Uncle McBear was in a good mood, and said that he had a job for me for the summer. I was excited to hear that, because Uncle McBear owns a Bearrari factory in Bearanello, and I had secretly always wanted to work there, and become a test driver. But Uncle McBear had other things for me in mind.

 

He owns a huge honey-storage bin, where he also lives, and it is so valuable that he has guards employed to protect it. All he wanted me to do is to scrub the floors there for the summer. I must have looked very unhappy, because Mama Bear came to my rescue, and said that she was not sure if she could let me go, as Papa Bear is always busy with work for the Council, and I am so very helpful around the cave and in the garden. Uncle McBear just snorted when he heard that, and said that I didn't look as if I were very useful. Mama Bear said that he only wanted to get out of paying me a decent salary for my work, and that no child of hers was to be abused by a miserly old grouch of a bear.

 

This is one of the things I love about Mama Bear, that she knows that Uncle McBear is so rich and can very easily leave all his honey to someone else, but nonetheless she always stands up to him. And the funny thing is that Uncle McBear seems to respect her much more than all the others who always are so polite to him even when he misbehaves, and then say nasty things about him behind his back.

 

Uncle McBear said that since he knew Mama Bear for the belligerent Bear she was he could give me a summer job in his Bearrari factory, and I could scrub the floors there. Mama Bear just kept looking at him, and Uncle McBear looked at the floor and I think he felt a little ashamed of himself. He said that I was unqualified and of not much use to him, and that I could either be a guard, or help with the cleaning and repairs during the summer shutdown, but that was it. Mama Bear said that we would talk things over and let him know in a week. I felt very happy to have such a good mother, and also quite confident that Uncle McBear would not get the better of me, and send me home after a month of hard work without any payment at all, as he had done with other relatives before.

 

March 15th, 2015 - Black Eyed Bears

 

I came home with a black eye today. That's the bad news. The good news is that cousin Beartram could hardly limp home at all.

 

It all started out quite friendly. Beartram and I want to open an amusement park for bears. I have to admit it was Beartram's idea, really. But since he cannot build all the rides and booths on his own he wants me to become his partner. So we talked it over and everything went fine until we had to decide on a name for the park. Beartram wants it named Beartram & Berni Bear Amusement Park. But I said I am the older one and my name should come first. Beartram said that that didn't matter because he was the stronger one. I said "Bet you are not!" and that's when we started to fight. Beartram hit me with this mean left punch he has and this is how I got my black eye. And then I got so mad that I wrestled him down and bit him in his left leg really hard. Beartram started to howl with pain, and when I left off he got up and limped away, cursing.

 

When I got back to our cave Mama Bear looked at me and said that it was a shame, Papa Bear was so good and hardly ever got into fights, and she didn't understand why I always had to get involved in some brawl with that brute of a cousin. Then she cleaned my eye, and put me to bed with a nice, cool pack of ice for my eye. I fell asleep right away, and only woke up when Mama Bear called my down for dinner. She looked at me and shook her head, and said that it would be interesting to see what Papa Bear would have to say to my black eye.

 

Well, she didn't have to wait long for that, because Papa Bear walked into the cave right that minute, and guess what, he also had a black eye! Mama Bear sighed, and went to get some soap and water. She cleaned Papa Bear's eye, and put some ice on it, too. Then she started sniffing, and Papa Bear said that there was no need to sniff, he knew he stank, because he had met with an accident when building one of the new Bear Pooh power plants: he had slipped and fallen into one of the big containers full of bear pooh. Once he had crawled out of the mess and was on his way home to get himself cleaned up, he had met Beartram's father in the street, who had asked him where he had gotten his interesting new perfume. So those two started to fight, and this is how Papa Bear came to have his black eye. "But," said Papa Bear, " I gave him something to remember, too, because I bit him in his left leg, and he could hardly limp home!"

 

March 16th, 2015 - BB Bear Amusement Park

 

Next morning when we were at the breakfast table, Beartram came in with his mother, and he limped to where my mother sat at the table and gave her a nice bunch of wildflowers, and apologized for having behaved so badly. I said that I was sorry I had bitten him, and Beartram's mother said that her husband also wanted to apologize, but that he had had a hard time getting out of bed this morning, and had trouble walking, because his leg hurt so. Papa Bear took the hint, and said he would drop by later, and would take a bottle of some special honey wine which Beartram's father is fond of. Then he got up and said that he had to go to work, and wished us all a good day, and gave Mama Bear a kiss on the cheek before he left.

 

Our mothers sat down and chatted about what was new in our caves, and Bertram sat down beside me, and grinned, and said that the good thing was that he was now very sure that we would not have to hire guards for the park. We could perfectly well handle all the breaking up of fights and throwing out of unruly park visitors ourselves. This is one of the things I really like about Beartram, he never holds a grudge.

