Bear slapping . . .

Francisco going deer hunting brought back memories of another time and place when my friends and I would go deer slapping. This is a game where one hides in the woods along a deer path. And we didn’t have to hide for long. Right about the time of the Louisiana Purchase, there were deer everywhere. So we waited behind trees quiet as church mice, after having powdered ourselves with buffalo dung to hide the human smell. When a deer came by, we slapped it. Simple as that, but let me tell you, hard to do. Eventually we got so good at it there wasn’t a deer within a ten mile circle we hadn’t slapped at least twice. Which kind of explains why our friend RV, sort of the leader of our group, decided we should try something more exciting. For that, he came up with bear slapping. And if you think that’s only one notch up from deer slapping, you’d be wrong. Bear slapping is several notches upstairs from deer slapping. I guess we were just looking for excitement, and we found it. Also, we would have kept at it, except for one hitch. Problem with bear slapping is usually the bear slaps back. Now, I don’t know if you guys have ever had the pleasure of being dope slapped by a bear, but let me tell you, even a tiny slap amounts to a powerful hurt. Bottom line, there’s lots of running involved, which kind of takes the fun out of the game; probably the reason it never caught on.

One time, we slapped a big black bear and he turned, growled mean-like and was after us. We were running fast but not near as fast as RV, whose idea it was in the first place—he was inspired. Anyway, he headed for a berry patch, thinking to distract the bear, I’m sure, but this bear could focus, and he focused on us. Downhill through the berry patch we went lickety-split, the bear right on our tails so that before we knew it, we cut right through the campsite of a war party of Flatheads. We were surprised, but going too fast to stop. They were surprised: first with us, then when they saw the bear. And here they came, right behind us. We couldn’t tell if they were coming for our scalps or trying to outdistance the bear, same as us, but either way, there was a lot of running involved. These days, there’s not as many bears or for that matter, many flatheads, and for fun, we meet at el Chap on Saturday’s. There’s the big “B”, of course, who’s almost as bad as a Flathead, but . . .

mt