My father’s imagination sparked a love of storytelling in his children.

Papa was the hero in all the tall tales he told us. He met Paul Bunyan after Papa freed Babe the Blue Ox from some bramble. He knew Huck Finn, too. They fished together until Huck got sick of my father always catching the bigger fish. He dated Wonder Woman in high school until he met an even prettier gal—our mother.

My father rode a mountain lion to school every day, and eagles delivered apples to him from the neighbor’s yard. He wrestled bears for fun. They were tough to pin, but if you tickled them, they would roll flat on their backs.

We giggled hearing these tales as kids. As teenagers, we rolled our eyes at them, but we secretly relished their retelling.

The best part of family vacations was being Papa’s captive audience on the long drives. I was 13 when we drove to the north woods one summer. I had heard my uncles tell stories about my father’s athletic prowess, so somewhere along the way, I prodded Papa about how good he actually was.

“I was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound,” he said straight-faced.

As a newly anointed teenager, I thought it time to challenge Papa’s grandness.

“Yeah, dad, you’re super, all right,” I said. “Super old—you’re 35! And you’re getting fat. You couldn’t leap over a sandwich.”

Papa pulled our camper over at the next roadside clearing in the wilderness. He paced off 40 yards and appointed my 8-year-old brother to stand at the finish line.

“On your mark,” my brother yelled. “Get set . . . Go!”

I bolted to a big early lead, but halfway through, a blur that looked a lot like Clark Kent in cowboy boots blew past me. My father left me in the dust.

I bent over to catch my breath at the finish line, but before I could even feel my humiliation, my father gently grabbed me with his right hand, my little brother with his left. Fifty feet from us, a black bear poked its massive head through the brush.

“Don’t move,” Papa whispered.

The bear stuck its nose skyward, took a couple whiffs, and pulled back into the brush. When we heard him marching away, we started breathing again.

Back in the truck, I asked Papa why the bear didn’t attack.

“Well, son,” he said, pausing for effect, “he obviously recognized me. He knew that I knew all his ticklish spots.”

Papa had a gift.