Truth is funnier than fiction, too

By Dave Madill

This happened a few years back while I was hauling shanties up to Alaska but has to be one of the highlights of my illustrious career. I had a nice little single axle Ford Louisville with a screaming 318, and one of those through-the-window coffin sleepers on it. Well, we hooked up a shack in Calgary and were headed for Alaska and I had a young lady, Cindy, driving pilot car for me. She had a Ford crew cab with a bed where the back seat used to be and a tow bar on the front so we could team drive coming home. First two days were fine; summer weather, good roads, light traffic and a pleasant voice at the other end of the CB, shooting the breeze and trucking right along.

Day Three found us around Squanga Lake and I was getting a little tired, so we found a nice little pull-out and I fired up the BBQ on the back deck of the truck. We had ourselves a little picnic right there on the side of the road. I mentioned to Cindy that I hoped her friends Yogi and Booboo didn't show up to spoil things and steal our picnic basket (cooler), and she mentioned that they would probably go after me as I had a little more meat on my bones than she did. Anyway, we had our meal and I wedged the cooler into a safe spot up on the deck, folded up the BBQ and secured it, and we crawled into our respective beds.

Summer up there is nice and warm, so I stripped down to my underwear after I crawled in the bunk and snuggled down for a little rest. About four hours later I was awakened by my truck rocking back and forth as if it were a boat in a stormy sea. Now those old coffin sleepers are small and it’s impossible to put your clothes on when you are being tossed around, so I piled out into the driver’s seat in just my skivvies. What the heck is going on ----- there’s no wind, as the trees aren’t moving ??!??? I looked in my left mirror and I can see nothing, then I looked in my right mirror and all I can see is about a seven-foot-tall Grizzly Bear trying to dislodge my BBQ and cooler. All he’s doing is wedging them in better and rocking my truck. Right about that time he decided that he needed to get closer to whatever it was up there and he hopped up on the truck.

 Now all I can think of is, ‘Yogi is back there and that sleeper is made out of real thin aluminum sheeting and I am edible,’ so I reached for the key and fired up that jimmy, hoping the noise would scare Mr. Bear back into the bushes to go hunt berries or something. I don't know his reasoning behind it, but this caused him to stand up and put his paws on top of the sleeper. I heard the thump of him hitting the sleeper and I grabbed a gear. Now Cindy had been parked about fifty feet in front of me and she heard the truck start and looked out the window to see me leaving with a bear standing on the deck of my truck looking over the sleeper.

We hit the road and he must have been jostled because he thumped on the sleeper again. I grabbed another gear. He thumped again and I grabbed one more. Just about the time I hit thirteenth gear, who do I meet but a RCMP headed in the other direction. Now I’m northbound with no pilot car, no lights, a bear on board and, as far as the cop can tell, I am naked. Smoky hit the brakes, the siren and the lights and was after me in a shot and I ain't stopping.

What are my options here ---- stop for the bear in uniform and have the bear in fur eat me, or hammer down to keep the furry bear busy and maybe have the uniform bear shoot me ????!???!?? Talk about your rock and a hard place; I'm between the stomach or the morgue, and sweat is rolling off me like rain off a steel roof. Right about then I remembered I was only about three or four miles from Jake’s Corner at MM 836, so I put the hammer down. Cindy, meanwhile, had gotten dressed and was now behind the RCMP car who was right behind me.

Our little convoy hit Jakes at a high rate of speed and I swung around as fast as I could, hammered the brakes and stopped about three feet from the door. I piled out the driver’s door and inside Jake’s so fast that the door hinges are still smoking. The uniformed bear pulled up alongside my truck just in time to see his furry counterpart depart with my cooler and run for the woods. Meanwhile, I have my shoulder against the inside of the door trying to get the door to lock while a waitress, seven tourists and a few of my fellow shanty shakers are looking at my sweat-soaked, trembling, almost nude body and laughing their heads off.

Thirty minutes later, I have made it back to the truck for my clothes and am sitting drinking a coffee as Mr. RCMP is listing how many laws I have broken and just how much all this is going to cost me, while he is rolling on the floor laughing his head off as he describes “the chase of his life.” Well, I was too shaken to drive so I wasn't going anywhere and had to sit and take all the abuse; but you know what, the waitress said she would let me run into her room any time. At least this happened a few years ago before everybody was carrying around camera phones.

Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes he eats you, but in this case we both got away --- but he did steal my cooler.

Dave Madill is an award-winning poet and great writer who also drove a truck for ‘more years than he cares to admit.’ He lived through a lot of stories while he drove, and wrote many of them into verse. Find his three (so far) published books at Truckers’ Bookstore,  http://astore.amazon.com/truckebookst-20?node=1&page=1