Episode Four: The Bear
I Wish I Was A Mole In the Ground, second verse ---
Oh, Kimpy wants a nine-dollar shawl
Yes, Kimpy wants a nine-dollar shawl
When I come o’er that hill with a forty-dollar bill
It’s, Baby, where you been so long?
Ezra: Okay…so some of my listeners here, have been askin’ about my wife. About, uh, is she around when I’m recordin’ this stuff. Does she know what I’m up to, basically, is what you’re wonderin’. And the answer is yes, yes, she does, she knows what I’m up to, and she’s heard it all before, believe me, so you, you don’t need to worry about that. She’s probably listenin’ right now. Um, she did ask me, though, uh, about, uh, she doesn’t recall me ever callin’ her a prankster before. That, that one caught her attention, so I, I thought I might, uh, maybe today I could just elaborate on that a little.
A couple of years ago, I think, it was, I don’t know, I don’t remember for sure, uh, anyway, I’m lookin’ after a friend's farm just north of here, uh, it's about 20 miles --- I was doin’ this just for the weekend. When him and his family need a getaway, I go up there and I feed the livestock, help ‘em out, so, okay, I'm up there early Friday evening. I feed the pigs, chickens, couple o’ goats. Then I drive to this nice little, little tavern down the road for somethin’ to eat. Then I go back to the place, watch TV, and I go to bed. I don't, I don't know what time it was, but it, it was definitely the middle of the night, because I don't know where I am when the phone starts ringin’. And it's my wife. “Ezra, Ezra, goddammit, where are you? There's a bear after the bird feeder.” So I go, I said, I said, “Well, do you, are you lookin’ at the bear right now? Can you see it?” And she says, “No, I can't see it, because I'm upstairs in bed and I can hear it thumpin’ and gruntin’ and carryin’ on after that bird feeder.” And well, you know, we've never had bears come that close to the house before, so I, I mean, sure, they're around, they wipe out the apple tree every fall, but I've never seen ‘em, you know, come that close to the house. But she says, “The bear’s on that deck after the bird feeder and he's doin’ this because he knows you're not home. That's why he's come up to the house.”
So I get in the pickup and I drive home in the middle of the night and I get a look at the scene of the crime. Bird feeder’s there on the ground and, uh, the hook it was hangin’ on is all bent to shit, but I don't see any, any bear signs, there's no scat or tracks, so I go in and my wife is asleep. So I wake her up and I tell her there's no sign of the bear and, uh, it's almost dawn, so I'm goin’ back to the farm, I’m gonna feed the animals. And also I tell her, let's, let’s just keep the bird feeder inside, you know, just for a few days. Okay, so there weren't any more phone calls that weekend. And when I get back home Monday night, I straighten out the hook, I rehang the bird feeder, go to bed, at night, and in the middle of the night, sure enough, there's this thumpin’ out on the deck alongside the house. So I creep downstairs, I grab the flashlight, I open the door and do, uh, you know, a quick flash to the railing, and there sits a raccoon, starin’, just starin’ right back at me. Candles in his eyes. Oh, they’re eerie as hell. So he runs off, she runs --- I don’t know, the racoon, but no bear, so I go back upstairs and explain the situation to my wife, and she says, she says, “I don't care what you saw. That was no raccoon the other night. It was a bear. It was big and it was noisy.” I said, “You didn't even see it. How do you know it was a bear?” “It was a bear, Ezra. He knew you were away. It was a bear.”
Yeah…now, here's the thing. The way she was talkin’ to me, it was, I don't know, I, I couldn't tell whether she was bein’ serious or if she was just, you know, tryin’ to like, like I said, to provoke me. Sometimes I think my wife enjoys provokin’ me. Like with that Namaste, Namaste, Namaste stuff, now…boy, I wasn't plannin’ on gettin’ into this, but I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna say this much. I was married once before, okay? It's not a topic of conversation around here, but my family and a few of my friends, I suppose they know about it, but they also know I don't, I don't like talkin’ about it. But my wife, she knows the basics and she knows my first wife had, uh, that she wasn't stable, exactly. And sometimes I think she likes to find ways to say to me, “Why did you marry that woman? Why couldn't you just’ve waited for me?” I do, that, I do, I sometimes think she gets kind of jealous, so she sticks it to me. Makes me drive home in the middle of the night, for example, like she, she wants, she wants me, she wants me to admit that I screwed up. Should’ve waited for her instead of marryin’ a crazy woman. And…whoa…[chuckle]…whoa, whoa, horsie…so that's, that was way more than I was…yeah…
I Wish I Was A Mole In the Ground, third verse ---
I been in the Bend so long
Yes, I been in the Bend so long
I been in the Bend with those rough and rowdy men
It’s, Baby, where you been so long?
