Talk: Oct. 6, 2024
Talk of the Town: Too slow to catch bears and too poor to afford peanuts by Mark LaFlamme
Wild, wildlife
So, over the weekend I spent a lot of time in and an around the White Mountains, hiking, camping and generally doing my best to restore that old dream of becoming Grizzly Adams. We were in the wilderness for hours and hours, day and night, but never saw any significant wildlife. Saw a blackened tree trunk that sort of LOOKED like a bear and somebody snoring at the campground could have been mistaken for a snorting moose, but other than that, nada. Then, late Sunday night, I come rolling back into Lewiston and almost hit a doe on Webster Street, just a couple blocks from home. Shortly after, I learned that a bear had been spotted not far from downtown Lewiston and that there may have been a bear cub sighting right here on Webster Street. It just goes to show something, man. I don’t know what, but it definitely goes to show. Something.
Don’t fall to pieces, Leonardo
Every time there’s a bear sighting locally, I’m inclined to put on my pack (I have a new pack, you know) and go out searching for it. Then I watch “The Revenant” with Leonardo DiCaprio and I think better of it. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Go give the movie a watch and you, too, will stay indoors today.
My favorite bear
Speaking of bears, I may have told this story a few hundred times by now, but many years ago, I was assigned to cover some really fun Election Day story and I was about as morose as a young, handsome crime reporter could possibly be. Then, just as the aforementioned candidate stuff was about to start, a bear went rampaging through a local neighborhood and I was sent out to cover the ruckus. Which lasted all afternoon and into the evening, thereby freeing me of writing political stuff. I tell you, if I’d have found that bear, I would have adopted him, brought him home and fed him ribeye every night for a week.
Imma starve
So at a local grocery store, the price for jars of store brand peanuts jumped 30 cents over the past couple days, and this was before flooding to the south. Since peanuts make up 95 percent of my daily diet, I’m going to have to start scrounging for a cheaper food source. I’d just run around scrounging through your garbage cans on trash pickup nights, but apparently the bears already have that gig locked down in Lewiston.
Curfew for minors
This recent headline had me wondering how this will impact local crime, if it impacts it at all. This ain’t like back in our day when kids would see the street lights come on and say “Jeepers! If I don’t get home before dark, my mother is sure gonna be sore and she might not let me play Pong tonight. I gotta go, fellas.” Not that I’m old enough to remember Pong, mind you. In fact, let’s just forget I brought it up.
