I just finished this illustration. It makes me smile and reminds me of my new son-in-law, Byron, who tells this camping story of when he was a Boy Scout.
The story goes that late one night he and other scouts at the camp decided to go fishing. They loaded their gear by moonlight and headed towards the lake. The camaraderie and fishing both went well that evening. As soon as they caught a fish, they would take it off the hook and toss it over their shoulders to a growing pile of fish behind them. After a few hours of fishing in the dark, they felt confident their catch was sufficient to enjoy a hearty breakfast when morning arrived. But when they turned around to gather their haul, to their surprise, they discovered the last couple of hours had been spent feeding a bear! The bear reluctantly went back into the woods with a full tummy and the scouts only had fish scraps and bones to show for their efforts.
Byron is a really good story-teller and he endeared himself to our family with this one, probably because we have some “camping” stories of our own and because the outcome could have turned out so different. We were all happy he went unscathed to retell it.
After we were done laughing, we asked him how he really felt at the time. “Fortunate that we caught enough fish to keep the bear occupied!” He continues, “I do remember laughing at the irony of the situation. It was against the rules to go out by ourselves after sunset, being 14-16 year olds, but we wanted to be macho Boy Scouts and show that we could fish without supervision. The more fish we caught, the more victorious we felt; only to be undone by the bear we were feeding. I guess I found it ironic that in trying to prove our independence, we lost our “trophies” on top of endangering our lives.”
Byron went on to be an Eagle Scout. I have a feeling many of the characteristics required to accomplish this were gained that evening.
Life is full of lessons and sometimes you have to feed a few bears to learn them.
Smiles,
Wendy