A couple of years ago I was backpacking in the White Cloud mountains of central Idaho with my two boys. We were setting up camp near a mountain lake when an Idaho State Forest Service employee came bopping down the trail next to us. He stopped to talk a while -- he'd been improving trails for ten days alone with just the pack on his back and a shovel in his hand. He looked at the Beretta 9mm on my hip, laughed, and said, "what's the gun for? You afraid of bears?" I said, "No, with this I'm not afraid of anything!" He blinked, told us not to camp within 100 feet of the lake, and left.
Bruce Woodbury
