Re: [gardeners] bears???

penny x stamm (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:20:32 -0500 

Well, Ann, roads just north of here have moose crossings.
I've never seen a real moose, not even in a zoo......

The nearest thing we've come to big game concerns my young
grandson. After a year of college, he packed up everything he owned
and headed south for Spartanberg, South Carolina. Got a job right
away with an automobile body repair shop because he already had
a few years' experience, and rented a house for himself and his gal
friend about 10 miles north of town. 

This boy had an appetite for buying up wrecks -- and parts of wrecks --
which threatened to put him in the poorhouse. Every car was going to 
get repaired and sold for a million dollars.....  By the time we got down
there to visit, the yard was littered with wannabees.  And in between
there were precious (rusted) frames and doors and metal parts.
In fact, we shared a bedroom with a roof and two fenders from a
Ford -- thank Heavens we didn't need to get up in the night!

Behind the house stood a 3-part barn, and up the side of the barn was
an ancient grape vine growing. Concords. Unpruned, unfertilized, 
unwatered, and prolific.  Greg's house was in the midst of great
peach orchards, so when he found the grapes he felt that now he
was a farmer, too... especially when he knocked over the hornet's
nest.

He was particularly proud of a bright red Cutlass he had worked
on  which had needed a driver's door replaced -- the engine ran well,  
the body work was admirable, and the paint job was great. He would 
be able to put it up for sale the following week!

That Sunday he was putting up huge wooden doors to close off
the barn so he could put in a paint shed.  He sawed, and he
hammered, and he struggled with the sheer bulk of a door, and
WHAMMO!  The hammer hit his thumb full force. Nobody home, 
there was nothing to do but climb in that beautiful red Cutlass
and head down to the emergency room in town with a towel 
around his hand....  Now country roads don't really have speed
limits, but he says he was just making tracks when out of the 
trees on his left came a cannonball -- hit the left front fender and
the new door so hard that the deer was killed instantly. Most
unbelievably, Greg kept control of the car, and came to a stop.
He tried to move the poor thing off the road, but with only one 
usable hand, it was impossible.  So he drove on to the police
station,  reported the accident, and from there he finally got
to the hospital...

Nothing bothered him quite as much as the heart-breaking thought
that he had put all that work into the new door on the Cutlass, 
and on its maiden voyage, it was destroyed ....

It is now two years later, and Greg has joined the volunteer
firemen -- the alarm goes off at 2:00 in the morning, and he
jumps out of bed all excited, grabs his pants and shirt and shoes,
and careens out the door.  Never mind the speed he's travelling,
all Grandma can think of is the deer in his headlights, and will
he walk away from the next one...?

Penny, NY

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