Spending
20
seconds with Victor the bear
THE VIEW FROM IN HERE
I created a post on Facebook last month, quizzing my friends. I posted five quirky things I had accomplished in life, although one of them was a lie.
The lie? I claimed to have won an apple pie-eating contest. I have been in two, but never prevailed — not by a longshot.
The one “claim to fame” I actually performed that threw most people — I wrestled a bear.
Yep. A real live, furry, non-hibernating black bear.
We were camping during the summer of 1974 at a place called October Hill, a campground in Loudonville, Ohio. Joining me were my brother Rex, a friend Bobby Ziegler, and another friend I can’t place (I’m thinking Jim Wilcox here). My “nerves of steel/patience of Job” mother was our chaperone for the week.
October Hill hosted an interactive weekend (long before “interactive” was a thing). There was pinball competition in the camphouse, shuffleboard under the pavilion, a weighted log in a pond for log-rolling (which was a blast!) ... and there was a ring set up, with one of those red stormfence- looking things securing it.
We thought there were going to be boxing matches. But no-oo- o-o ... early that Saturday morning, up rolls this guy with a freakin’ bear.
Yeh, a bear, about the size of wrestler The Big Show (Google him). The black bear’s name was Victor, and he was famous in the Smoky Mountain-Appalachian area.
Well, he was declawed, wore a muzzle and his trainer/keeper posted signs advertising to “wrestle the bear” that evening.
We strolled over to the open area about 5 or 6 p.m., to find the fence ringed with curious onlookers, laughing at the shenanigans before them in the ring.
We squeezed in enough to see Victor manhandle these two guys, one likely in his late teens, another slightly older, probably 30-ish. Both guys got creamed.
Victor would just engage you, let you try to grab him, then he’d either whisk you aside with a paw, bigger than my head; or he’d lean on you until you fell over, and then sit on you.
We watched another guy enter the ring and get subdued before my eyes jumped out of my skull — my brother Rex was next in line!
Two years younger than me, Rex snuck away from our viewing entourage and made his way into the waiting line (MUCH to my mother’s chagrin) and signed the pile of paper one must sign when planning to wrestle an inhabitant of the wilderness.
So Rex slipped into the ring, stared at the bear and executed his plan — which was to RUN FULL STEAM AHEAD! right at Victor.
But Victor wasn’t having it. He just swung a paw at Rex, using Rex’s forward momentum, swatting him right out of the ring.
Not to be outdone, I went next. As I walked over to sign my release papers, I devised my plan. I was into wrestling at the time, so I decided I was going to front him with one arm, swing around behind him, and try to get both arms around him.
All went according to plan — until I first touched him.
Oops. BIG oops. Victor quickly locked down on my arm with the strength of Hercules and then just pushed and pulled me around like a rag doll (all 125 pounds of me). He knocked me down then proceeded to sit on me.
Over zipped the trainer, in his zebra-striped referee’s shirt.
One. Two. Three. It was over — in a span of about 20 seconds.
Every time he won, “the guy” gave Victor a pint of chocolate milk to swill. Victor would cradle the bottle in both paws, hold it up over his head in front of his muzzle, and just tilt it. The milk went everywhere; most toward his mouth, but he still had the muzzle on, so chocolate milk coated his fur.
At the end of my 20-second wrestling career when I exited “the arena,” I had all this bear fur, bear “hair,” practically glued to me, from where he sat on me. Yes, bear butt hair.
So yes ... I wrestled a bear, if you can call it that.
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