The front paper of the
Asheville Citizen-Times on June 8, 2011 caught my full attention, unlike other days. It was NOT Anthony Weiner’s bare chest and the articles that ensued. The story that begged me to read on, was Asheville high school’s soft lock down and A-B Technical Community College on alert! What had happened? My first thoughts were a shooter was on the loose, after all most headline news stories are sadly about those types of horrors. As my eyes focused on the high school/community college article, it wasn’t a shooter or similar tragedy.
It was a pair of bear cubs running around scaring everyone! Yes, that is right BEARS! Now, I don’t mean to down-play the danger of encountering a bear but it was something you don’t often see on the front page. But wait, we now live in the Western North Carolina mountains! So yes, those types of articles will make our main news! It certainly is more refreshing than all the self-destructive humans splashing their “skeletons in the closet” and embarrassing choices in our face.
Everyone was safe and school officials had extra police officers on hand when school let out at 3:30pm. The bear’s activities were monitored by A-B Tech officials before it wandered off campus. Oh, btw…they said one of the bears was small, probably weighting about 100 pounds. Ok, so any bear can do some damage if it so chooses. And I writing this in the comfort of our home, miles away from the bear siting.
Therefore I can say, I am thankful to be living in the mountains of NC where some headlines news can catch you off guard and make you smile.
