That griz and me

                                                              
                                                   That Bear and Me    


I've always loved those later fall days at the ranch.  The days are getting shorter, and I know what's to come.  There will be snow, lots of it, cold temperatures, and by December, most likely temps well below zero.  It wasn't but just a few years ago, I think in December of 2013, and maybe that was December 7th, the thermometer outside our kitchen window showed -41below.  Well, that was then, and on this early October Saturday afternoon, it is plumb flat gorgeous.  It must be in the low 70's, the sun is out, and even though the sun is considerably lower in the sky than it is in July, that round ball of yellow fire is still warming our part of the country.  I feel good and it's time to do some work. In this case, begin to winterize the cabins, turn the water off to them, the barn, the automatic waterers, and then pump the water out of each one individually.  I start the process at the cabin closest to the barn, the Lewis and Clark cottage, probably twenty five to thirty yards from the barn.  And at this point in time I'm not thinking about bears, in case you're wondering.  We haven't seen a bear on the property the entire year.  It ain't like the old days back in the eighties and nineties, bears, grizzlies everywhere, I kid you not. 

                                          Sow griz with three cubs (two out of sight)

So there I am, moving in and out of the Lewis and Clark cabin, turning valves off, pumping air into the system, blowing water out, stepping back out to get tools.  And then halfway through that process, I happen to look inside the entrance to the barn and there's our large grain bin, laying on its side, hard against the rear gate directly adjacent to the corral.  It isn't supposed to be there.  I know right away it's a bear, been there many times.  I wander back to the barn entrance and swing the gate open.  There's a bit more mess close by.  The 55 gallon steel garbage can has been turned over, there's paper garbage and empty grain bags on the dirt floor but not much more of a mess.  No worries mate.  Hell, I wasn't even thinking worry, much less thinking bear.  I've seen nothing to sound off any alarm bells and my God, it's the middle of a very sunny day.  I move through the barn, picking up what's been scattered. 

About halfway into the large barn, there's a corner past the tack room and a large open space off to the right.  I reach that corner and naturally, look to the right, and there he is, looking at me.  Holy shit, we're about twenty feet apart. It's a grizzly, and he's half standing, hard up against the wall, and undoubtedly, waiting and wondering what in the hell he's got coming at him.  I see him and he's seeing me.  I make the bear, he's making me, and I swear it may have only been two seconds, and although I'd like to tell you that a whole lot went through my mind real quickly, that wasn't the case.  I do remember recognizing it was a grizzly, immediately, and I do recall seeing long, white claws on what must have been a front foot raised above his body and I believe up against the wall.  Beyond those thoughts however, there weren't any.  And after what must have been just two seconds, perhaps three, but it wasn't any more than that, that son of a bitch made a move, a lunge toward me, hard and fast.

I didn't think, didn't have enough time to think, but perhaps whatever thought process I did have at exactly that moment of truth, passed that message to my body and I moved, and I mean with lightning speed.  I spun on my left leg and ran, sprinted, harder than I have since my college days, towards light, the barn gate, and out.  Believe it or not, and I can actually remember the fleeting thought I had during that flight.  "Man, I feel good, I feel fast, I feel light on my feet."  I had more than a little fear and adrenaline running through my veins and that must have helped.  No pulled hamstrings, no bad knee, and no physical handicap holding me up.  I made it out of the barn.

Daylight, temporary freedom.  My sprint gets me fifteen, twenty yards beyond the barn gate and I am beginning to use some cognition (a fancy word for thought, my counseling education education!).  I've got to look around and see where that bear is 'cause if he's on my ass I'm gonna' have to change my plan.  I haven't thought beyond that but I do slow down and crane my neck around and look back. He's not on my butt, thank God, and so I look harder in the direction of the back barn gate and the corral, and there he is.  He's hit a lope as well, a grand four hundred pound grayish colored griz, probably a male, and he's hauling the mail, wanting no part of me, and I, no part of him.

Remember, I opened this writing feeling pretty good about the day, the time of year, and the beauty of this particularly fine fall day.  Well, I'm here to tell you that I'm feeling even better, as I continue on up toward the lodge, safety, and my beautiful wife.  Life feels real good at the moment.  Hell, I just dodged another bullet.  Oh yeah, I have more than a good idea how that afternoon event could have ended.  That image I have of those long, white claws, classic grizzly features, are still with me.  I know that had that bear been a sow with cubs, or perhaps a grizzly with less shy behavior, or simply a bear that had been even more suddenly confronted, I might have felt those long claws across my back.  I don't think much beyond that scenario.  Ain't worth it.  And besides, I did dodge another bullet.  That's three of them this season. Been cow kicked in the head by a good horse, knocked me down, a first after having shod a couple thousand head of horses in my life.  Got bucked off hard, my head finding the only large rock in an area of soft grass and dirt, and then of course, the bear.  And I'm still hear to tell you about it.  

