Paws & Tales

Joel: Okay, Ned, we're rolling in three, two, one.

Ned: I just don't feel the inspiration today. Sorry, Joel.

Joel: Ned, we got to get these recorded.

Ned: I'm an artist, not a vending machine. I lack my muse.

Joel: Start with the one about the free Wildwood map. Anyone can download it.

Ned: What's my motivation? I feel untethered.

Joel: Then do the one for the character coloring sheets. Also a free download. Come on, Ned. I want to go home.

Ned: Where is my atomizer? My throat is dry. It's really parched. I can't.

Joel: The last one, Ned. Just read the last one.

Ned: This one? This one? The "Find it all at pawsandtales.org" script? That's the one?

Joel: Yes, Ned. That's the one.

Ned: I need a pumpkin spice something or other. I need it right now, please. Who's in charge of this craft table? I'm the talent here and I am in need of refreshment.

Insight for Living: Welcome to the world of Paws & Tales. Wild Mountain can be a pretty dangerous place. If you stay on the trails and stick with me, there's adventures to be had there too.

CJ: Come on, Stace, jump!

Stace: It's too far!

CJ: It wasn't too far for me! Insight for Living is proud to present Paws & Tales.

Narrator: Howdy and welcome to Wildwood. Big doings today. Papa Chuck and the club are about to finish the fort, which is what they call their clubhouse. After about a year of hard work and a few minor disasters, the fort is about to be completed.

Marsha: This is so exciting. Can I help?

Papa Chuck: Don't help, Marsha.

Marsha: Oh here, just let me carry this end and—oh no! I'll have it cleaned up in no time.

Papa Chuck: What's all the noise?

CJ: Minor accident.

Papa Chuck: I see.

Stace: Look at it, will you? He's putting on the door.

Goose: Wait, let me out! I want to see it from the outside!

CJ: Hurry up, Goose.

Goose: This is so super exciting. And exciting!

Papa Chuck: CJ, Ned, when I hold it in place, you slide a pin in the hinges. Bottom one first.

Ned: I got it.

CJ: Got it.

Papa Chuck: We just finished a fortress here. Let me hear it! This is a victory. We need to roar!

Stace: Whoa, I felt that in my bone.

Marsha: I've never heard anything like that in my life. Goose, you okay?

Goose: That was big. It kind of scared me.

Papa Chuck: That took my breath away. I haven't roared like that in a long time. Let's go see if Nana Cindy has some lunch for the fortress builders of the—

CJ: The club.

Stace: Club.

Papa Chuck: Club?

Ned: We got to get a name.

Opa: I bit my shovel, hit something, the biggest corn stalk, popped right on up. After a while the whole field was so covered in popcorn that the cows thought it was snow and froze to death.

Hans: That can't happen, Opa.

Tooter: I thought it was hot.

Myrfid: Opa is teasing us again.

Opa: No, really, it happened and all the geese flew south.

Hans: Please leave her alone.

Tooter: Tell us another one, Opa.

Myrfid: Yes, another one.

Opa: Perhaps when we get on the ship in the morning, I'll have some stories that I've never told you yet. Stories about these mountains. I will miss these mountains. Take a look now. Once we set sail, you will never see mountains like these again.

Hans: I can't wait until tomorrow. Tell us another one.

Opa: From the early days.

Myrfid: Daddy, what is it?

Hans: What can make a noise like that?

Tooter: I'm scared.

Opa: Lord have mercy. It's him. Forgive me, Lord. Protect my family.

Narrator: Sunday morning was going along much like every other Sunday. Nana Cindy's father, Pastor Barnabas Flint, was welcoming folks and meeting the visitors.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Good morning, Mr. Crawford, Mrs. Crawford. I love to see that smile of yours.

Mrs. Crawford: Thank you, Pastor Flint.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Well, how are you folks on this glorious day?

Mr. Crawford: Fine, parson. Just fine.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Name's Pastor Flint. Welcome to Wildwood Community Church.

