Thar's a bar over Thar!

When I first met Mark in the summer of '72, he was a dashing young lad, who's love of the outdoors surpassed anything else.  He planned his classes at OSU based on having long weekends that he could spend in the woods. Hunting with friends was his form of relaxation and adventure.

I went hunting with him once. He shot a deer, I helped drag it down, watched him skin it, then joined in.  I proved myself, and have never again returned to deer hunting.  Sometime during one of Mark's hunting trips for deer, he stumbled across a bear, which soon became a rug.  It wasn't what he wanted to do, as much as what he needed to do to remain safe.

Years have gone by, the bear was on our floor, the dog would curl up on it, leaving yellow lab fur everywhere on it.  We would stub our toes on it, and we would take our babies photos on it, always entitling them, "bare on bear".  The bear has been relegated to his office, I put in many good years of being a "sport" and having heads, and rugs, and various other relics from the hunting process around. I asked Mark to bring the bear home for a quick photo shoot.  Teak is on the cusp of crawling, and we needed to have his photo being bare on bear, just as his brother, mother, and uncle had theirs taken.  He was good, didn't pee on it, and even shared the camera with the cat who rather liked Mr. Bear for a nap.