Skip to main content

Reply for Friday Wannaskan Almanac, August 17, 2018 by WannaskaWriter

"Pssst! Davy! Davy! Hey stoopid!" the bear said from behind the bush. "Com' ere runt dog!"

The bear had known Davy since he was 'wet behind the ears', for as a baby Davy had rolled down a steep hill and into the bear's den, uninvited. Seeing the potential trouble the little lad could be to the bear should he make a quick snack of him, the bear propped him up against a tree in the North Carolina/Tennessee forest so his excitable folks could find him, but before he left he said to the precocious humanoid,

"You owe me, bub. Let's stay in touch."

Crawling off one day, Davy discovered Bear napping, as they do in the middle of the day. Thumping his big friend on the nose, Bear opened one eye, seein' exactly who he thought he'd been smelling for days on end, thinkin' 'Geesus man, don't they ever wash that kid?'

"So what do you want, Stinky?" the bear said, holding the 3 year old at arm's length using an ash branch. "You're always showin' up 'bout the time I'm settlin' down for a good snooze."

"I need to kill me a bear to go with a ballad about me that I know someone's going to write someday and make me famous," said Davy, quite able to communicate with Bears by the age of three, the precocious lad he was.

"Hmmmm," said Bear, with his eyes closed. "I know a few idiots that need killin', when do you need 'em?"

"Caint wait," said Davy. "Gotta kill 'im when I am only three."

"How old you now, kid?" asked Bear. "You smell ripe."

"Three, today," said Davy, smellin' himself under his armpits and makin' a face.
"Words are "Kilt him a bar when he was only three, Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier."

"Whoa, dude!" said Bear, his eyes fully open. "Someone else writin' this here 'ballad' or are you? ""Kilt him a bar?" Who talks like that?"

"Well, I don't really have to kill a bear," said Davy. "After all, ballads are just fairy tales set to music, really. I thought maybe we could work out some sort of deal in which we both benefit from my stardom. I remember that you didn't eat me when you easily could have, just like now I'd be a quick snack, so I owe you big time. You want in on this or not? Likely there'll be other opportunities, but this is a pressing problem for now."

"Well, I could fake falling dead," said the bear, scratching his belly. "Done 'er mor than once. We could stage something over here above my den. How do you kill it?"

"Doesn't say," says Davy. "Only know that little bit of the proposed lyrics--it came to me in a dream. Some musician named George Bruns, working with some guy named Thomas W. Burns, I guess, is going to write it 166 years into the future. I'm probably off my rocker. I did take a nasty fall off that mountain top, you know. Strange that George and Thomas's last names have the same letters, only in different places...."

"Reckon someone'll have to witness it, so's they can say they seen it with their own eyes," said Bear, lookin' for the best place to stand along the top of the hill above his den. "You know anyone you kin trust?"

"Just my bestest friend, 'Orange', our old yellow mongrel dog," brightened Davy. "He ain't much for talkin', but he can rite 'is name and count to ten! The neighbors had a dog named "Yeller, so's I named 'im, Orange. I laugh my britches off when folks hereabouts ask me why didn't I name the l'il cuss, 'Yeller.' Then I tells 'em, "The neighbors named their dog, 'Yeller' first, so if I named my dog 'Yeller', there'd be two dogs within earshot named the same thing. Their dog is a croctchety mean bitey dog who likes to gnaw on people 'e don't know, like yerse'f. I can call 'im, so's you can see what I mean." The man about panicked, don't you think he didn't, shook like a popple leaf in a stiff wind. And I said,"Orange you glad I dint name 'im 'Yeller?'"

"Uh, Davy," Bear said patiently. "We need a human, not no yeller bastard hound dog who kin count to ten. Geesus man, you haven't been hangin' down at the Nolichucky River rapids, have you? I always thought you had more sense than that."

"Well, there's Ma, I reckon," said Davy. "I'd hate to be lyin' to her, not lettin' her in on our joke. She'd tan my hide fast, if'n she'd see you weren't kilt. More'n likely, she'd kill you herse'f. Don't think she likes bears much."

"Good grief, David," said Bear. "You go git yur ma and I'll show myself ..."

"Not that way you l'il pervert!" shouted Bear, indignantly, reacting to Davy's obscene gesture at Bear's statement. "I'll step out so she can see that I'm a bear ... and you run at me with a sharp stick to protect her, feign a stab with it into my chest, and I'll dump my old carcass over the cliff here--then go back to sleep for the winter. Your ma won't tell me apart from any other bear. Deal?"

"Deal, said Davy. "See you in the spring."

Comments

Chairman Joe said…
So that explains it.
Thank you
Explain!? Heck, no. If the "bar" could actually speak, bear hunters would be dumb-struck enough not to kill them, three years old, or not. Call me a bar lover, not a bar fly. CS

Popular posts from this blog

A Memorial to Jerry Solom August 24, 1945 -- July 23, 2019 No. 2

               Jerry Solom, August 24, 1945 -- July 23, 2019 This is a random image memorial post about my late friend, who died a year ago. I wrote a memoir/tribute to him in the Wannaskan Almanac on July 23, 2020. Here's the link to that: http://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2020/07/thursday-july-23-2020.html Me and Jerry with Marion in background in Stonington, Maine in 2015 prior to setting sail to Hull, MA. This is an excerpt from the story  "A Louisiana Ruse" by Steven G. Reynolds Published in 2000 in THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History & Humor Journal      This describes the end of a 43-hour bus ride we took from Fargo, North Dakota to Slidell, Louisiana, where Jerry's boat was in dock prior to his voyage to Norway in 2000. I was there as part of the maintenance crew, accompanying Jerry, his son Terry Solom of Minneapolis, and their fr...

August 6th, 2020 Tired of Writing

                    Comment on Parental Rights 1869-1940     I finished the second installment of my grandfathers biography I wrote in the Wannaskan Almanac for today, late yesterday evening. http://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2020/08/thursday-august-6th-2020-parental.html       I had worked on it for a good day, by Wednesday, including a few hours on Tuesday too, and in my waning energy for it decided just to wrap it up, rather than keep slogging through dozens of transcribed interviews, page after page, searching for some item that would fit my story, chronologically. In truth, I wanted to be writing something fun.     It wasn't like I wasn't interested in what I was mired in; I enjoy a good slog once in awhile myself, but my dilemma was how do I keep it interesting to others and not get bogged down? I could've just copied pages ...

1972 An August Adventure: Stormy Lake, Snake Bay, Ontario

My 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser   A life changing event. I've had asthma all my life and it limited me somewhat until 1972, when after an event on a remote Canadian lake I was rushed to Dryden Area Hospital for emergency treatment of a pneumothorax /lung collapse. Early one morning, my dad and I left Des Moines, Iowa on 1530 mile round trip fishing expedition to Stormy Lake, Ontario; stopping in Roseau, Minnesota to join six family members: My uncle  Martin and aunt Irene Davidson of Roseau, their son Jack Davidson and his 8-yr old son, Jeffrey, of Thief River Falls, Minnesota, and Jack's older brother Dean Davidson, and his 11-yr old son, Larry, of Clive, Iowa in addition to their two two vehicles, one with a boat atop it. We were pulling a one-wheeled trailer behind my brand new 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser to handle extra gear. Leaving Roseau as the last vehicle in the three car caravan, we headed off toward the...