Grandma and the Bear

Still going thru my computer and cd's to organize.. I ran in to this.. I know this story well, of course because I wrote it :) but can't remember the reason. Obviously for a niece or nephew.

Grandma Foreman loved to pick blackberries and bake with them. Grandma was about 4 foot 10 inches tall and probably didn’t weigh 90 pounds but she was very feisty and energetic! On one particular summer afternoon Grandma got her little pail and took her two trusted companions with her. One was named Flicka and one was named Bonnie. They were two little dogs that did not know they were little.

Grandma hiked to the very back of the 80 acres where the enormous blackberry patch was located. She was just picking away in her own little world with the dogs close at her heals, when all of a sudden she heard a grunting sound. Then she heard the rustling of the berry patch from the other side. Not knowing what it was and being the curious little woman she was, she parted the berry patch with her hands and arms and looked directly into the face of a Black Bear!!!!!

Grandma threw up her hands dropping her little pail of blackberries, bent over and scooped up the two little dogs under each armpit and high tailed it home. I would say that on that day my Grandmother easily broke the 2-minute mile!

When she arrived home she was huffing and puffing and white as a sheet and could not stop telling us what had happened. She sat down with a cup of tea to collect herself and then she got angry!! I mean really angry! Before any of us could stop her Grandma was hiking back across the 80 acres through the deep woods until she came upon the Blackberry Bush.

The Blackberry Bush was completely torn apart but what made grandma the maddest was that the bear had even eaten the berries from her pail and hand thrown it down!

Now none of us ever saw another bear in those woods, but Grandma’s story has lived with me for over 50 years! And I have no doubt that it happened exactly as she said it did.

Aunt Sharon