This Ostrom Classic column tells the story of 'Chris' and the bear

Another classic column from G. George Ostrom. This one is from May 17, 1968...

Just for the heck of it, let’s call the hero of this story Chris.

I know Chris but haven’t seen him but a couple of times since I was in the fourth grade up at Hog Heaven. Chris is now a businessman in a small western Montana city and his story was told to me last Sunday by a fellow passin’ through the Kalispell airport, where pilots and would-be pilots often gather to tell tall tales.

Now, back to the story… seems Chris and his wife were driving home one night last fall in a pickup when a big, fat black bear chased a domestic cat out onto the highway.

The head banging contest that occurred immediately thereafter sent the poor bear to the “big den in the sky” and it didn’t help the pickup too much either. The cat escaped into the weeds.

The bear’s carcass landed in the middle of the road behind the truck, so Chris backed up and stopped close to the bear. He soon figured out that bruin was dead and was far too big for one man to roll into the ditch by himself, so he apparently decided to tie a rope on the bear’s leg and drag it off the highway.

That idea would probably have worked except, somehow, Chris’s wife had a little trouble with the clutch when he told her to back up and, instead of easing back a foot or two, the truck gave a mighty lurch and ended up right on top of the bear with both rear wheels in the air.

For one reason or another, Chris failed to appreciate the great fun possibilities of being “stuck on a bear” in the middle of a lonely highway at night, and he proceeded to raise hail Columbia with his wife for not backing up easier. Like most wives, she didn’t take too kindly to her husband’s remarks about her driving ability, so she got out and started telling Chris a thing or two.

There they were… the pickup high and dry on top of the bear, Chris and his wife jumping up and down in the middle of the road and no solution to the problem in sight… and remember, it was a very dark night. All we need now is the ingenious twist of fate.

The cat that the bear had chased onto the highway in the first place had, by this time, decided her former tormentor was no longer a threat, so she had sneaked back to the scene. To show her gratitude, she quietly and affectionately rubbed against Chris’s wife’s bare leg. That was a bad thing to do. Mrs. Chris instantly knew the bear had come back to life and had reached out from under the truck and grabbed her. She let out a screech and took off up the road like a wild mustang mare on loco weed.

Exit wife, and exit cat again, leaving Chris, the bear and the pickup still on the scene.

I promise, the next time I am down Thompson Falls way, I’m certainly going in to Stobie’s Market and ask Chris to tell me the ending to this story so I can pass it along to you good folks, and if he still has the same wife, I’ll try to get her version, too.