bearThe UnBearable Hotness of Being (a Bear)
Westy Fletcher, the manager of our store in the Sugarlands Visitor Center, can take the heat. He handles 825,000 shoppers a year in a space that can comfortably hold a couple of dozen at a time.
The only time Westy failed to take the heat was during the Fourth of July Parade in Gatlinburg. He was riding a float dressed in a bear costume he’d borrowed from a local camping store.
“I was sweating before the parade even started!” he says. “In just a few minutes I was drenched! I’d never sweated so much in my life! Sweat was running in my eyes. I couldn’t see.”
“I finally got so overheated I had to take off the head. I slipped it off just for a second to wipe my eyes. I did it a couple of times. Apparently it got on TV. The guy who’d loaned me the suit was pretty mad. He’d loaned me the suit on the one condition that I keep the head on at all times.”
“I told him it would’ve been worse if I’d have kept the head on, cause then I would’ve fainted and fallen off the float! A dead bear in the road would’ve been way worse than people seeing me wipe my eyes a couple of times!”
A Bear With a Drinking Problem?
“Those bear costumes reek, too”he says, lost in the memory of the parade. “All that sweating!”
“I shoulda known when the guy loaned me the costume. He told me there was ONE condition. He said I had to keep the head on at all times.” Westy shakes his head. “Then he handed me this spray bottle and said, ‘You have to do something to sanitize them.’ It was a bottle of vodka. They guy squirted it all over the suit. He said it was to kill the bacteria.”
“When you put that head on, the smell of vodka is overwhelming. Especially the first time.”
I wonder if maybe sniffing the fumes in a confined space helps narcotize the wearer, but don’t say anything. Maybe the whole vodka thing is just a cover story concocted by men who have to dress like animals and cavort in public.
Air-Conditioned Bear
Whether the whole vodka business is strictly to sanitize the bear suit or not, the headless bear incident led the Department of Tourism for the City of Gatlinburg to commission an air-conditioned bear costume.
I suspected Westy might be bitter about the new guy getting the nice suit by his tone of voice when he told me the new bear was “a $10,000 model that comes with an internal fan!”
I am stunned by this factoid.
My questions to co-workers about the existence of a $10,000 animal costume prompted one of them to clue me in on a couple of surprising secrets in connection with a certain local favorite collegiate mascot.
Who wants to be Smoky?
Did you know that head mascots get full ride scholarships? That’s why people want to be [name of mascot withheld to protect myself and my source].
Of course being a collegiate mascot is no walk in the park, like being a bear riding a float. College mascots are really athletic. They’re going two hours before a football game, all during the game, and for an hour afterwards, constantly moving, changing costumes, engaging the crowd.
They have a professional seamstresses create and fit their costumes.
I am told during the homecoming game a certain mascot wore: a hillbilly costume with overalls and a hat, an Elvis costume with sequined jacket and sequined pants, a mock cheerleader outfit, and tuxedo with top hat and cane during presentation of homecoming queens. All the outfits are worn over the top of the animal suit, of course.
My co-worker’s friend is near the end of his four years as a college mascot and is trying out to be a mascot for a professional sports team now. Of course he’ll have to be flexible about what critter he portrays. He might have to be a dolphin, a bronco, a buffalo, an oriel, a Native American, a ram, a Viking.
Professional Stuffed Animals
“Why would anyone make a career of being a stuffed animal?” I ask.
“Because if they’re good enough to go pro, they make $150,000 a year and only have to work for six months out of the year!” is the answer.
Ahhh. I get it now.
Wonder how much the Gatlinburg bear makes?
I call Westy to find out.
Zero, zip, nada is what he got, that and a furious lecture for taking off the head from the guy who loaned him the suit in the first place.
I told him what pro mascots got paid. He was stunned too.
“Would you ever put a bear suit on again?” I asked.
“Sure,” he says, “I’ve been begging the bosses to let me stand on Highway 66 and wave traffic in to our new store.”
Westy is the manager of this store too.
“Think they’d spring for maybe renting the air-conditioned suit for you?” I asked.
“They’d have to,” he said.