I think he first told me this while I was in high school. I then told this to my kids many times on long car trips using a nasally, gravelly voice. I loved the way it sounded while telling. That was half the fun. The other half was driving my son crazy, who was embarrassed for me and my pitiful performance.

Read this out load to see what I mean by this being a fun joke. Baraboo (Bar(e)’-a-boo) is a small town in central Wisconsin.

A bear walks up to a bar and tells the bartender, “Give me a beer.”–

The bartender said, “We don’t sell bears beers in bars in Baraboo.”

The bear said again with a very mean look on his face, “I want a beer.”

The bartender replied, while casually wiping down the bar,

“I already told you, we do NOT serve bears beers in bars in Baraboo!”

The bear stood up and pointed to a woman sitting at the end of the bar and said,

“If you don’t give me a beer, I am going to go over there and eat that woman.”

The bartender shook his head and said, “I don’t know how many times I am going to have to tell you this, but we don’t serve bears beers in bars in Baraboo.”

The bear walked over to the end of the bar and ate the poor woman. He walked back over to the bartender and said,

“Now are you going to serve me that beer.”

The bartender again shook his head and replied, 

“No, you’re going to be falling asleep. That was a bar-bitch-you-ate.”