Bears and Brians
by Edward Levenson
In the Eastern European Jewish tradition, as in many cultures, humans had a deep spiritual relationship with animals, such as bears and cubs. Accordingly, baby boys were given Hebrew and Yiddish paired names: Dov Ber, Aryeh Leib, and Zev Volf, in the ursine, leonine, and lupine cases, respectively. Related to this phenomenon are the names of sports teams: the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, and Michigan Wolverines in football; the Chicago Cubs and Detroit Tigers in baseball; and the Minnesota Timberwolves in basketball.
My maternal grandfather’s name was Dov Ber; and I have a first cousin Brian, who is named after him. In my tenth-grade high-school class at Edison High School in Philadelphia four years ago, I had a student named Brian Santiago, who used to remind me of my cousin Brian because of their height, husky build, and their name. In my subconscious, I associated both Brians with playful bears.
Bears, to be sure, can have a frightening aspect; and, accordingly, I shall never forget one experience of close proximity to a large brown bear, which may well have been the scariest event of my life.
My ex-wife and I camped for a week in the summer of 1969 in Big Meadows Campground high in the mountains of California’s Yosemite National Park. Bears frequented the garbage dumps of the campground. They were not ferocious grizzlies (and yet such bears have been known to kill people for one reason or another); they lumbered around casually outside of the campground; and the park rangers assured campers that the bears “would not bother us if we would not bother them.” But an important rule was to secure all food in our cars overnight.
I never left food out; but one evening I forgot to clear from the picnic table, which was six feet from my tent, an empty, clean pot. In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a bear’s guttural grunting and snorting and the clanking of the utensil. Fear gripped me of the danger of the bear ripping into my tent and making a meal of me. I froze stone cold for three long minutes before the bear finally went away.
One day, I had my overhead-projector screen down in the front of the classroom, whereupon Brian Santiago thought it would be very funny if he would hide behind it and then pop out at me. Though quite good-natured, he was a very mischievous “class clown”; and he used to hide in nooks and crannies, and under tables of the room to the delight of his fellow students. When I caught a glimpse of him behind the screen; however, my heart skipped ten beats. I instantaneously associated the screen with my tent canvas of old and Brian with that bear! When a student asked me whether I had suddenly gotten sick, I replied that I had just relived a very unsettling experience and that it might take me a little time before I wanted to tell about it.
Edward Levenson is a social studies teacher at Edison High School. He participated in PhilWP Summer Institutes I and II in 2007 and 2008. He has camped at many of the spectacular national parks of the United States.