Once, long ago, there was a Yard Art Bear.

Yard Art Bears

 My sister was a teenager, once. And once when she was a teenager, sne and her friend Lisa stole a Yard Art Bear from some poor unsuspecting person’s yard. They immediately repented of their sin (or something), which resulted in a brief but fierce battle as to which of them should keep the Bear. “You take it!” “No! You take it!”

 I don’t remember who won, but it didn’t matter very much; Karen stuck it in Lisa’s front yard, and Lisa stuck it in Karen’s front yard, and this went on for a while until Lisa held a party which Karen attended. Coincidentally enough my mother was at a party that night, too, and had perhaps had a few beers — in any case, she told her friends the saga of the Yard Art Bear to that point, and, charmed, they decided that they must of course continue it.

 Picture if you will a number of middle-aged, slightly tipsy women attempting to sneak up on a house full of slightly tipsy teenagers, bearing a Yard Art Bear. Apparently they were actually spotted at one point but when asked “Is that your mother?” my sister replied that of course it wasn’t, what would her mother be doing at the party?

 In any case they succeeded in placing the Yard Art Bear and retreated. A few days later (suitably abashed, having discovered that it had been her mother) my sister discovered the Yard Art Bear wired securely to the front bumper of her car. After accusing both my mother and Lisa she found out that the deed had actually been done by Lisa’s dad.

After this I lose track of the story for a while. I know the Bear had many journeys; I remember at one point hanging it from the front doorknob of my mother’s friend Carolyn’s house. Eventually the tradition died out and the Bear resided for a while at my mother’s.

 Some time after this — long enough for the Bear to fade from immediate memory — the time came for my mother’s 50th birthday party. There was much intrigue (my sister still lived at home, so I had to order the necklace she wanted and have it delivered to my place) and excitement (someone, we’re still not sure who, chartered a plane with a banner that said ‘Over The Hill’ to fly over the party), and among the gifts was the Yard Art Bear, stolen from my mother’s by my sister and delivered to Lisa, who stripped off the old black paint and replaced it with bright swirling colours.

There was a lot of laughing though Mom threatened death over the plane (I couldn’t blame her for that part). She was thrilled with her presents, especially the ones involving intrigue (as my sister and I fell over each other to tell her the tales). And the bear held a place of honour in the living room for a long, long time.

Years later my sister finally prepared to move out of the house. She hadn’t ever really lived away from home, save for a year or two at college, and she was nervous but excited. All the way to Florida to live with her boyfriend! My mother lamented that now both of her daughters were living in sin, but privately she was just pleased that we were happy.

A month or so before my sister’s boyfriend flew north to help her drive down to Florida my mother sent him a package. Within it was the Yard Art Bear and a note, which said the following:

Put it up in the front yard before you leave.

It makes sense, I swear.

So he did, though by then the Yard Art Bear Saga was so old that I doubt he’d ever heard a thing about it. I’m sure my sister explained it to him eventually…but it took her a while, because when she saw it standing proud in front of the house when they pulled up, she burst into tears. The best kind, of course.