Isaac and the Polar Bear

It's been one month since we arrived home from our Alaska trip.
"So... how was your trip?"
How do you answer that in a passing conversation?
"Great!"
The more savvy have asked,
"What's one memory of Alaska that stands out?"
Aaaaaah.
That would be Isaac's story of killing a polar bear
with a spear
when he was five years old.

We met Isaac in Anchorage,
but the event took place in the far north.
Isaac is now 56,
but told the story as if it had happened yesterday.

The tiny five year old stood alone on a frozen pond
as directed
to lure the polar bear
while his family waited further off
to kill it.

Isaac started singing a song his mom taught him,
"Jesus loves the little children."
A polar bear noticed
and came to the bait.

Just then, it started to snow, hard,
and Isaac could not see his family.
But he could see the bear,
and knew he had to make the bear mad.
If the bear isn't mad,
he just plays with you
and knocks you around
and you'll be senseless.
You have to make him mad.
So Isaac said every mean word he could think of to the polar bear.
One of my words worked
and pissed that bear off.
He ran right at me.

I remember thinking
My mom is going to be so mad if that bear gets me
because she just made me a new parka
and he will ruin it.

Ten or twelve feet away,
the bear stopped and roared.
I thought I had lost my intestines
but it was just a big fart.

Isaac looked for solid footing,
a "bog",
to plant his spear
but it was all ice.
The polar bear rushed at him and hit him.
He knocked me down
and I could hear my spear spinning away.

While down on the ice,
Isaac found his "bog".
It was a polar bear footprint.
Sometimes a warm midwinter wind comes and thaws the ice.
Birds come to the open water, then the ice refreezes so quickly
that the birds start to freeze into the ice.
Polar bears come along and eat them.
As he was dodging the bear in the whiteout
he found his spear.
Isaac planted the end of the spear in the footprint
as the bear charged.

The spear entered the bear's chest
and stopped at the stopper.
Stoppers dangle from the spear.
They are crosspieces that are attached to leather thongs
that stop the spear from going straight through an animal.
In this case, it kept the polar bear from landing on Isaac.
The bear lunged again,
and the stopper broke,
and the bear covered Isaac.

His dad and brother had been stumbling in the whiteout
listening to the song
and the insults
and the roars
but were unable to find Isaac
to rescue Isaac
until something caused a small break in the snow
and something caused his brother to look back
and he saw the polar bear lying on the ice.

Isaac was nowhere to be seen.

Something made them turn the polar bear over,
grabbing the bear by his testicles,
when they caught a glimpse of a small Inuit boy
beneath the pile of white fur, grinning.

The first thing I saw was my brother.
He had just got a new haircut
just like that stooge Moe.
It made me laugh.

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow, black, and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Sue