Vaya con Dios! 

"It's been quite the party."

Wow, in my last writing I wrote about the young lady I had developed a professional relationship with in a therapeutic setting.  I still think about her from time to time and hope she is overcoming some of the social barriers that have inhibited her from being all she wants to be.  Just recently, I've received news of good friends, some temporarily sick, a few terminally ill.  That ain't good.  I mean, these are folks that I've known a long time, through the good times and the not good times.  Good friends stand the test of time, they don't come and go, even when the chips are down.  I talked to a good ole cowboy bud of mine just a while ago.  Me and Harry don't see each other much, maybe once or twice a year.  But when we do, it's a good thing.  I think my world wouldn't be as full if Harry weren't around.  And for the record, he will be.  His go round in the hospital is about over and in any case, he's a stubborn son of a bitch and on the mend.  But I must be thinking about mortality a bit more than normal cause here I am writing about it.

So here I go again, writing about relationships, ones I've known, ones I've lost, and maybe those that are yet to come.  I just got off the message system with an old high school mate, hadn't communicated with him for more than forty some years.  I remember Doug pretty well.  We played football together and I recall him being pretty damned smart.  I think he went to one of them Ivy League colleges and became a physicist.  He  was asking for my comments on the Malheur Wildlife Refuge comedy and we exchanged a few thoughts on the matter.  I gave him my take on the deal and he referred me to a couple pieces that he thought were worth reading.  Now, here I am corresponding with one intelligent fellow and he's asking me stuff?  I told him he'd always had me "out brained" by a large margin.  And you know what?  He told me he'd always enjoyed my writing, my style, and my normally thoughtful prose.  Holy shit!  I kid you not, I was speechless, and flattered.  And most of all, he made my day.  And so, here I am, inspired, writing, on a Saturday afternoon. I think, which is what I'm getting at here is, is that it doesn't take a whole lot to get us going.  We need just a little help, just a little nudge, just a little encouragement, just a little kindness directed our way, to make our day.   I doubt if I'm speaking solely for myself.  We're all pretty similar when you get right down to it.

It's been thirty five years now since we opened the doors at Bear Creek Ranch.  Talk about a journey. My life has been a journey, particularly when it comes to that little ranch and the way it's intersected with me at every curve, corner, and traffic light along the way.  Marriages, children, life, and death, good times, not so good times, but through it all, the one constant, the relationships that I've known and the ones that I haven't but are still to come.  We don't raise cattle at our place, we have raised more than a few horses, but really, what we've raised the most, are relationships with our guests, those that were, those that are, and those that are yet to come.  I've thought on occasion that it would be nice to raise cattle.  Hell, cattle don't talk back, don't take up your time when you've got something else on your mind, a project to complete, an errand to run.  But you know what, I think I've come out on the right end on that one.  I've had a fascination with people, and as I call it, the human condition, for as long as I can remember,  And I still do!

It's been an interesting Saturday morning.  I just got an e-mail from a fellow that worked at the ranch thirty years ago.  Now where the hell did that come from, after all these years.  I'd thought of Mike from time to time, not with total fondness and not without some as well.  I suspect if we'd been the best of friends we'd have never lost track of each other.  But there it is.  I'll be seeing Mike this summer.  He'll be a paying guest, which is one good thing, and we'll undoubtedly share some life, me and him.  And that will pretty interesting.  Did he ever marry the girl he loved so much back in 1988? Did he know of the girl I loved in 1988 and married in 1989?  Does he have children?  Does he know I have children?  Oh boy, and there's more of course.

I've got to fill you in on another fellow, Frankie,  who's been a guest at our ranch for three decades. He's been on hunts, pack trips, cattle drives, and ranch vacations with us.  This past summer, he was here at the ranch twice, once with his wife and grandson, and later on in the fall, with his wife and another neat couple.  Frankie worked for a big outfit in the Midwest for years and not months after retiring after forty years of hard work, was diagnosed with a rather serious form of cancer.  He was sick during his vacation here in July and appeared stronger in the fall.  This winter hasn't been kind to him and I find myself thinking about the fickle and often unfair nature of life.

Changing gears, there's the real good stuff out there as well.  We've had three marriages at the ranch the past couple years and they've all been good stuff.  I mean really good people getting married on just the perfect day, and a helluva good party afterword.  I have a strong feeling that those marriages are all gonna' work.  Hell, one of 'em was mine so there you go.  I think the ranch, at times, has an almost mystic feel to it.  Those weddings had it.  "Into the Mystic."