Opa: I'm John. Most folks call me Opa. And this is my daughter, Myrfid, and grandchildren Hans, Digger, and Tooter.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Nice to meet you. Lovely to have you with us, Myrfid. What bright and happy children. Have you just moved to Wildwood?

Opa: No, we're boarding a ship at high tide. We're going back to my father's farm. I grew up in Wild Mountain, but now we're going to start a new life in the old country.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Well, we are honored that you'd spend your last day in Wildwood with us. Let me find you all a seat. Come, come. That's my daughter Cindy on the organ and these are the Crawfords.

Cindy: How do you do? What a pretty dress.

Mrs. Crawford: Thank you. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Crawford.

Mr. Crawford: And I'm Mr. Crawford. Good to have you.

Opa: John. Nice to meet you, Mr. Crawford. And this is my son-in-law. Everyone calls him Papa Chuck.

Papa Chuck: Good morning.

Opa: You! It was you! Myrfid, get the children out!

Myrfid: But Papa, we—

Opa: Now! Hans, come! I know you! I know you from the early days!

Papa Chuck: Please, let me explain.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: John, you needn't fear. Nothing is—

Cindy: What's wrong?

Pastor Barnabas Flint: You are safe, John. Those days are over.

Opa: Do you know who this grizzly is? I've paid for my sins! Children, out! Get out of here!

Papa Chuck: John, please, let me explain.

Opa: Do you not know who your daughter has married?

Pastor Barnabas Flint: I do, but you need to know that those days—

Opa: Does any of you know? This grizzly is Goliath!

Joey: Hi, I'm Joey from Maine. Don't go away, there's more Paws & Tales coming right up.

Ned: Hey everyone, pop over to pawsandtales.org and download one of the radio scripts we have there. Record yourself on your parents' phone reading it like you're a real actor. Then just have your parents go to pawsandtales.org and head on into the clubhouse and upload it there. We'll use some of them inside an actual episode. Let's start your new career as a radio announcer to the world.

Papa Chuck: I have to go after them. He needs to know.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: I don't think it'll matter. He was obviously a bandit in the early days. He's terrified.

Cindy: Chuck, are you all right?

Papa Chuck: I can't leave it like this. I've got to try.

Stace: Nana Cindy, why did he call Papa Chuck Goliath?

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Cindy, we'll need to sing. Please, everyone take your seats. This will all be made clear, CJ. You go sit with your folks.

Narrator: There was plenty of confusion and tension in that little church. After some persuasion, Pastor Flint got everyone to calm down and stop their fussing. Now, the young ones had often told stories of the fierce bear in the early days they called Goliath. Most of them were just made up. Some were about fierce battles with the bandits of the mountain, and others were of deceptions and betrayals by Goliath himself.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Hymn number 323, Cindy. "Amazing Grace", how sweet the sound.

Narrator: After the song, one that has filled the hearts of the fearful for many years, Papa Chuck returned.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: Now, if you will all take your Bibles and open to—

Stace: Papa Chuck, why did he call you Goliath? Did you find them?

Papa Chuck: Yes. There was no talking to them. Every time I got close, he just ran away faster.

Cindy: Are you all right?

Papa Chuck: No, I'm not. When will this end?

Stace: Papa Chuck?

Papa Chuck: Just a minute, son. Hun, I need to go and be alone with God. I guess I have to tell the kids. Ask the parents if they'll let the club come over after dinner.

Cindy: Of course I will. And of course they'll let them come.

Papa Chuck: Wouldn't blame them if they didn't. I got to go.

Pastor Barnabas Flint: All right, sit down everyone. I think we need to talk about forgiveness.

Narrator: Papa Chuck went off to his favorite praying place. Most folks have one. His is Fortress Rock, as it has been since after the early days. He's sat and talked to God, listened for God, and even got into some pretty strong arguing with God. After church was over and after everyone had had their Sunday dinner, the members of the club began to gather on the front porch of Papa Chuck's house.

Marsha: Hey guys. Stacy, what did your folks say?

