The grizzly bear is right outside the tent

The summer I was six, my dad loaded his frame pack with just enough supplies for an overnight in the Southern Colorado wilderness and filled a pocket with M-80 firecrackers. Grizzly bears still ruled this country, even in their dwindling numbers, and he hoped the M-80s might thwart an attack. As he strode out of the campsite, I followed at his heel with my walking stick, as did my sister Kerrigan, who was nine. My mom stayed behind with our infant sister.

My dad had a rebellious streak that most clearly manifested in his t-shirt choice—namely, that he would choose to wear the same white v-neck for multiple days while camping, flipping it inside-out whenever my mom would complain about its filth. He did this partly for laughs, a gentle tease for my mom who feigned disgust, and partly to instill in us kids the thriftiness with which he grew up in the milltown of North Adams, Massachusetts. When I was a boy, we didn’t have the luxury of wearing a fresh v-neck undershirt each day, seemed to be the intent behind the joke. We wore what we had, goddamn it.

Each summer, we set out on our big annual trip from our home in Arizona, escaping the Tucson inferno for the forests and cool waters of Vallecito Reservoir, 10 hours north. We’d crank up our Coleman camper in a favorite site on the lakeshore, drag our rowboat and five-horse motor to the water’s edge, and spend two or three weeks fishing for trout, cooking them over a fire, singing along as my dad strummed folk songs on his 12-string, riding horses, playing bingo at the rec center, and hopping the train up to Silverton Mine for their famed cowboy spaghetti dinners. It was our perfect place. We had favorite fishing spots, horses whose names we knew, rock outcroppings where we constructed our imaginary worlds. We would run wild and get dirty and then gather for supper and marshmallows and songs under a million stars and the towering Ponderosa pines. Those weeks in the mountains, year after year, came to epitomize our family’s happiness and closeness. 

And then the summer I was six, my dad decided to mix things up with a night in the  backcountry. So off we went, Kerrigan and I following him like spotted fawns up a steep ridge, off-trail as I remember it, finally leveling out on a high mesa, far above the shimmering reservoir. We hiked for a while through meadows, in and out of woods, and hopped a couple streams. Finally my dad dropped his pack and declared that we’d arrived at our spot for the night. Darkening mountains rimmed the horizon, framing an expanse of aspen. An alpine pond lapped against tall grass. Kerrigan and I gathered firewood while my dad pitched our army-green pup tent, a thin nylon affair just big enough to fit the three of us.

A storm came through in the night, rain and lightning, thunder growling between the Rockies for hundreds of miles. My sister and I slept through it, but my dad stayed alert, watching the tent for leaks, waiting for the lightning strike that would roast us up on that highland meadow. 

At some point he became aware of a large beast outside the tent. He heard heavy footfalls, ominous breathing. He looked at his six- and nine-year-old kids bundled beside him, small and untroubled, probably dreaming of s’mores. The tempest still lashed and whipped the nylon. He listened, anticipating the bear attack that was sure to come, and thought he glimpsed horror-movie silhouettes projected against the siding. He surveyed his few tools. Igniting an M-80 in our tiny space would be a last resort. His buck knife might give him a fighting chance, but he knew that grizzly bears could stand seven feet tall and weigh 600 pounds. We were a midnight snack to such an animal.

After a few awful hours, the storm subsided and the sky grew light, and we remained uneaten. My dad climbed cautiously from the tent, still expecting a battle, but he encountered no grizzly. Instead he saw a cow munching grass at the edge of the pond. There must have been a ranch nearby that set its herd free on the range to be gathered in late summer. This cow had apparently been our tormentor, our terrifying predator, probably just looking for something to huddle against in the rain and wind. She glanced at my dad for a couple of chews, registered her indifference, and returned to her breakfast.

Decades later, I now have children the same age as my sister and I were on that trip. And it occurs to me that that tumultuous night on the highland meadow provides a fitting definition of parenthood. We set off into the world with our kids, supplies on our back and a pocketful of firecrackers, hunting for adventure and beauty and wisdom. And then in a flash, we find ourselves huddled together in a flimsy pup tent as a storm rages around us and a ferocious beast prepares to tear us limb from limb. We grip our buck knives, ready to fight to the death for our children, yet we never feel prepared enough. But each storm passes, and the beast outside is most likely a wandering cow, anyway.

Happy Father’s Day to my own dad and to all the pops out there. Make yourself a drink, sharpen your knife, and don’t change your t-shirt until you’re good and ready. 

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I’m excited to kick off Hey Pop today, and I’m grateful that you’re here to check it out. I’ll have a podcast episode with Shea Serrano ready for you on Wednesday. If you want to know more about our plans for Hey Pop, click here.

Last thing: I loved this little Father’s Day story from NPR’s Morning Edition, featuring retired Army sergeant major Duane Jolly.