Zak Smith and bears

I put up 4 different angles of the same trick so you could see my versatility as a photographer. This is Zak Smith, and like his name suggests, he can smith grind. Better than your average bear, too. In fact, you show me a bear that can smith grind, and I'll call you a crazy man. Crazier than Zak Smith. Thinking of bears, I just remembered a story from when I was probably 4 or 5 years old. My mom and I were out on a drive one time, and we were at the base of these mountains in California. Then this little group of kids came running down the road, frantically waving their arms and calling for help. So my mom stopped, and this kid with blonde hair was like, "There's a huge bear chasing us!!!" "Chasing you, where?" "Down the street! We were throwing rocks at him, then he got mad and started chasing us!" My mom, being well versed in over 400 kinds of animal communication, decided not to call the animal control, and despite my pleading that we not go looking for a great big angry bear, we drove up the street looking for it. We found it at the end of the road digging through some garbage cans. It just looked at us, grabbed a handful of garbage, then casually walked back into the woods. The bear was probably 4 feet tall at the most, but it still scared those kids pretty good. Being relieved that we didn't get mauled, I wanted to just get out of their with our lives and never come back. But the next day, my mom baked a chocolate cake for the bear, covered it in frosting, and we drove back out to the same place. I kept imagining this bear ambushing our little red van, ripping it into shreds, and mauling us to bits. I really didn't want to go, but my mind told me we'd be fine. When I still refused to go, my mom put me in the car anyway, and off we went. My mom was brave enough to get out of the car and put the cake where we had seen the bear the day before, and we sat and watched.

Now to be honest, I don't remember if the bear came out and ate the cake, or if I just imagined it doing so and now I think it really happened. Either way, we made a cake for a bear and delivered it on his doorstep. I think that's the thing they tell you not to do these days. We want our bears to work for their cakes. Steal them from windows if they must. Anyway, Zak Smith and bears, preferably black bears, have a mean smith grind.