had a couple of rather pointed questions for the old Bruin, which sort of put him on the spot..

They wanted to know how he could reconcile his violent nature with the non-violent expectations of Quakers. That's when we found out Bruno had quite a sense of humor. Bears don't usually smile. The word on the street is that the can't, as a matter of fact, that's what makes them so dangerous for animal trainers, because nothing can be told from their face facial expressions, so you can never know what they will do next.

But Bruno did smile, actually more like broad toothy grin and with a wink in his eye he said.

"Well I would have to be pretty hungry to eat you two tough old birds. Hmmmmmmmmmm, on the other hand I am pretty Hungry"

Cleo and Marie did not think this was funny at all, on the other hand Bert and Emie A same sex couple recently married by the Unitarians nearly fell off their chairs laughing, I thought it was quite funny and gave a couple of hoots myself. There is a subtle mirth in the Quakers, but hooting is pretty unusual.

Cleo and Marie just sort of sat there, with their noses out of joint for the next few minutes until the discussion after the meeting broke up.

For next weeks meeting there were a couple of more Quakers and their children showed up at the meeting. Cleo and Marie had brought a bushel Granny Smith apples set them in the corner with a note that said.

"For Bruno, we would not want you to be getting too hungry, besides we old birds are tougher than you think" Also please come over next tuesday and uproot this old tree next to the bird bath for us" The three little girls that were brought to the meeting hit it off with Bruno, they said he was like having their own big black hairy Barney to play with, and they hoped he would never, never leave..

Bruno had shown up in mid October but now as the days started to grow