The Bear Club

Years ago we Baird kids had a secret club called the Bear Club. Donald and John started it before my earliest memories and each subsequent child was initiated about as soon as he/she could talk. The original name had been the Baird Club, but one new member who hadn’t yet learned to talk plain called it the Bear Club, and this new name was considered so funny and appropriate that it stuck ever afterwards.

The Bear Club met irregularly--whenever one of us got the idea and announced, “Let’s have a Bear Club meeting!” This happened pretty often and I don’t recall any instance where the suggestion was turned down, because we all really enjoyed the process of electing club officers. The term of office was usually short because new officers were elected every time we met. Each time we elected a President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. Actually, no officer did anything much except that the President got to preside over the current meeting. But we sure had fun with the election process. It was pretty simple. “Who wants to be President?” “No, John, you were President last time and Paul hasn’t been President for a long time.” “Everyone voting for Paul raise their hand.” “Paul gets four votes, so he’s the new President and takes over the meeting.” Paul would then ask, “Who wants to be Vice President?” --and so on. In lots of meetings the election of officers was about the whole meeting because we didn’t have any other business. But we sure enjoyed those elections. John had a sharper political sense than the rest of us and thus was President somewhat more often--but that was all right since he always made a good President.

The main function of the Bear Club (other than the fun of electing officers) was to raise money for worthy causes. We raised money by putting on a Magic Lantern show for the family. It isn’t easy to describe a Magic Lantern show because the equipment was so terribly crude compared to modern electronics. The projector was a kerosene lamp with tin sides and a slot on the front to handle glass slides (about 2” by 8”) that we slid along to project four pictures--one at a time-- onto a bed sheet that we had hung on a wall. Together, two or three slides portrayed a story, which was narrated by the current President of the Bear Club. We only had ten or so slides, which meant that a complete show covered only three or four short stories--which everyone in the family had seen many times before. Sixty some years later I only remember the theme of one of the stories--Dick Whittington’s Cat. This was about a cabin boy on a sailing ship who was treated cruelly, but found comfort and love from a stowaway cat he kept hidden in his tiny, bleak quarters. Paul did a pretty good job of telling this story, but Mary Grace told it with really passionate tenderness.

We charged a penny per person, including Bear Club members, for attending the show--and that even included the President, who was the narrator. We also charged a penny a person for homemade fudge, and another penny for home-popped popcorn. So with a full house of seven we collected 21 pennies.

The Bear Club used these pennies for various worthy causes. Once it was to buy a gift for Mother’s birthday. Once it was used to replace a dish that Paul had broken. (John promoted this idea--he had been teasing Paul and felt at least partly responsible for Paul’s accident.) Another time in June it was to buy firecrackers at Mr. Patton’s store in Prairie home.

A couple of times we varied the program by putting on a magic show. We rehearsed card tricks (“Pick a card, any card,”--but especially that ace of diamonds that is sticking out just a tiny bit). John got pretty good a sleight-of-hand and Donald worked out a convincing shell game. The whole family had lots of fun and the Bear Club earned 21 pennies!