My mind was a hundred miles away as I was logging the final mile of my Saturday long run, remembering all of the times I have run on this familiar stretch of road. I was by myself, coming around that curve below Satulah Ridge Road, heading downhill toward the School. My Mom used to live in that little house on the right, and I often think of her when I run by. There is a driveway on the left, and as I passed it I suddenly saw him on my left, right at the foot of the driveway, probably as startled at a runner going by as I was by him, and so close I could have reached out and touched him.
My immediate thought is always, "Wow, that's a big dog!" followed instantaneously by the understanding that it is not. Because it is so completely unexpected, here on this familiar road, which also happens to be the second mile of the Twilight 5-K course - what a surprise some of those runners would have had two weeks ago if they had encountered this bear! It might have made for some faster finish times. I hurried down the hill, watching him over my shoulder as he came out of the driveway and began walking down the middle of the road behind me, and then crossed it and disappeared.
"What's up?" A man had been emptying his trash next to Debbie's house and was watching me standing in the road gawking. "A bear, just up there!" He had never seen a bear before and was a little surprised. But by then he was gone, melted silently into the rhododendron, and a pair of walkers with two dogs on leashes were walking down the hill; I would have thought those dogs might have seen or smelled him. "It's pretty special, isn't it, living in a place where bears are right here among us," I told the man. "And also a little intimidating!" He agreed.
And now, naturally, every time I pass that driveway I will expect to see a large, powerful, unpredictable animal standing there, reminding me that I am but a recent immigrant to this wild country.
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