peristaltor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peristaltor) wrote2010-06-14 07:32 pm
peristaltor) wrote2010-06-14 07:32 pm
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Grandpa's Bear -- A Shot of Pure Kyoot
I hate to post too much, but I just found this picture of my grandpa's bear, Yogi.
One of my uncles heard a noise from the mountain behind the house. He and Grandpa (and maybe Dad as well, the stories get confused) returned with some firepower just in case and investigated. Yogi was alone in a den, not yet weened. His mother had been killed by hunters. (The climate on the Olympic Peninsula is very mild; bears sometimes emerge from their dens to feed in winter, unlike bears in harsher, colder climates with less plant growth in the winter.)
There are some great home movies of grandpa feeding yogi with a bottle when he was only a few inches long, and of Dad from his college years leading an older Yogi around on a leash for tourists from Seattle.
I'll have to do a bit more research, but I think Yogi's naming either coincided with or came just before the debut of Hanna-Barbera's character in 1958 (ahem) bearing the same name. I'll have to bend some ears come Father's Day to make sure about the year.
You older readers might have seen Yogi before. After he grew too big for the farm, he went to the Olympic Game Park and on from there to star in some of those wildlife episodes on The Wonderful World of Disney. Raised from a cub, he was easily trained for the camera. Rumor has it he retired at the Woodland Park Zoo. And I really need to digitize and post Yogi's old 8mm home movies. They're a blast.
One of my uncles heard a noise from the mountain behind the house. He and Grandpa (and maybe Dad as well, the stories get confused) returned with some firepower just in case and investigated. Yogi was alone in a den, not yet weened. His mother had been killed by hunters. (The climate on the Olympic Peninsula is very mild; bears sometimes emerge from their dens to feed in winter, unlike bears in harsher, colder climates with less plant growth in the winter.)
There are some great home movies of grandpa feeding yogi with a bottle when he was only a few inches long, and of Dad from his college years leading an older Yogi around on a leash for tourists from Seattle.
I'll have to do a bit more research, but I think Yogi's naming either coincided with or came just before the debut of Hanna-Barbera's character in 1958 (ahem) bearing the same name. I'll have to bend some ears come Father's Day to make sure about the year.
You older readers might have seen Yogi before. After he grew too big for the farm, he went to the Olympic Game Park and on from there to star in some of those wildlife episodes on The Wonderful World of Disney. Raised from a cub, he was easily trained for the camera. Rumor has it he retired at the Woodland Park Zoo. And I really need to digitize and post Yogi's old 8mm home movies. They're a blast.