There's so much more but before I wrap this up I want to tell you about Pat.  Hell, most of you know him.  Pat worked at the place more than thirty years ago, fresh out of high school somewhere on the East Coast.  I'm not sure Pat had even graduated, not that it mattered.  He was young then, just beginning, and stayed with us for a couple years.  But there was something about Pat, even then.  He had a quiet kind of ambition. And when he told me he was going to be building a Mexican Restaurant in his sister's older log home in East Glacier, I thought well, he's in for a rude awakening.  Now remember, that's going back more than a few years.  What the hell did I know?  What the hell did Pat know?  Well, he knew a helluva' bunch more than me!  It wasn't long before he and his wife Renee had that old log building tore down and built up.  And you know the rest of this story.  Serrano's Mexican Restaurant is one of the most successful business's west of the Mississippi River.  Those strawberry daiquiris and blended margaritas go down like none other.  Pat toasted me with his personal stash of fine Tequila on my 60th birthday.  As Augustus McRae, Texas Ranger, said, "it's been quite the party."  And it all started at Bear Creek Ranch.

Me and Cliven Bundy

I was with a student this past fall, in a practicum setting, in an office, at the University of Montana. She was a foreign student, a long way from home in Asia, with a rudimentary knowledge of the English language, very soft spoken, and beyond quiet, both in her spoken word and physical presence.  I spent an hour each week for two months in a therapeutic setting as we attempted to make sense of her loneliness and isolation in a foreign country and culture.  On more than one occasion I saw tears slowly drip down her cheeks, the result of too little communication with the world around her, and an inability to develop new relationships in a strange new world.   I happened to be eating lunch one day in the University Center, having grabbed a chair off by itself, or so I thought, and after having a few words with a colleague, turned my head and not three feet from me, alone as well, was the young lady I just described in the words above.  I'd been sitting there for at least ten minutes and I hadn't seen her specifically nor had I been aware of anyone even in the vicinity.  All that time, and that close proximity, and I hadn't said Hi, nor had she.

After a mildly awkward "Hi, how are you?" I went about my business, continued reading, and wondered how I would make my exit without engaging in conversation, an action that is not recommended in the world of therapeutic counseling.  The rule of thumb is that counselors don't acknowledge clients in the "outside" world, but do so if addressed first.  And regardless, we keep it short and sweet.  After ten minutes or so I made my farewell, quietly, and without what would be for me in other circumstances, a hearty and heartfelt farewell.  I just left.

I just got up and left that poor, lonely, and socially isolated girl, in her chair, with no one else around, and I hadn't said a word to her upon leaving.  I was stuck, just plain stuck, caught between a rock and hard place, stuck between the ethics of the therapeutic environment I have pledged an oath to and my own personal creed of human relationship and kindness.  But I blew it.  I walked out without one word and I left.

There was a next session and  I made it a point, right at the get go, to explain my lack of courtesy to her, and to give to her my sincerest apology.  I should have acknowledged her as I left the lunch room, even if with just a few words.  My actions that previous week should have been exactly what I've always felt a kinship to, and that is acknowledging, developing and maintaining relationships with the people around me.  I haven't always been successful but the effort is important, even if it's awkward, out of place, and in the end, doesn't work. The plain fact of the matter is that the odds are in one's favor with even less than one's best effort.

I've been in the guest ranch business for more than forty years and for the greatest part of that time at Bear Creek Ranch in northern Montana.  One could make the case for the importance of developing close relationships in the very specific guest business I'm in.  That makes alot of sense.  The plain fact of the matter is however, that the development and maintenance of personal relationships is a critical component of almost any association, business, team, or gathering of human beings anywhere.  The nature of the interpersonal relationships of people in any form can be the defining quality that separates failure from success and from misery to happiness.  I've seen it in the flesh on too many occasions as I'm sure you have as well, and I suspect, if the truth were known, we've all been party to the bad end of relationships that with some thought and effort could have been avoided.

That being said, a huge part of the success that I've had at Bear Creek Ranch has been through the growth and maintenance of the relationships that I have been able to nurture over the course of three and a half decades.  I couldn't have made it all these years without many very key friendships that have stood the test of time.   Some come and sadly, some go, but the ones that remain are like battle hardened old war horses.  I am and always will be eternally grateful for those that are.

Ya' know, it's pretty hard to operate in this world, under any circumstances, without some sort of a network of family or friends.  I've seen that better than ever the past few years and I've begun to see the scars that begin to emerge of the psyche of the human soul when one does attempt to navigate the world of the social animal alone, solo.  It rarely works.  I'm grateful for even the modest success I've had and rueful that I've left a few in the dust.  I guess if one is beyond the middle zone on the graph of human sociability then you're rolling ahead of the curve.

So here's to all of you, family and friends, here's to all of us.  Let our days ahead be full of joy and spirit, dignity and faith, and to everyone, the best New Year ever!

Oh yeah, Cliven Bundy fits in somewhere.  I just don't know where!