Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Grizzly Scene

We’re driving in the badTV RV, on a dirt road 30 miles away from any city, deep in the burned woods of Montana, when I yell to Seanie, "Look, there’s a Grizzly running right in front of the jeep ahead of us!” The jeep never slowed down, and thankfully misses the intrepid bear. Then, the grizzly stops because we stopped, and he or she looks directly at us for one brief moment, but a moment burned in my mind's eye. By the time I grabbed my cameras he was meandering away like predators normally do, nonchalantly, at a 45 degree angle, never spilling a pheromone of fear, and never showing his whole back -- until the bear is at a safe distance. Sean told me he wanted to get out of the truck "and go a few hundred yards" to get better pix of the bear. I don't think ultimatums should be part of one’s vocabulary, but in this instance I felt one was necessary: I told Sean that if he got out of the badmobile, and if he managed to get back in after chasing a 1,000+ pound Grizzly or visa versa, that I’d have him drive me to the nearest airport to get on the next plane home immediately. Sometimes too much testosterone needs to be smothered by a large dose of good old motherly oxytocin.

No comments: