Today’s The Daily Post prompt was “Tell us a joke! Knock-knock joke, long story with a unexpected punchline, great zinger — all jokes are welcome!”
I’m horrible at telling jokes but I do have a couple of cute bear stories. I thought of writing this post because Judy over at lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown wrote a post called This Bear Walks into a Bar in Alaska. Anyhow in her post Judy gave you the punch line and you can come up with the joke. Check out her post and have some fun.
Most of you know that I used to live at Forest Service Ranger Station in Northern Minnesota on the shore of Lake Superior in a little town called Tofte. The town today only 250 residents. Anyhow, here are my real life bear stories.
Story one
I had just turned six years old. My family had just moved to Tofte and we knew there were bears but we had no idea how much to be concerned about them.
My mother was making Thanksgiving dinner and all of a sudden we heard a knock on the door. My dad opened the door and there was a black bear standing at the door. Both Dad and bear were startled and my dad quickly slammed the door shut. I ran to the window and the bear just paced around the house trying to find a way in. He never did. Guess the bear wanted one last meal before hibernation.
Needless to say from that point on we always looked who was at the door when we heard a knock.
Story Two
Once again in Tofte but this time it was summer. One of our favorite things to do was go to the local trash dump and watch the bear scrounge around looking for food. It was our little towns claim to fame. People would drive from all around to watch the bear. Every time we took our trash to the dump, we had to have two people. One to keep an eye out for bear and the other to through our trash into the dump. If a bear came, the trash can stayed at the dump we just left.
Anyhow on this particular night, my father, the Forest Ranger, noticed a guy outside his vehicle with a two year old child on his shoulders walking over to bear with a bag of marshmallows. My dad jumped out the car so fast and told that guy to throw the bag of marshmallows at the bear and get back inside his car.
Fortunately the “city slicker” (that’s what we called people like him) followed directions and did get back into his car. Even one little friendly swipe of a bears paw would cause lots of damage to a person especially a little toddler.
NOTE: Photos were all found on the web.
Qi (energy) hugs
Cee
Loved them!
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Thanks Roger.
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These are really amazing true stories, Cee! I think opening the door to a bear must be absolutely terrifying. The guy with the marshmallows was obviously very naive. 😯
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You would be surprised how naive people can get. I’m sure in some way we all are. 🙂
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Cool stories. We grew up on opposite sides of the state. I lived in Crookston. We had no bears, no forests, no lakes. 🙂 I envy you your bears.
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Thanks Marie. Bears are cool to watch. 🙂
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Cute!!
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Thanks. 🙂
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Haha bear sneaking at the door!
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Thanks 🙂
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Oops…saw them at the dump!!!
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I already fixed it for you 🙂
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One of my biggest fears in life is bears. I did see them at the dump in Ashland, Oregon, though–from a good distance. I loved your stories. Better than any old joke any old day…Thanks for responding. Judy
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You got me going on this one. Bears don’t scare me….I just respect them and give them what they want LOL
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Interesting stories, Cee. I wonder if we can still see bears in Tofte. 😉
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Bears yes, I’m sure you can still see them. Although the dump, I can’t locate it on google maps. Who knows if it is still even there. It could have been moved elsewhere. That is nearly 50 (yikes) years ago.
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Knock, knock.
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Who’s there 🙂 🙂
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Bear. 😉
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Great stories, Cee. 🙂
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Thanks Linda 🙂
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Loved the stories, Cee. 🙂
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Thanks 🙂
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Love the bear story, Cee! 🙂
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Thanks Amy.
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What a fabulous shot! Great stuff!
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thanks for commenting 🙂
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Photos on this post were found on the web.
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still love it!
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🙂
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Oh, I love your bear stories, Cee! 🙂
Tofte sounds so familiar. My family name is Tofteberg and there is a place Tofte as well as Tofteberg in our county in Norway. Small world! 🙂
Best regards, Dina
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We had a lot of Norwegians in our area, maybe you are related to them. 🙂
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Who knows, sounds like a lot of fun, trying to find out. 😊
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I did NOT know your father was a Forest Ranger! That’s so cool. My brother wanted to be a forest ranger, but it never quite happened for him. Pity, because it would have made him happy. Great bear story. When we were traveling through Georgia, we saw a lot of people standing around feeding peaches to the bears. I thought they were stupid. Bears are strong, even the small black bears are a lot stronger than a person. But the bears really loved those peaches and it was the end of the season, so they were going to be thrown away if the bears didn’t get to eat them. So all’s well that ends well, I guess.
I love bears. I also respect them enough to keep my distance!
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Two things about bears, don’t get between them and their cubs or food. 🙂 Thanks Marilyn for commenting.
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lol! To be fair in the first one, the bear did ask nicely at first 😂
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I guess it wasn’t too polite to slam the door in his face then. 🙂
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Eh there’s always next time, just be sure he remembers to introduce himself first 😆
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This cracks me up, it’s like a reverse Goldilocks of the great north!
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I never thought of that. 🙂 Thanks 🙂
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The polar bear is what I’d call a ‘cold caller’.
I think if I opened the door to a bear, or even saw one out of the window, I’d be very worried and think I was dreaming. On the one side I’m envious, on the other I’m pretty glad we don’t have to deal with such surprises!
(Although I’ve no experience of bears, I definitely would not behave as your ‘city slicker did!)
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The stories I have to tell about bears and people….. Fortunately bears are just as afraid of people to loud noises and moving quickly usually holds at bay until you are safe. 🙂
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So screams of terror will suffice then!
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yep…. did you know that moose can chase people too!
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– I’ve heard of people spreading it on each other but it chase people too! 🙂
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