Excerpts From The Life Of A Logging Camp Kid

[image credit, Pixabay]

Episode Seven: Tale From The Backside

As a teenager I operated on the assumption that adults never listened to a thing that I had to say. Well, that's not completely true, if the words coming from my mouth had to do with a task that I was performing for an adult; they were all ears. I'm an elder-kind now, with spawn of my own, and age has brought a touch of perspective. Sometimes, when you are trying to simultaneously pay the bills, apply a bandage to a grievous paper cut wound, and ponder how you are going to get that stupid bovine that is staring in the dining room window back into his pen; the last thing that you want to hear is some existential question from a young person. That said, I tend to listen, no matter what, when my kids pop in the house and say something like:

“Hey Mom, I think there is a cougar in the barn yard!”

There is a reason for an asterisk being placed on the big, child-exclamation part of my cortex. It has to do with bears. I'm elated that Steemians appear to like my bear posts, for I have no shortage of them. Bears and my family have an interesting history together. Most of the Ursus that I had the pleasure to be around had never been exposed to human beings before. They also had an endless food supply, thus their behavior was probably different than most of their kind. I have been chased by bears, snapped at by bears, and among other things, I once rudely smacked a bear in the butt. This was by accident of course.

All of the home guards[1] in our logging camp lived in single wide trailers. As my dad was the Bullbuck,[2] we had a wannigan[3] attached to our trailer. This long built-on porch was a perfect place for our chest freezer and barbecue. It's construction probably wouldn't garner any architectural awards, as it was basically a rough cut wood rectangle. The black plastic sheeting lining the inside was a nice touch because squirrels lived in between the sheeting and the wood. It was so much fun to pet the squirrels through the plastic, their screeches in protest still crack me up when I pause to reflect on them. We were bored a lot.

Dad had just finished barbecuing something, and the unspoken rule at every house in camp was close whatever door you enter or exit, or you might have a visitor. I had just put my plate in the sink when Dad ordered;

“Sis! Go close the wannigan door, I think I left it open.”

Obedient child that I was, I walked to the front door and flung it open. In doing so, I launched that bit of vinyl and aluminum right into the derriere of a black bear. I suppose if someone smacked me in the caboose with something as ugly as a single wide trailer door, I would turn and snap at them too. Not that I reflected on that particular notion in that moment. The handle was quickly snatched and I slammed the door shut.

“There's a bear out there!” I screeched.

“Quit messing around and go shut the wannigan door.” Dad replied in a bored tone. Not only did he refuse to believe me, but he didn't even look away from the TV.

“Knock it off Katie!” my brother glared at me, “Your interrupting the Price is Right”

“I'M NOT LYING!” I bellowed in return.

Mom looked at me then. She saw the agitated, shocked state that I was in and said,

“I don't think she is joking, Ron, you better go look.”

Grumbling under his breath about what form of punishment he was going to mete out for making him remove his carcass from the couch. Dad goosestepped over to the front door, twelve gauge in hand, and flung it open. He stepped outside, and I kept waiting to hear either the shotgun discharge or the soundtrack to “Bear mauls man over lack of charred meat in vicinity.”

“Come on out here.” he called.

I was the last on the porch, worried that maybe the bear would hold a grudge and was waiting for the one that goosed him to appear. As I peered around the threshold, all that greeted my eyes were big, wet bear prints all over the porch. Upon closer inspection we found teeth marks in our chest freezer, but never had I been more thankful for the ever-present rain. The elation that surged through me in that moment still warms the cockles of my cold adult heart to this day.

“I TOLD you so!” I shouted in triumph.

The moral of this particular tale is when I hear someone utter something that is large and dramatic in scope, especially if it is a young person, I try to pause for a moment and reflect on the bearing of whomever is delivering the news. It's never fun to be disbelieved or not taken seriously just because you happen to be a child, teenager, or irritating individual that no one really cares to listen too. Life tends to weigh us down with all it's minutia, but there might be that one time that you smack the proverbial bear in the butt and need to be taken seriously.

The Price Is Right, dirs. Paul Alter and Max Miller. Prod. Mark Goodson. CBS. ARCS.

[1] The poor, desolate souls that inhabited the camp in family groups.
[2] The Bullbuck is the head timber faller. The manager of all those that fell trees.
[3] Alaska style home edition. They tend to multiply, are usually made out of rough cut lumber milled by your buddy in trade for a case of beer and some vacuum sealed smoke salmon.

Relevant Side Note: I have made it my personal mission to find our old pictures to post for you all. Because everyone should see bears popping basketballs and jumping on a trampoline.

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