Stace: Wouldn't say anything except it needed to come from Papa Chuck. Hey, CJ.

Goose: You know, it's all going to change here. Whatever it is that Papa Chuck's going to tell us, it's going to change everything.

CJ: It is not. Nothing's going to change.

Ned: I think she's right. She's always right about stuff like that.

Cindy: Everyone here?

Club Members: Yes, ma'am.

Cindy: Well then, come on in.

Marsha: Hi, Papa Chuck.

Papa Chuck: Hey, kids. Thanks for coming. Just have a seat and I'll get right into it. I need you to promise not to make any decisions until I've finished. Okay?

Club Members: Okay, Papa Chuck.

Papa Chuck: I've been waiting for just the right moment to begin this with you all. Guess God thought the time was now.

When I was a young bear, Wild Mountain was dangerous. It was overrun with bandits. They came when they wanted. They took what they wanted. There was no law and nothing to stop them. They came to our cabin again and again. They took all our food, our horses. We were afraid for our lives all the time.

Bandit (Male): Take the cow and the chickens! I love chicken!

Young Chuck: No! They're all we have left! You will not take anything!

Chuck's Dad: Chuck!

Bandit (Male): Big for your age, huh? How about I make you smaller?

Chuck's Mom: No! Chuck, no!

Bandit (Male): Take all but two chickens! We want them to have enough so we can come back and take more later! Did you see that kid? Next time I won't be stopped!

Chuck's Mom: How bad is it this time?

Chuck's Dad: I don't think we can make it through the winter now.

Young Chuck: Why doesn't someone hit them back? We can't take this anymore.

Chuck's Dad: Chuck, no one knows where they go. They ride where they please and hide so no one can find them. It'd take an army to stop them.

Chuck's Mom: I'm not sure an army would be enough. What if they come back and we don't have anything for them to take?

Chuck's Dad: We'll have to leave.

Young Chuck: We can't leave! This is our home!

Chuck's Dad: There's nothing left but this cabin. We'll take what we can carry and walk down in the morning. It's over. They beat us.

Young Chuck: But Dad!

Chuck's Dad: It's over!

Chuck's Mom: Chuck, he's not angry with you. We just can't live here anymore. Not with the bandits. No one can. Go see if there are any chickens left in the wood. Go. Now.

Papa Chuck: But it wasn't over for me. I'd spent my whole life in those mountains. I'd been working on a plan for a long time. I'd often been in the woods and seen the bandits ride by. Each time they did, I followed them a little farther into the mountains.

Stace: How old were you?

Papa Chuck: Just turned 20. I was young, and I thought that I knew everything. I thought I could do anything. There were four of us by then. A bunch of foolish kids, really. We learned where they hid and how they attacked. We learned what they wanted and where they sold it. We began to attack the bandits.

At first, it was just sneaking in when they slept and taking stuff. Then Derek had an idea. A foolish, exciting idea.

Derek: The fog's rolling in again. It does almost every day like this. And no one can see a thing.

Young Chuck: We'll just wait until later.

Derek: No, the fog is our friend. What if we cover ourselves in gray ashes from the fire pit?

Nedels: Ew, I've no intention of doing any such thing.

Derek: If we're as gray as the fog—my grandad told me about this.

Nedels: Where you going? Now he's just going to get lost in the fog. I did that last Tuesday and—

Derek: Schmedley! Where did you come from?

Schmedley: Derek, that's not funny. I almost swallowed a bone here. Where did he go?

Derek: I'm right next to you. Could you not do that when I'm eating, please? This could work. See, I can see you long before you see me if I just step back into the fog.

Schmedley: He's vanished! Well, I've still no intention of smearing ashes all about my—

Derek: Really! Okay, that was a perfectly good piece of trout you made me waste. Look, you could cover yourself in ashes and be invisible, or you could be caught and killed by the bandits.

Schmedley: This is great. They would kill us, wouldn't they?

Derek: In the blink of an eye and without a second thought.

Schmedley: So, ashes are not such a bad idea after all.

