Might've Been A Thursday like April 21st.

He Barely Got Away From This Bear

"So in one spin he twirled around and kicked the bear right in the nose with the heel of his boot."

    My uncle, Martin Davidson (1900-1975), formerly of Palmville, was about 70 years old, and working for his nephew, the late Milton Davidson of Newfolden, in the water well drilling business. He was taking a short cut home when he saw several cars parked along the road ahead not far from his place. This looked unusual to him, so he stopped and walked up to some men, looking out into the field across the ditch, standing by their vehicles. 

    He knew several of the men and asked them what was going on. It seems that someone had shot and wounded a big bear and it had run into the small grove adjacent to the field. There were hunters standing post at the far corners of the woods and a couple of men were in the woods trying to drive the bear out. You really need to be careful with a wounded bear!  

    Well, Martin stood around and talked to the men for awhile, but finally decided to just head on home as he was sure they would find the bear. So, he started walking back to his car at the back of the line. Almost there, he heard the men shouting. He looked and saw the bear cutting across the field toward another woods on the other side.  

    The hunter on the far post couldn’t shoot, because the bear was between him and the line of cars and men on the road.  “Oh, man,” Martin thought. “If the bear gets to that bigger woods, they’ll have a hard time getting him.”

    Martin knew if you wound an animal badly, it’s your responsibility to finish it and not let it suffer to die a slow death. However, this bear, the way he was running, didn’t look so critically wounded as he looked just damn MAD!!!

    Martin never explained why he acted so spontaneously the way he did, but he decided to try head-off the bear in another direction so the hunter on post could get a shot at him. He crossed the ditch and ran out into the field toward the bear, waving his arms and yelling to send him in another direction. But NO! The bear turned and came straight for him. It didn’t take Martin long to realize the bear wasn’t going to stop, so he had to turn and run for the road.  

    Now, remember Martin was 70 years old when this happened. I doubted he’d been running too many foot races in his later years, but he tried zig-zagging, and changing direction, thinking the bear would head off somewhere else; but no, it followed him every turn, and was definitely gaining on him.  

    Do you know how fast a bear can run???  Especially a real mad one??  By this time the other hunters had come out of the woods after hearing all the commotion, but they still couldn’t shoot, because the bear was so close to Martin who was running for his life.  

    Martin could hear the bear panting right at his heels. He realized he had to do something drastic, so in one spin he twirled around and kicked the bear right in the nose with the heel of his boot. 

    Stunned, the bear turned, and loped off to an area in the field where the hunters were able to shoot and kill it. Nobody had a cellphone or video camera in those days of course, but the family has heard the account several times from some of the men who witnessed the whole episode and were helpless to do anything but watch. 

    Might've happened on a Thursday ...

Co-written by Wannaskawriter and Jan Strandlie, 2022.