A visit from a bear we named Baldy Butt

Our family had several encounters with a bear we named “Baldy Butt” over the course of the summer. The first time we met Baldy was the first week in July. It was a warm, sunny weekday and my family was just starting the dinner hour. It was approximately 5:30 in the evening. My daughter Sam and her friend Joanne were coming back from a shopping trip. They pulled into the driveway and there he was — a very large black bear with two bald spots one on each side of his rear end. He was in our garage, which is attached to the front of our home. The girls were very frightened and my daughter called the house from her cell phone to alert us. Of course, they wouldn’t get out of the car. They beeped the horn and Baldy retreated to the backyard. He must have liked it there, because he hung around for quite some time going from the back of the house to the front. We attempted to scare him off by banging pots together, but that didn’t seem to faze him in the least. He eventually got bored and moved on. A couple of weeks later, around the same time of day, my son Joe and his friend Sean pulled into our driveway and the same thing happened. They, too, encountered Baldy Butt in the garage! The boys weren’t as frightened as the girls. They beeped the horn and when the bear retreated from the garage, they ran into the house and told us the story. By now we had learned to keep the door to the garage closed at all times. You don’t expect these things to happen in broad day light. A couple of more weeks went by. A couple of sweltering one hundred degree days were upon us when to our surprise, he was back, but at 11:30 in the morning. He decided to raid the garbage of a neighbor that was vacationing that week. After his trash lunch, he decided to lie around for a while on their front yard while his food digested. He finally went off, I guess to find some sort of shade or more of his favorite food. A few more weeks passed and we kind of forgot about our old friend Baldy when our doorbell rang one early September evening. Our neighbors across the street came over to tell us that a bear was just in our garage! Who would have believed that this would happen three times in one summer? This same bear was spotted throughout our neighborhood all summer. We knew it was him, because everyone noticed the strange bald spots on his rear end. It was amazing to see how humans didn’t seem to disturb him at all. Not that anyone with a right mind would get that close, but this bear’s attitude seemed to be: don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. Thankfully, we haven’t seen a sign of him since, and we are hoping that he is getting ready for a nice long winter sleep in the woods. Mary Ellen Garnet Monroe, NY