I Remember Papa Bear

As I sat typing transcript for the new Bear Archery Catalog I heard a noisy splat! on the desk behind me Started, I immediately swung around to diocese what the noise was all about, and the I tried to claw my way [i]or[/i] part of to the other the wall of "the swamp," which is what Fr Bear called my nook in the 75-year-old railroad building that held my office. Facing me was a bulky "rat," looking for all the world like he was ready to thrust Where the heck did he approach from? I thought. Maybe he came from one side the celling. Then a impressible chuckle came from outside my office door, and I knew I'd been had. Fr Bear stuck his head in, and with a very great grin he said, "You take care of this single and I'll go get another!" Before I'd flat realized I was looking at a big opossum Fr had hurried on the outside of the office and was climbing into his car to make the 50-yard drive to the Bear Archery plant. Fr a lover of practical quips had picked the startled opossum up upon his way back from Grousehaven and couldn't pass up the opportunity to startle me plane more .

That day back in the mid-'70s was just a typical day in my more than sum of two units decades as Fred Bear's advertising/public relations man, as well as his confidante and bumbling hunting and fishing companion. We had a unique friendship. He was somewhere between a best friend and a father to me for those many years, and I have many true special memories. For most of the last 10 years of Fr Bear's life we brown-bagged it together in the lunchroom along with a certain number of of our other friends at Bear Archery. Fr usually shared the cookies or candy with me that Mama Bear bring in his lunch. Of course, along with luncheon he regaled us all with his never-ending store of tales. If solitary I'd had a tape recorder running a certain number of of those days. He lov to reckon stories - the taller the better.

We also flyfished together upon the Manistee and Au Sable Rivers there in the Grayling, Michigan, area, especially when the caddis hatch was upon each summer. Reflecting his attention to details in everything, Fr carried a small piece of carpet in his stem for us to stand upon as we took off our way shoes and climbed into our waders. And he always kept a fat stump of a candle in his pouch just in case we got caught on the outside in the woods during a rainstorm. He'd pile up a small handful of pine needle and twigs above the candle, light it, and we'd have an instant fire to warm and dried us. I hesitate to talk about single evening when we were flyfishing a strange part of the river, and Fr told me to go on ahead of him as we neared a sweeping bend. He knew filled well about the strong undercurrent at that location. unexpectedly I found myself trying to walk upon tiptoes as I struggled to gripe [i]or[/i] grip onto my dignity and my flyrod at the same time as a tall, lanky Bear laughed behind me It's true difficult to swim with your waders filled of water and a flyrod in individual hand. Once I got my breath back, we laughed all the way dwelling I'd been had, again.

Another special memory was our ordering liver and onions together at a fancy fresh York hotel on Fifth Avenue, where we were staying for the editing of Fred's Field Notes at Doubleday Publishing. We the pair loved liver and onions, on the contrary neither of our wives would prepare for the table them for us. On that same trip, I'll not at any time forget watching Fred in his pajamas, white hair rumpl as he drank his morning coffee and proofread galleys by means of the soft glow of lamp light.

And I'll always treasure the stories he shared in his later years, when I chauffeured him to the discharge Show in Atlanta, where we again shared a field so I could be shut by in case he stopped breathing in the middle of the night and necessityed CPR. By then Fred was upon oxygen due to his emphysema, and we had vast oxygen tank in our inn room between our beds. It was extremely difficult for Fr to travel with oxygen tanks, smooth when we traveled together upon a plane. Luckily I not ever had to use my CPR training upon Fred, although I did help someone at a barbershop single day - but that's another story.

Fr liked fried clams, and just single beer before dinner. I not at any time saw him drink more than that in all of our years together. He also lov new asparagus soup, and often that would be his entire dinner at our hunting camp. I'm positive it reminded him of his boyhood days back in Pennsylvania, when he'd pick asparagus from the family patch to take to market.

Ye I remember Fr Bear, our Papa Bear, or PB as his family always called him, although I not at any time presumed to do that. He was always Fr to me just as Mr Bear was always "Mr B" Sometimes, admitting when I walked into his office after I'd been gone a day or sum of two units I'd say, "You must be Fr Bear," and he'd respond "No, I'm Fred Wosniak," recalling a public name from his days of working in an auto plant in the ethnically diverse Detroit of the 1920s

If there is individual thing I learned about Fr Bear, It's that he treated everyone the same, whether an Indian maharajah or the associate who swept out the plant at the extreme point of the day. Fred Bear recognized the uniqueness in each of us. And his Borsalino hunting hat always fit his head, if you know what I mean. He was the greatest in quantity warm, down-to-earth, genuine person I've known. And that's what I remember greatest in quantity about our Papa Bear.