Fall makes me nostalgic, that’s my only excuse for what follows.

Tales from Home all come from my past. I reserve the right to exaggerate, alter, or fabricate details. Home isn’t Lake Wobegon and this ain’t its News. My goal is to share, to entertain, maybe to inspire, but never to harm, so please email me if a detail grows so wildly inaccurate that it harms.

Other than that, here is a tale from home… as retold by my psychedelic, mythologizing memory.

Bubba VS. The Bear

Returned home a few weeks back to marry my brother. Well not to marry my brother, that’s illegal. I did the wedding ceremony.

The week prior, however, I drove home for the bachelor party, which was hosted at the bride’s house. By the bride’s dad. Who stands six-feet, giant-inches off the ground. Whose name also happens to be Bubba, like Deano Bubba. Who’s probably the smilingest man I’ve ever met, enough to invent the word smilingest.

Anyways, Bubba told a story at his soon-to-be-son-in-law’s bachelor party. I shared this same story at the wedding and wanted to share here. See, Bubba and this little fella went up to Canada to hunt bear. I’ve been reading through Hemingway’s short stories, so I’m a bit more emotionally tethered to this idea than normal. I’m also reminded of the film The Edge, which features a billionaire who turns cerebral knowledge from his books into a visceral “I’m gonna kill the bear” fight to survive.

Bubba and this little fella went fishing one afternoon and caught a huge number of fish. Having cut off the meat, they took the skin and guts and scraps and bones to the dump. As they’re throwing them away, they hear this grunt, this huffing, this snort.

As you can guess, a giant Canadian grizzly’s digging through the trash ahead of them. He’s probably twenty yards away.

Bubba pulls out his massive bowie-knife, bends his knees like an outfielder ready to play catch.

“Bubba?” the little guy asks, “You think you can take that bear?”

“Nope,” Bubba said, “I’mo stab you in the leg.”