A Bear In The Neighborhood and Other Happenings

Several Years ago I was mowing the lawn when a woman I knew from a few blocks away was walking by. We exchanged waves and continued on our way. Suddenly, I heard a commotion over the loud noise of the mower, so I came to a stop and began to look around. I noticed that the woman who just walked by was running in my direction, flailing her arms and making a gutteral sound. Right at that time I noticed a small yearling bear runiing like he seen the devil,cross behind the woman and head up the street. For a few fleeting seconds I felt a real kinship to the little bear because of the look on the womans face, wailing sound, her size, and speed at which she was approaching, I had to fight my natural urge to turn and flee with the bear. I held my ground though, and as the woman passed she grabbes my arm, and pulled me 5 or 6 steps to the west, while hollering bear, bear. I told her it was gone, and reassured her it was ok. As proof we walked to the intersection and looked in the direction the bear went. Sure enough it was several blocks away running full speed towards the wooded area south of town. She asked if it would come back, I said I was sure it would forever be a more careful bear and stay out of town. Well she said she wasn't taking any chances and headed home. I shrugged and started old betsy again.
Well I hadn't made but 3 more passes around the yard with the mower, when I noticed A young woman jogging, I'm sure she was college age. Having the scientific mind that I have, I noticed that she was wearing very petite, well built, wearing very tight very short, shorts, and a small top of some kind. After due scientific consideration I realized that I was observing a some of the laws of motion, momentum,velocity and with a shot of chemistry as well. The law of motion was sure to be the rare and little seen, "poetry in motion", and as I well knew it was even more rare in this neighborhood. Well as she passed and was going to be out of sight soon, I decided to lean way over as I mowed craned my neck to see around a huge maple tree to catch the last glimpse of this phenomenon. Just as I was as far over as I could go without falling over, the mower struck an exposed root coming to a dead stop. True to the laws of momentum , my body kept traveling in the same direction striking my midriff and knocking the wind out of me. As my body began to slow the force snapped my body upright and my head forward, stiking a low hanging branch with my head removing a small piece of bark from the underside of the branch as well as a small piece of bark from my head. My hands flew up to my head causing the engine brake to stop the engine.
As I caught my breath I realized that there was alot of science that took place in a short time. The first thing upon seeing the young jugger, caused the last remaining hormone in my old carcass to start screaming, and as you can observe in teenagers, their heads seem to empty out creating a vacuum, theirs as well as mine, heh, heh! Causing me to act like a teen. Well, just like a revelation of some kind, I knew why they put engine brakes on mowers as well as knowing that the inventor had to have a similar experience and deciding to prevent old geezers from losing a toe or two under a mower!!!!!!
After mowing and having the evening meal, I again went outside as earlier in the day Shutter and I decided to have a fire in the fire ring. So I prepared for it, then lit it and soon Shutter and wife came out. By then it was growing dark, the sky full of stars and full moon. as we sat at the fire I related the bear incident and we all had a chuckle. I didn't relate about the jogger, I thought I would let sleeping hormones be so to speak. I just said I had hit my head on the tree. Well, sometimes around the fire, we don't talk much, we get lost in our own thoughts. Well we were quiet for some time when suddenly Shutterwi asks "do you smell smell something burning?, yes says I, the fire is right here, giggling. No, No shutter kind of snapped, something different he said. Well, I looked around the yard and towards the house to see if an ember started a fire elsewhere. Just a my gaze got back to Shutter, he sprang out of his lawn chair like he was ejected from an F-16, he began stomping his feet, flapping his arms and slapping his legs, doing a half pirouette and sitting back down in a different chair.This particular movement has come to be known as the "east coast jitterbug" in the neighborhood. It is a cross between a polka, Irish jig, and musical chairs. As it turns out, Shutter had his feet up on the fire ring and his felt clogs reached the point of ignition, causing the jitterbug.
I named this dance ritual several years before, this was due to the fact that burning wood sometimes pops and snaps and sends a shower of embers out of the fire. It seems that Shutter defies the laws of probability and statistics and 9 of ten times the embers fly, they will end up on Shutter's sweat pants causing pinholes in them. They are also hot, so as he feels and sees the embers land he does the little jitterbug, slapping and jumping to prevent more damage. My teen daughter did the same when she asked me if I could smell rubber burning, and yes it was the bottom of her clogs getting very hot.
Well that ended a busy day in the neighborhood........amen