Red Bear

It was a hot summer afternoon, in the late eighties, on the outside of a small country town. My brother and I were visiting my grandparents for the week. On this day my grandmother, two cousins( Terry, Cole), my brother and I went inside to "rest our eyes". We all were in the dark living room, with the ceiling fan on high. My brother and male cousin laid on a pallet on the floor, while my grandmother and female cousin sat in the two greem LA-Z-BOY chairs and I laid on the green couch. At this time in our lifes we were full of energy so my grandmother had to use different methods to "rest our eyes" so that she could rest. The most common way for us to settle down and rest our eyes was through bribery. The second way was through telling us a story about her life when she was growing up. On this day we ask her to tell us one of her stories. The story we liked to hear the most was about the Red Bear.

Red Bear

" When I was young, we lived in the country, where your nearest neighboor was miles away. Neighboors would borrow iteams when in need of materials.One day my mother was going to bake a pie when she realized that she did not have enough sugar. She ask me to go our nearest neighboor's house, Sister Ruth, for the remaining sugar. The day was getting on, so I headed for Sister Ruth's house right away. I made it to her house while it was still light and got the sugar for my mother's pies. On my way back to my house, it had become dusk. In front of my path, on four legs, was what I thougth was a big red dog. I patted my knees and whistled for the" dog", to my horror, the "dog" stood on its hind legs, which is when I realized that it was instead, a bear. My stomuch dropped to my knees. I stood froze, thankfully, the red bear walked away, toward a stream near by. As soon as I could will my feet to move, I ran the other way, jumped the fence, and contuine to run the whole way home. When I got to our house, I told my father what happpen to me. Being that there hadn't been bears in our parts in a long time my father thought that what I had seen was a dog. My father and brother got their guns and went to check it out but by the time they went to the spot the bear had already moved on. Because they didn't see the bear for themshelves they didn't believe it was a bear ..untill a couple of months later someone else reported seeing the same bear that I had seen."