Derek: The gray ash, not the black charcoal. We need to look like the fog. When the fog rolls over the bandits, so do we!

Nedels: Some self-control, please. You just told them where we are.

Schmedley: Yeah, sorry. I got carried away.

Derek: Let's follow the fog to the bandits. Today they'll know what it's like to be afraid.

Goose: Did it work? Did the ashes make you invisible?

Papa Chuck: Yes, it did work. We attacked them. Took everything they'd stolen from others—food, money, and weapons. And they never knew what hit them.

Stace: So you took all that stuff back to who they'd stolen it from?

Papa Chuck: Well, we wanted to, but we didn't know where they'd gotten it all. We were so excited, so full of ourselves.

Stace: You kept it for yourselves.

Papa Chuck: We kept it for yourselves. We pretty much became just like our enemy. We changed.

Stace: I can't believe it.

Marsha: So that old raccoon this morning was a bandit in the early days. He was afraid I'd take revenge on him like I used to back then.

Papa Chuck: We worked hard at keeping them scared of us.

Goose: How'd you do it?

Papa Chuck: Different ways. Derek got especially good at looking like the fog. He loved sneaking up on them. He'd get right next to a bandit and whisper in his ear before he attacked. It scared them bad. I'd come running at them, roaring as loud as I could. Most of the time they'd freeze with fear.

It was also my way of telling all the bandits on the mountain that we were attacking again. Then one day we named ourselves and gave ourselves nicknames.

Young Chuck: Okay, Derek, what about you? What's your name going to be?

Derek: I've given this a lot of thought. I will be Avenger.

Nedels: Splendid. I wish I'd thought of that. Nedels, what one did you think of?

Nedels: Well, I too have given this considerable thought. I will be the Pimpernel.

Derek: Pimpernel?

Nedels: Right. Like the flower.

Derek: That'll terrify them.

Nedels: Like the Scarlet Pimpernel, you illiterate fleabag!

Young Chuck: Okay, it's from a book. It's a good name.

Derek: So as long as we have the bandits read the book first, then they'll be terrified. How'd you like to be the Avenger with a knot on your ruddy head?

Young Chuck: All right. Schmedley, what's your name going to be?

Schmedley: Well, I like my name. I'll just be Schmedley.

Nedels: You can't just be Schmedley. You've missed the whole point. We need to inspire fear! This represents a total lack of imagination.

Derek: The bandits will probably just run off the mountain once they hear that Schmedley and the Flower are coming after them.

Schmedley: I like my name.

Nedels: Have you ever read a book, you insufferable ninny? Chuck, what about you?

Young Chuck: I decided on mine last night. I don't want to just chase them off the mountain. I want to make them pay. I want them to be afraid. I want them to fear the fog. I want them to be afraid to go to sleep. I want them to be afraid of me. I will be called Goliath.

Nedels: Splendid. I wish I'd thought of that. Goliath. That'll work.

Johnny: Hi, I'm Johnny from Maine. One of the many reasons I love Paws & Tales is Ned the Beaver. He just cracks me up.

Stace: Stacy here from Paws & Tales. Hey, Dave. So that flat CJ, Ned, or Goose—I don't get it.

Insight for Living: Well, we're asking kids to download a coloring sheet of their favorite Paws & Tales character from our website, pawsandtales.org, and color it in. Then we're asking them to send in a photo of them holding it up so we can show it off to the world.

Stace: That's so fun. Go to pawsandtales.org and pop into the clubhouse to upload.

Narrator: The kids were filled with a whole mess of feelings. Ned was downright impressed. Stacy couldn't decide how to feel. Marsha felt lied to. And CJ felt like someone had just hit him in the stomach. Only Goose seemed to know what to do next.

Goose: And you've been afraid that we'd be afraid of you or not trust you anymore.

Papa Chuck: Yes, Goose, that's exactly right.

Goose: Well, you can put those thoughts away. You're Papa Chuck now, not Goliath. You're nothing like that anymore.

