Fuzzy Wuzzy

As the childhood rhyme goes:

"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he?"

That twist of the tongue was an inseparable companion to my very own stuffed Fuzzy Wuzzy. It was an odd pairing indeed, because if you knew Fuzzy like I did you would know that he was fuzzed, and fuzzy he was. Brown fuzz in fact. Now that I think of it, the misappropriation might not end there as I'm not entirely sure that Fuzzy was a bear. It's quite possible he was a rodent of some kind. Regardless, Fuzzy was my bear-rodent, and the jingle stuck all the same.

Recently I rediscovered my childhood friend in the Shenandoahs. It takes some misappropriation and an ounce of imagination, but just replace brown fuzz with black, stuffed for real, and whittle down bear-rodent to just plain bear. Yes, you are left with a black bear.

My first day in Shenandoah National Park was warm. In the heat of the afternoon the trail was winding through some mountain laurel thickets lined with blueberry bushes. A rustle off to my right caught my attention, but I ignored it as another foraging squirrel. The rustling persisted, and I soon realized whatever it was was much larger than a squirrel. Looking over I saw the upper profile of a bear's back and ear only ten paces away, rising just taller than the laurel bushes. I stood quietly and watched. As I did, one ear became two as the head turned toward me to investigate. After sizing me up the two ears soon merged back to one and the bear slowly sauntered off, disinterested in my presence. Had I not known that I would be seeing Tera the next day, I would have positioned for a picture; I thought more than twice about it. But reason prevailed, and I didn't want to make my first Appalachian bear encounter an unpleasant one, and risk spoiling my reunion with Tera.

The next day I rose early to get to the campground where I would be joining Tera. Not five minutes after leaving the shelter I stopped in my tracks. The trail gently curved to the right and about 25 yards ahead was the backside of a bear. I stealthily took out the camera, and while setting up for the picture the bear looked at me, paused, and quickly saught cover in the bushes. By the time the shutter clicked, the bear's headquarters were all that were documented.

Day three in Shenandoah was my first day hiking with Tera. I had told her of my recent bear encounters and hoped another would soon arrive. The morning passed with nothing but a rattlesnake. Then, fifteen minutes from our stopping point, we spotted two cubs playing, chasing each other through the woods. As one climbed a tree, I again took out my camera. While the picture isn't quite in focus and you have to zoom in to discern its features, I got my first picture of a bear. Not knowing where momma bear was I didn't stick around for a better one.

If the Shenandoahs keep providing run-ins with bears, I'm hopeful that a better picture is yet to come. I'm sure Fuzzy Wuzzy would have warm fuzzies all over because of it.