Man of the House: A bear among the Cubs

In our last installment, the Cub Scouts of Pack 515 had deployed to Camp Snore-a-Lot in the mountains above Monrovia. In the middle of the night, a bear wandered into camp — a little black bear, not a grizzly. We ran the grizzles out of these parts long ago, in much the same way we rid ourselves of a vibrant middle class. SoCal no longer proved affordable.

Anyway, I’m in this big tent I bought at Sports Chalet a million years ago. During the Civil War, it had been used by Confederate officers to play gin rummy, so it’s not like it’s that old. But, like me, it’s been stitched together more than once.

When I finally crash for the evening, after a contraband beer with Joe and Ted, I look out over the camp to see the tents, all pregnant with the gasping snores of the Cub Scout dads. Wheeeeez-zzzzzzzzz. Wheeeeez-zzzzzzzzz. One dude, I think, inhaled a picnic table.

It’s no wonder the black bear awakened. Who could hibernate with that kind of roar? At Camp Snore-a-Lot, the dads sleep at night and the bears sleep by day. Just tradition.

So, it’s amazing I can even hear the bear rooting around in the garbage. He is relatively quiet, not what you’d expect. Most of what I know about bear behavior comes from watching cheesy ‘60s-era cartoons. In fact, most of what I know about human behavior comes from ‘60s-era cartoons. So far, this cursory knowledge of things has served me pretty well.

Now, a few things race through my head as I hear the bear outside our tent door. First, that I haven’t even cast my all-star ballot yet, as I mentioned last week. Under the new online system, you can vote up to 25 times, much like in a Chicago mayoral election. It is good to see the rest of the country begin to think so progressively.

I also reflect on the fact that no one understands our sprinkler system the way I do. If I die, they’d have to bring in a team of Caltech whiz kids to figure out the electronic controller. They’d fiddle with it for days, curse a couple of times and stalk off. It would rattle their faith in science itself. Several of them would give it all up to become poets instead, and the world can barely sustain any more of those.

So there’s a lot at stake as this bear closes in.

How do I know it’s a bear? I just know. Raccoons tend to chatter and make lots of noise. Hobos smell like box wine. Debutantes smell like croissants. No, this intruder is a bear.

At the campfire meeting earlier that evening, the scout leaders warned us to stash our food in the cars (we did) and our garbage in the dumpster (which we forgot). Soon, our campsite has the aroma of a freshman dorm. It smells of stale underwear and aerosol cheese.

We’re up near Monrovia, as I mentioned, which is a popular retreat for black bears. They like to lounge in the backyard pools and Jacuzzis of that nice little suburb, and when the mood hits them, they wander up into the mountains like this to remember their roots.

Since 7-year-olds rarely finish a meal unless it comes with a toy, there is plenty of grub for the bear, which seems to make it unlikely that the bear would, for example, decide to eat us.

Still, I wonder if tents should include a bear escape hatch. For instance, if the bear came through the front door of the tent, where would you go? From the videos I’ve seen, bears’ heads tend to bob and weave (Stevie Wonder comes to mind), and I doubt you could skirt past them.

So, I sit in the sleeping bag, barely breathing, listening to the snoring from the other tents and the bear rooting through the garbage. If we were at home, there would be weapons aplenty — plastic pirate swords, battery-operated light sabers, foam nunchucks. To a 7-year-old, the Earth was made by Nerf.

Just when I conclude there is no hope and our garbage is gone forever, my buddy Charlie comes out of his adjacent tent and shakes his car keys at the bear. I don’t know what the bear thought at this particular moment. “Perhaps he’s giving me his Lexus?” the bear probably wondered. “Or maybe he just wants me to park it for him.”

In any case, bears hate confusion. Like us, all they want is a little clarity in their lives. Rather than deal with some Lebanese dude shaking his car keys and yelling, the bear decides to flee Camp Snore-a-Lot.

“OK, back to the ‘burbs,” the bear probably thought. “It’s too scary up here.”

chris.erskine@latimes.com