The Bear

The kind personage of the Peacebear was discovered in 1988 as he was waiting on a bench for a trolley in Berkeley, California. He was dressed in nothing but a tattered pair of shorts and sunglasses. It seems that someone had recently stolen his harmonica and he was grieving the loss of his cat, Marbles. What a sad condition for such a nice bear.

When I sat down beside him on the bench by the tracks he turned away from me so I could not see his tearful eyes. He wiped his eyes with his paw. I pulled a scented tissue from my hobo shoulder bag and offered it to him. He sobbed and turned to me with love in his eyes and he let me pat his eyes and nose with the tissue. We both sniffed and exchanged greetings softly.

After Peacebear told me all about his misfortunes and expressed his thanks for the care I had taken with his spectacles that were finger smudged, I asked him where he lived. He said he was a street bear at the moment and had been looking for accommodations for himself and his cat. Then he sobbed and sniffed some more. Poor Marbles was now lost to him.

A flash of lightening in my head. I scooped up the bear and his bundles and trekked off to the parking lot near the trolley station. I put him in the front seat, buckled his seat belt and drove us back to Clairmont where I lived and worked. He and my husband became best friends. When the movie, The Bear, arrived in town, we simply took him to see it. He sat on our laps and roared at the bears on the screen. Funny, no one gave us a second look when we arrived or left the theater.

A little while later we found a new cat for him. Maui was a foundling cat who was crying out for help one rainy November night because she was starving. It was a magical scene the bear watched from his upstairs window in our apartment. Maui was a purrfectly lovely white female kitty with jade green eyes and a fear of tall things like broom handles... We offered her some tuna and told her she could stay with us as long or as short as she wished. We caught her this way, or she caught us, and she lived happily ever after.

Peacebear loved Maui cat as much as he loved Marbles. He liked us but he loved her. We were okay with that. Love is love. And that is that. The End.

- Chloe Joquel

The Peacebear now lives with Chloe in Oceanside, CA. Both her husband and their beloved Maui cat passed on a couple of years ago. Chloe and the Bear keep each other company and have a kind of psychic connection. They both work steadily on with their hopes and dreams for the PeaceClinic and the Flock of Angels, and for the cause of peace, freedom and justice. One day, they decided they had accomplished so much research on the subject of peace that they changed the name of the PC to PCICR, the PeaceClinic Institute for Consciousness Research.

Peacebear and all his friends who volunteer for the PeaceClinic and the Flock of Angels wish you love and peace and happiness.