Thats just CRAZY enough to be true
tEN wOLVES
You're right XW! But it sounds so much like a lie and nobody ever believes me when I tell it.
Oh do tell.??
DM
OK, DW, here it is. It looses a lot in writing it down 'cause you can't see me talking with my arms, and the mountain twang doesn't come out too good! But I tried my best!
Back in the late 60's and early 70's the bears was thick as thieves in the Great Smokies Nat'l Park. People would stop and gawk at them and even though there were signs up not to feed 'em, they did it anyway. Sometimes in the summer it'd take 4 or 5 hours to drive 25 miles.
There was a fella over in Cherokee, NC on the reservation that had a tame bear and you'd pay your 2 dollars or whatever and you could wrassle 'im. If you stayed in the cage for more than a coupla minutes you'd win a kewpie doll or somethin'. This was back before PETA, Greenpeace, and all the other animal rights activists ruined the fun for everybody.
Me and my good friend Dee Rogers decided we'd go up in the Park and catch a small bear and tame him so we could wrassle with 'im anytime we wanted for free, and we could charge other people for the fun. You know how it is when you're 17, you're 10 feet tall and bulletproof. And besides, there wasn't much goin' on in Canton, NC back then.(Still ain't).
So Dee says "Let's us go over to the butcher shop and get us some fresh calf liver and put it in the trunk of the car and we'll catch us a cub bear 'bout 50 or 60 pounds and then raise him up and have us some fun.". We were driving my Daddys' '52 Mercury. Biggest car I've ever been in. Had a HUGE trunk.
So we get up in the park, and it bein' a weekday in the spring just before school let out for the summer there was'nt nobody around much so we stopped by the side of the road where there was some garbage cans and a few bears around and put that bloody liver in the trunk and then I stood behind the trunk lid while Dee watched for a small bear to take the bait. I could'nt see over on the other side so I was waitin' for Dee to tell me to slam the lid when the bear got in.
Directly, a small cub bear 'bout the size we was lookin' for started toward the car with his nose in the air just a smellin' of that liver, and so I got ready to close the trunk when Dee told me to. 'Long about the time the bear got to the car, another MUCH BIGGER bear comes up and swipes the cub out of the way and climbs in the trunk. Dee was hollerin' for me NOT to close the lid, but in the excitement I closed it anyway and got in behind the wheel and drove off.
Dee kept tellin' me that we had a BIG bear in the trunk but I didn't believe him on account of the bear was bein' so quiet that I just thought he was over-excited. He must have been enjoyin' that liver, 'cause he never gave a growl the whole time we were drivin' back to Canton.
We got to the stoplight in the center of town and had to stop for the red light. We were talkin' and laughin' and wonderin' how we were gonna get the bear out of the trunk. Just then the light turned green but I didn't see it so after a minute the fella behind me laid on his horn. Fellas, I got to tell ya', all H*** broke loose right there in the middle of Canton. That bear commenced to growlin' and poppin' his jaws and makin' the awfullest racket you ever did hear and Me and Dee were scared to death. "I told you he was a biggun!" says Dee, and I couldn't argue this time. That big old Merc was shakin' like she was in a hurrycane! We drove off toward home with the bear makin just the meanest noises and finally that bear somehow got his claws through the back seat and now we were in a pickle! Pap was a part-time deputy sheriff (and a full-time preacher), and he kept a .38 Police Positive Colt in the glove box. "Get the gun outen the glove box Dee, and shoot the D*#@ thing!" says I. Dee grabbed it and unloaded on the bear through the back seat.
Boys, you should have heard the commotion then! But directly the bear gives out a long groan and gives up the ghost.
But the funniest thing was when we pulled up in front of the house. Pap was on the front porch in the rocker and Dee gets out and says, "Mr. Monts, you just ain't gonna believe what happened! A bear crawled in the trunk of your car and we had to SHOOT IT!"
After we hauled the bear out of the car, Pap helped us skin it and put up the meat, sent Dee home, and kicked my tail all over that back forty section. And he had BIG feet!