August 2 2008
Around the spring of the year 2000, a group of club members went on a backpacking trip to Yosemite National Forest. They were in exceedingly good spirits. Because firearms were not allowed in the park, they were able to pack in a good deal more home brew than they could have had it been otherwise.
Most of the crowd was amateur naturalists, and Vince Bruno fancied himself a bit of a mountain man. Vince was bored with all the photographing of animals and poking sticks in animal droppings and what not, and told the rest of the group that he would go on ahead, and meet them at the lake.
Being advised to be careful, that it was Spring, and that there were grizzlies in the area, Vince assured them that the bells on his clothing and the pepper spray on his belt would be all the protection he would need. He grabbed more than his fair share of the beer, and took off down the trail.
In the days that followed, as the rest of the boys made their leisurely way toward the lake, the hours around the campfire time and again were sprinkled with talk related to the effectiveness of bells and pepper spray in warding off grizzly bears.
There were two camps so to speak.
One day away from the lake, they found some grizzly scat, and while poking around in it, found what looked remarkably like one of those leather pouches that pepper spray attaches to your belt with. They huddled over the bear scat and looked ominously at each other.
Standing up, Henry Parsons hollered, "I won’t have any of this negative thinking!" and kicked the pile of scat with his boot.
Before they saw the glints of silver, they heard the cheery little tinkling sounds.
That night, sipping beer around the campfire, there was no discussion of the efficacy of bells and pepper spray in warding off grizzlies.
No, at this point they were pretty much in agreement on that score.
But it turned out that they were all wrong.
When the group reached the lake where they were to have met Vince, there he was! Buck-naked and suffering from exposure, but alive, and in one piece.
According to Vince, when he reached the lake ahead of his pals, he thought it would be a good idea to have a couple bottles of that wonderful "Honey Berry" home brew that he had been lugging around.
He pulled a bottle out of his backpack, hung the pack on a tree branch, and was about to open the first bottle when the tree branch broke. The pack fell on some rocks under the tree, and smashed all the "Honey Berry" brew.
Acting quickly and resourcefully, Vince had snatched up the pack, held it over his head, and using the pack to filter out the broken glass, sucked down as much of the brew as he could.
By the time that the pack stopped dripping, Vince said he had quite a buzz, and was completely soaked in brew. With the lake right there, he stripped down to just his boots to do a little laundry. That’s when the grizzly showed up and Vince executed a 9.5 swan dive into the lake.
With his eyes just above the water, Vince said that he watched, as the grizzly ate his brew soaked clothing. Bells, and all. He also bit off the top to the sheath that held the pepper spray cartridge. When the pepper spray cartridge broke, the bear’s party ended abruptly right there. He took out several decent sized trees leaving the scene, and didn’t come back
"I told you I knew what I was doing." Said Vince.
His pals looked at each other. "Never a doubt." Said one.
"No, never a doubt." Said another.

Till next week
Helga Biermeister
Secretary