For those of you who may not have heard, I’m writing a new novel. It’s a romantic comedy set at my alma mater, Baylor University, and a fictional Methodist church in Waco — not, mind you, a fictionalized version of the Branch Davidian compound (although I’ll grant that would make for some fascinating reading, if not exactly a good rom-com).
Today I was working on a scene between my two star-crossed lovers set at the Bear Habitat on the Baylor campus. In this scene, the male lead, an alumnus, tells the female lead, a freshman, about the long-standing rivalry between Baylor and the University of Texas and the ill-fated prank in which UT stole one of our bears and painted it orange, resulting in the bear’s death from paint poisoning.
As a page of dialogue unfolded dealing with this old Baylor story, it occurred to me I couldn’t remember where I’d actually heard it, and decided to do some fact-checking. It’s a good thing I did, because as it turns out, what actually happened was that in the 1950s, a bear was kidnapped, but no paint was involved, nor death, as far as I can tell. Terrified to find himself in the back seat of a car, the bear began to shred the interor with his claws. As said car was the brand new car of one of the pranksters’ parents, the students pulled over, dumped the bear in the wilderness, and drove off. The crime was found out when they took the car to get the interior repaired a few weeks later. The bear’s fate is uncertain.
So you see, I was way off, not only about the bear, but about Baylor’s rival school: the bear thieves were students of Texas A&M, with whom Baylor holds a rivalry going back to 1899, and is known as the “Battle of the Brazos.”
I’ve ammeded my chapter with the correct version of the story, but I think I’m going to leave in the myth, as well. After all, if it’s the kind of thing I heard and accepted as fact as a Baylor freshman, isn’t it likely my heroine would have heard the same story about UT painting the Baylor bear orange?
15/10/2008 at 11:56 pm Permalink
I haven’t forgotten about getting you those pictures. They might still have to wait until Sunday, however, as I leave for LA tomorrow. Y’all still considering coming for Homecoming weekend? ‘twould no doubt jog your memory.
And I’m not sure that those stories are one and the same. I think they are evidently both purported to have happened.
Umm… oh, and in response to your blog entry, “One man’s trash is another man’s…,” after hearing about a certain use of milk cartons in our family history, I propose the ellipsis should be followed “toy trucks.”
I might as well just call you tomorrow, seeing as how I’m typing this much. And forgive the lack of exclamation points or excitement in my typing, as that generally reflects my level of tiredness rather than a lack of interest in my audience.
16/10/2008 at 6:22 am Permalink
We’re actually not coming for Homecoming, but we will be in Waco on November 15 for the day. Actually I’d been meaning to talk to you about that, so give me a call, okay, and we can make some plans!
I Googled about the orange bear but couldn’t find anything about it! I wonder where I could find out if that’s true or not…
LOL Toy trucks, indeed. And I think when we get new furniture, we should put the old sofa out in the yard on cinder blocks.
Talk to you later! I’m around all day, except I have to pop out to Albertsons at some point. So if I don’t answer my home phone, give my cell a call.
16/10/2008 at 8:43 am Permalink
Okay, so of course this is novel research and therefore not a waste of my morning. I’ve been digging on the Baylor bear for the orange story, and so far this is all I’ve come up with:
- Some members of the now-defunct fraternity, the Esquire Club (of which Tom Delay, in his brief stint at Baylor, was a member), pulled a prank on the Baylor Bear mascot in the 1970s by slipping laxatives into it’s food right before kickoff. The BearSh*t was so epic, that parts of the field were re-sodded. Nothing is more BearMeat than giving your own mascot laxatives.
Was the Esquire Club a predecessor of the NoZe Brothers?
- The University of Tennessee’s mascot, Smokey II…was involved in an incident with the Baylor Bear’s mascot Judge at the 1957 Sugar Bowl.
- This is really sad, and I couldn’t get more than an abstract without paying for the article, but in 1961 Eight University of Texas pranksters confessed Monday they clubbed Baylor University’s mascot bear Ginger to death during a kidnap plot.
Could that story have morphed into the orange paint over time because it’s not as violent and disturbing?