Aug 23, 2016 3 min read

It’s the time of year when the humidity finally starts to drop right along with the faces of schoolchildren everywhere as classes commence. Back-to-school time always makes me think of football and beautiful September weather and makes me long for those fun first days of each semester during my college years.

I was thinking of this wistfully the other day and burst out laughing when I remembered something funny that happened the day I moved into my freshman dormitory at WVU. I packed all of the staples of a teenaged girl from the 1980s: My curling iron, some sort of pastel-colored bedspread and a mini coffee pot for those all-night study sessions. This was back in the day before personal computers, smartphones and flat-screen TVs. The only video-gaming consoles that existed were Pong and Atari. We had to rely on newspapers and magazines to get our updates on heartthrobs David Cassidy and Leif Garrett (the ’80s equivalents of Justin Bieber), and Madonna was just bursting onto the music scene with scandalous lyrics and attire.

Like many of my fellow dorm residents, I decorated my side of the room with a few favorite posters and stuffed animals. One of my favorites was a little white baby polar bear given to me by my high school sweetheart. I actually liked the bear more than the boyfriend, when you consider that I broke up with him the week before graduation but kept the bear. I also chopped my hair off the day before graduation – two steps that were extremely cathartic and readied me for my new life as a big-time college student.

The little white bear had a name, which I can’t remember, and was stuffed in a box for moving day. When I got everything unpacked, I realized he was missing. I put up a flier near the elevator offering a reward for the bear, and later that night a note appeared under my dorm room door. It was a handwritten ransom note that said, “We have Barclay Bear and will return him for beer.” I was so naïve I couldn’t believe someone would offer a bear in exchange for beer.

The “bearnappers” went so far as to offer proof that they had the bear by snipping a piece of his pink neck ribbon and taping it to the note. At some point, an exchange was arranged and Barclay was returned safely by two nice male freshmen in exchange for a cheap six-pack of beer (the drinking age at that point was still 18 in West Virginia). Hopefully, the bearnappers still have a great sense of humor. They sure made me laugh and rescued Barclay from a horrible fate.

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.