Camp Story Corrections and Additions - Aug 8, '01

Well, the critics are starting to crawl out of the woodwork over my Camp Stories, as well they should. Daryl was/is disappointed by the lack of substantial damage and general lack of carnage; Susan has several important additions as indicated below.  And lastly, my boss told one on his wife.

Susan's
"Now that I can speak from experience having survived a bear encounter, I 
might add, claw marks no matter how small, get ones attention when they are 
only feet away from what is being pawed! I imagine it does not take much 
effort to rip through a tent. A couple of corrections to Roger's account of 
our bear encounter. Sue sat up quickly and knew immediately there was a bear 
rummaging in the trash, but did not want to believe it! Mike being the brave 
manly man he is, jumped up, unzipped the tent, with only a flashlight in 
hand and his tighty whities to protect him, he identified the unwanted 
visitor, made eye contact with it, it immediately ran off into the forest; 
so like any good male, Mike proceeded to mark his territory and come back to bed! 

Once back inside the tent and much "relieved", he of course was thinking that
getting back to dream land sounded good to him! I was prepared to make his 
sleep a nightmare. So we packed up and headed home! Lesson learned. Bears 
are interested in trash. Trash does attract bears. Corona bottles are better 
than car alarms. And bears are big enough to reach on top of a vehicle and 
get to trash! We have been camping since our recent adventure. We are not 
bringing tasty camp dishes that make a lot of yummy leftovers but instead 
eating ramen. Oh and another fact about bears, they don't like guacamole! 
Happy Camping!" 
Susan

From my boss:
My boss has a cabin in southern Colorado and each year he and his wife spend a month up there, veg'in' and fishin'. While sitting around with a group of the local citizenry one evening, one of their neighbors told his story about recently watching a bear forging down at the park's trash dumpster, at the end of the boss's lane. The bear climbed onto the dumpster and proceeded to jump up and down until one of the lids collapsed, dropping him down among the goodies. The trash and junk went flying as he tossed out the undesirables while looking for the targeted morsels.

A few nights later, the boss's wife carried the garbage down to the dumpster, all the while thinking about the bear story she had recently heard from the neighbor. It was dusk, the light was bad, and when she opened the dumpster to dispose of the day's garbage, all she could see was a pair of beady eyes staring up at her. According to the boss, in some undetermined sequence she dropped the dumpster lid, tossed most of her garbage into the air, peed her pants and ran all the way home - setting a new age and gender World Record Time for the distance of their lane. The beady eyes belonged to a trouble-some raccoon of course - but it is a large raccoon!