96

When I was in high school, my French teacher, Mrs. Markham, never gave grades higher than a 98. That was a perfect score on her tests, a 98. She said 99 was for the teacher, 100 for God.

I'm feeling like about the best I'm going to get today is 96 or so.

I don't know how this is related, except typing that last sentence made me think of this: a few years back, at Anan Bear Reserve, near Wrangell, Alaska (see my story Do Bears for full treatment of the place), I was sitting on the viewing platform, hanging my legs off. You're not supposed to do that, there are bears everywhere, but it was crowded that day, and this was the only way I could get a picture of a lovely bear standing on a log in very bright, dappled sunlight.

So I took that bear's picture, lowered the camera, and noticed there was another bear, about a foot away from my dangling feet. It was a young bear--the rangers called him Bobo--and he had a nice fish in his mouth, and clearly, all he wanted to do was get under the platform to eat it, but my feet were in his way.

And Bobo had the clearest expression you could imagine on his face: "What are those, and how did they get there?"

And aren't those just the $64,000 questions?