Further inspection by the farmers who tend a cornfield next to my childhood home indicated that a mother bear and her cub had been residing in the back of the field for quite some time.

Alarming as it is, I wouldn't normally share such a story unless there was a hearty dose of humor somewhere in the mix, but this one's not about the funnies. No, this is straight-up vindication for a past injustice, more than 10 years in the making. If revenge is a dish best served cold, this tasty morsel is positively frigid.

It all started about 12 years ago when I was on the phone with a girl. Not just "a girl," but "a girl from the distant land of Davenport," which for a teenage Stamford boy without a driver's license was as far away and mystical as Kansas.

As this was during the pre-cordless era in telephone technology, I was tethered to our wall-mounted rotary unit in my home's office, staring vacantly out the window as the girl blathered on about whatever 12-year-old girls from Davenport blather about.

(Come on, I was 12ish. Unless a girl was talking about video games, cheeseburgers or dead bugs, I wasn't listening.)

Suddenly, a flash of black out of the corner of my eye jerked me back to planet Earth. A large, black thing was crossing our front lawn fast, running hell-bent to the relative wilderness of my next-door neighbor's backyard. At first I thought it was a huge dog of some unknown breed, but as I watched for the brief period in which it was in sight, I became convinced of its true nature. From its telltale gait to the thick black coat, it just had to be a bear

Excited and shocked, I told the girl that I had to go, had to go hide or load a gun or do something to prepare for the bear's voracious entry into the empty house and my inevitable grisly (or maybe "grizzly," har har) demise.

She didn't believe me and thought I was just making a far-fetched excuse so I could get her off the line. After a few seconds of animated insistence from my end, she gave up and angrily hung up. Little did I know that her disbelief would be a common theme for the next few days.

Although I'm reconstructing the tale based on partial memories, the next part went something like the following.

When my parents and brother returned from wherever they had been, I rushed to the window and told them to get inside because there was a bear on the loose. Rather nonchalantly, they unloaded their goods and came into the house, looking for a better explanation than the confusing mess I had sputtered.

They came inside and I repeated my story, explaining that I had clearly seen what must have been a cub running across the front lawn. They didn't believe me.

And in fact, no one seemed to believe me. I stubbornly clung to my story throughout the years, insisting to any who would listen that it was true. It became the butt of numerous jokes among the family even, with my parents and brother sarcastically referring to the alleged bear sighting and agreeing in patronizing tones that surely I had seen what I thought I saw.

Of course, now that my folks have seen the signs of a bear plain as day in our backyard, my story has gained a bit of credibility and the general consensus seems to have swayed towards belief in my tale. My dad even claims to have seen this new bear late one night by flashlight, as the bird feeder is about 10 feet outside of his bedroom window.

Naturally, when he told me that he has caught a glimpse of the bear, I paused, savoring the moment, and then asked him if they were sure that it really was a bear, and not some figment of their imagination. A senior moment, perhaps?

Yes, if revenge is indeed a dish served cold, then you can bet I'll be wearing a jacket to meals for a long time to come.