SMOKEY'S LESSON

SMOKEY'S LESSON
By James Fox

One dark night the skills of several trained scoutmasters were challenged by a wayward bear at a scout camp. I was one of those trained leaders.

I seemed to be perpetually on the parents' committee so, I was often drafted to go along as one of the adult leaders. Eventually, I was cajoled into accepting scoutmaster training, meaning I’d be responsible for our troop’s week at summer camp. During the years our sons were in a Boy Scout troop, our family calendars had a week each summer devoted to Summer Camp in the mountains.

Our scout troop parents' committee usually selected BSA Camp Wolfeboro, a rustic camp in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The main reason was the boys wouldn't be limited to mess hall food. We'd sign up for the campsite that had an old rock chimney and grill. It also had a large dry goods storage locker, raised four feet off the ground, and several heavy-duty cedar picnic tables near the fire ring.

At the campsite the boys would spend the week cooking their own meals, which we discovered was a magnet for camp counselors tired of the mess hall fare. But we also feared cooking meals outdoors might become attractive for bears that occasionally wandered into camp. However, the troop's previous scoutmaster had added an extra rinse bucket to the Boy Scout dish washing system which established a clean camp regimen that usually kept the site bear-free. That is, until late one night.

That summer, through a fluke, we three adult leaders going to camp with the troop were named “Jim”. The scouts quickly remedied that with nicknames. Jim Davis became Jimbo and I became Foxman. However, through logic that is understood only by the adolescent mind, Jim Schwartzenberger stayed "Schwartzenberger" or occasionally "Schwartz-B."

Schwartz-B had a wry sense of humor and an unusual skill that intrigued the scouts. At any time, he would string a hammock between two trees, ease into the netting and doze off within five minutes. To the delight of the scouts within another five minutes he would be snoring louder than a freight train!

One evening the perfect campfire built by "Jimbo" Davis had dwindled to glowing embers, Jim Schwartz-B's snores had died down and the scouts had run out of jokes, stories and ghost tales. One by one everyone had drifted off to their tent, until I was the only one left to douse the campfire and turn out the lantern. I shook the hammock to wake up Jim Schwartz-B so he wouldn't be left to the mosquitoes and morning frost.

I began stirring the dead campfire with an iron rake, looking for hot spots, and Schwartz-B made one final round of the campsite before heading for his tent. This night, he discovered that the kitchen crew had forgotten to take the ice chest back across the river to the bear-proof storage of the main camp. "We will have to bear-bag this," he suggested as he strung a rope high off the ground between two trees.

Through training and experience we had learned that a clean campsite needed to have all edibles removed, or “Bear-Bagged,” which is to be put into a pack or container strung high out of reach. A nighttime campsite free from any available food usually encourages any curious bears to keep on trudging down the path looking for a site with easier pickings.

Jim Schwartz-B began to slack off the rope until it sagged in the middle enough for me to load in the ice-chest. I double-looped the rope around the ice-chest to form a sling, then knotted it tightly. Jim Schwartz-B began to tug on the end of the line trailing down from the nearest tree in order to hoist the bundle up out of reach. The task was harder than we thought due to the weight of the full ice-chest.

I dragged over one of the log-ends a scout had used as a fireside chair. Balancing on this improvised stool, I used the iron rake I'd been stirring the fire with to push upwards on the ice-chest. Schwartz-B heaved on the rope to draw it taut. As the bundle inched higher and higher, I stepped down from the log and used the rake to tug at the chest to see if we had hoisted the food securely out of a bear's reach. The chest swung to and fro, but didn't slip from its rope cradle.

Just as soon as Jim Schwartz-B tied off the end of the rope, he suddenly froze in place. Cocking his head to stare past me he quietly said, "Turn slowly and look what's at the table." I turned and peered into the darkness where just beyond the light from the lantern I saw a bear. A very large bear.

Without us hearing it, the bear had crept into the campsite and had gotten as close as the end of the picnic table where it sat back on its haunches watching us at work. Like a dog waiting for its master, the bear had leaned forward to rest its muzzle on the tabletop where lantern light glinted off its black nose and dark eyes as it curiously watched us at our task.

With dark brown fur and its tan muzzle, the bear was a living replica of the US Forestry's famous Smokey Bear. When I pointed out this similarity, Schwartz-B reacted with alarm. "Smokey?" He gasped, "Oh no, oh no, what have you done?" I was confused. "What," I asked, "What's wrong?"

The twinkle in Schwartz-B's eyes told me I'd just been spoofed! He laughed, just before tossing a tin can that sent the bear scurrying away, "You know that Smokey can already handle a shovel - but now, you've taught him how to use a rake!"

Originally published fnasr in The Front Porch Periodical, 2005