 

So I grinned, too, and said that now that we had resolved the name question we could start discussing which attraction to build first. Beartram said that he was not aware that we had settled the name question yet. But I replied that yes, we had, because the night before Mama Bear had very wisely suggested BB Bear, and that sounded like a very good name for our park to me. Beartram seemed to like the idea, so we pondered on our options for the first ride we are going to build.

 

Beartram's first suggestion was to build a Giant Bearris Wheel. But I said that knowing how much Bears love practical jokes we would probably find the wheel flat on the ground about every other morning when we opened the park, and that having to put it up again three times a week would be a bother, what with all the cleaning and maintenance work we would have to do anyway. So we both thought some more, and I suggested a Bear-A-Chute, which we could build like a water slide, but very sturdy to support even heavy bears coming down the chute at full speed. We would have to either build a pool at the end of the chute, or put a sand pit there, so that the landing would be soft.

 

March 20th, 2015 - Bear-A-Gliding

 

Beartram and I are still thinking about what attractions we can offer in our park, and I  have a new favorite: Bear-a-Gliding! Beartram likes the idea, because it sounds fun, and where we want to build the park there is a huge rock with a steep cliff on one side, and we could start from up there. Down below there is lots of brush and shrubs, and not much where you could hurt yourself in case of a crash landing.

 

We ordered a Bear-a-Glider kit at our local Do-It-Bearself store, and yesterday we could pick up the kit. It was not very hard to assemble the glider, and today in the afternoon we carried it to the top of the cliff. This was easier than we thought, because there is a paw path up the rock on the backside of it, and the glider is quite light. After looking down the cliff we looked at each other, and agreed that it was a bit higher than we both had thought from looking at it from down below. Next we had to decide who was to go first, and we were probably close to another fight. But I remembered my black eye, and I think Beartram thought of the scar on his leg, and so we decided to draw sticks rather than fight.

 

Beartram won, and he immediately grabbed the handle bar of the glider and took off. I think he would have done better to read the instructions first, because I had read them and knew that flying the thing was not as easy as it looked. I shouted instructions after him, but Beartram dangled from the handle bar with one paw, and paddled with his feet, and that looked so funny that I started to laugh. I heard Beartram shout something that sounded like "Just wait, you idiot, you are next!", but I already raced down the paw path, wanting to be down in the shrubs in time to see Beartram land.

 

Considering Beartram's piloting skills he stayed in the air for a surprisingly long time. This has to do with the way the glider is balanced, according to the instructions,  "to allow even inexperienced Bears maximum air enjoyment". Beartram's "maximum air enjoyment" ended somewhat abruptly, when he tried to swing back on top of the handle bar and the whole thing took a nose dive. It turned out we had picked the landing spot wisely, with all the soft bushes and grass cushioning Beartram's fall, and he just rolled over, got up and made me a bow. I applauded and said that the audience had certainly enjoyed the show, and that it was good to see all passengers alive and well.

 

Bertram grinned at me, and said that he would not mind if I briefed him on those instructions I had kindly mentioned. So while we carried the glider up the paw path again I told Beartram about the foot-launch, and the control bar from which he had been dangling. When we were up on top of the rock he grinned again, and said that it was time for Mr. Smart Bear to demonstrate his piloting skills in practice.

 

But I did not let him goad me into doing anything stupid, and I took a couple of practice steps to get a feel for how the actual launch would be. And when I took off, oh wow, are there words to describe it!? I admit that I was scared, and at first I thought that Beartram's technique of just taking off and then hanging on for dear life does have some merit, because when you are up there nicely gliding along and have time to actually look down you can get awfully scared. But once I got the hang of it - oh - the wonder of it all. I could see the river in the distance, and a few cave entrances at Bear Junction, and the building site of the new Bear Pooh power plant, where Papa Bear goes each morning, hoping to avoid another accident.

 

The landing was actually somewhat anti-climatic, yes, I did stumble over some shrub and fall on my snout, but I got up quick enough and made Beartram a bow, and Beartram, good sport that he is, applauded, and said that altogether he thought my flight a pretty decent performance for a new Bear-a-Glider pilot.

 

We carried the glider, which had lived up to its being advertised as "super-sturdy" and "absolutely Bear-proof" and had remained undamaged, back to our cave, where we stored it in the back of Papa Bear's tricycle garage. Mama Bear called us in for dinner, and while munching away on some of here delicious potato tarts we decided to get another glider soon, and to make Bear-a-gliding the first attraction to open at our BB Bear Amusement Park.