The Mother, The Daughter, and The Bear



Each year my family would pack up the car and head for Yosemite National Park
for 4th of July celebrations. I was not a stranger to camping and in fact looked forward
to "roughing it". My father would call ahead and reserve for us a tent like cabin located
next to the flowing river where we would often delight in the singing of birds, the sun
kissed tree tops and lazy days.

One night, with dishes done and food packed out of the way to avoid loosing it to the
bears, my mother, my father and myself were getting ready for peaceful nights sleep.
There were bunk beds on one side of the cabin for me to choose upper or lower and
there was a double bed on the other side of the cabin for my parents.

My dad was first in bed and my mother and I were standing in the space in the middle of
the tent when we heard the loud vicious roar of a bear that we didn't question was right
outside the flaps of our tent.

Now I don't recall previous to this event either my mother or myself being particularly athletic, but for some reason we both at the same time with one giant leap born
of the truest fear, leapt to the top bunk where we shared our delusion of safety.
It seemed a most logical solution to this danger and neither one of us was willing
to give it up or consider an alternative action.

Well the bear had long gone, but the ravings of fear lingered with us through
out the night hours. Each would try to convince the other that it was safe and one of
us could leave the top bunk, and dad even tried to end our folly with pointing out to us
that if the bear came in we would be at the level closest to his mouth but still our minds
remained immune the logic.

So there we stayed, mother and I sharing our fear and finally falling asleep from the
exhaustion of it. Bears often come and go in the camp grounds and we'd seen them
many times, but what was a night of over reaction in it's purest form quickly turned into
stories of how we survived the bear with our quick thinking and finely tuned physical skills.
You see, we gals have to stick together.