Papa Chuck: There are grown-ups who cannot seem to understand that after some 40 years. But a very special little weasel girl just did.

Goose: Really? Oh, you mean me! Well, I just—

Stace: So you were this famous, well, a criminal.

Ned: No, he was not a criminal. Not really.

Papa Chuck: I might as well have been. There's no use trying to make it better than it was.

Marsha: But you never hurt or stole from anyone but bandits, did you?

Papa Chuck: We did not.

Goose: Well, there you have it. You were like a superhero or something. You were doing good.

Papa Chuck: We started out that way. That's what we wanted to do. But it got to us. I changed.

Derek: Here comes another bunch of them. It's just a few. Stragglers, really. No sense in going after that lot.

Young Chuck: We take them.

Derek: What's the use? They don't have anything we want. Looks like they're headed out of the mountain anyway. I think they'll leave.

Young Chuck: I said we'd take them. We always take them. I'll make sure they leave.

Derek: I agree. We need to keep them in fear or we lose our advantage.

Schmedley: I don't know, they look good and scared to me. Goliath, stop!

Derek: He's changed. He's almost gone wild. There's no reason for this attack. Why would he care about a handful of bandits that are just trying to get out of the mountain?

Schmedley: It's his quest. He wants to get rid of the bandits. We all do. Well, he's not right in the head anymore. I mean, he's beaten them badly. Some of them are going to wear scars for the rest of their lives because of him. All he knows is hate. It'll be the end of him, mark my words. And if it doesn't stop soon, it'll be the end of us as well.

Papa Chuck: I was changing. I was living wild. No one was going to tell me what to do. It was the worst time of my life. The second worst. CJ, you've been awfully quiet. What do you think?

CJ: How could you be Goliath then and you now? What happened?

Papa Chuck: Once you get that far down, there is no getting up by yourself. God took a hold of me. I had to reach up, but then He took a hold of me.

Goose: And He snatched you out of your life of sin.

Papa Chuck: No, that's not how it happened. He helped me crawl out of that life. It was hard. It took years. I failed a lot at first. I wouldn't want anybody to go through what I had to. But God was there, holding me up all along. I didn't need just to stop sinning; I needed to start living for Christ. That's what changed me. He made me a new creature.

Goose: Is that why you're always teaching us, telling us about God? Well of course it is. You're trying to save us from all that kind of stuff. Come here, Goose. I just got to hug you up.

Papa Chuck: You're partly right. I'm trying to teach you not just to be good. I want you to become new creatures too. I want you to become disciples, become like Christ. That's my quest now.

Stace: Wow, this is really big.

Papa Chuck: First, I need to ask you each a question. I've had to ask hundreds of folks over the years to forgive me. Some have; others just can't. They don't trust me. They're afraid that deep down I'm still wild and violent and they're afraid it might happen again. Now that you know what I was like, I need to know what you think.

Stace: What's that?

Papa Chuck: Knowing what you know, can you each one of you trust me?

Stace: Yes.

Papa Chuck: Stacy.

Marsha: I sure do.

Papa Chuck: Marsha.

Ned: Well, yeah.

Papa Chuck: Thanks, Ned. Goose?

Goose: Me? Well, of course! I always have. Anyone can see you're Papa Chuck now.

Papa Chuck: Thanks, Goose. CJ?

CJ: There's more to your story, isn't there? A lot.

Papa Chuck: Yeah, a lot.

Stace: Yeah, like why did you stop hunting bandits?

Marsha: When did you become Papa Chuck?

Papa Chuck: That's enough for now. I'll tell you more when you're ready, and when I'm ready. Can you trust me?

CJ: I do trust you. I trust you because you're a disciple of Christ, and I want to grow up and be a disciple just like you.

Papa Chuck: CJ.

Goose: This is big!

Papa Chuck: You have no idea.

Insight for Living: To order a copy of today's program, Goliath, just log on to pawsandtales.org. Goliath was written and directed by David Carl. Music was by Tim Hosman and our sound designer was Eric Baere.