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I had my first bigfoot counter back
in February of nineteen ninety eight in Golden

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Dale, Washington. It happened on
a trip with my father and my uncle.

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A little bit about my family,
and you need to understand, is

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that they don't camp like everyone else. None of them own a tent or

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a trailer. We prefer throwing a
mattress in the bed of a truck or

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sleeping up front along the bench seats
of an F two fifty pickup truck.

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I'm the youngest and I usually got
the back seat. On this day,

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there was enough daylight to make two
walks through the woods. My uncle dropped

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me and my father off at a
place that we call the lake beds.

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The plan was for my uncle to
pick us up at the road down below

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the Rock Bluff, which is twenty
minutes away on foot, and I told

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my father I'd be walking west down
the slopes while he took off to the

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east. I noticed the birds and
the light breeze blowing through the trees.

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There was a deer trail, and
I was looking at fresh tracks, and

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at one point I glanced behind me
because I thought I heard my father,

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but there was no one there.
So I kept walking down toward the same

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road where my uncle had picked me
up on previous hikes. I heard a

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deer close by. I figured it
was a deer, judging by the light

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weight sound of its hoofs hitting the
ground. I didn't understand what had spooked

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it. The wind was at my
back, and then I realized the birds

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and the chipmunks weren't flying around or
singing or making any noise. My uncle

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told me that if it ever got
quiet to the point of seeming odd,

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just head straight down the road and
don't get distracted by anything. So I

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focused, and I walked toward the
edge of the bluff, where I could

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look down and see my uncle in
the distance, sitting on a tailgate,

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nervously swinging his legs. He seemed
agitated. Hurry up, my uncle yelled,

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there's something out here besides us.
Yeah, I yelled back the rocky

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slope, causing my voice to echo, it's dead, silent, like you

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said. I had no clue what
was actually happening. I carefully made my

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way down the hill, and as
I closed the distance between my uncle and

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I waiting in the truck, he
suddenly commanded me to run well, I

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reached the passenger door and I opened
it, and I flung myself across the

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seat, and my uncle hit the
locks. Look behind you, up on

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that bluff, he said. I
looked out that window, and I scanned

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the hillside, and I spotted the
largest manlike being I'd ever seen in my

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life. Its sheer size was jaw
dropping. There was an animal carcass of

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some kinds slung over its shoulder.
We need to get to your dad,

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my uncle said. He threw the
truck into gear, and he sped away.

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I noticed the way my uncle had
phrased it as get to your dad,

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as if somehow this thing might have
already trapped my father. It was

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walking down from the top of the
bluff and was almost to the road,

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and in less than a minute it
must have closed a hundred yards, and

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it stood there looking at us,
before continuing down the slope. A few

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minutes later, to our relief,
we saw my dad standing just ahead of

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us. My uncle slowed the truck
down to a crawl, and my Dad

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took a flying leap into the truck
bed. Go go go, he said,

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as my uncle mastic accelerator to the
floor. Did you guys see that

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thing, yelled my father through the
back window, as the rush of air

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blew off his prize baseball cap.
There was no going back for it,

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though. We pulled into the driveway
of my uncle's place, and that night,

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all of us there in the truck
bed, staring up at the stars

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and munching on snacks and sharing a
six pack. I think I'm going to

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invest in a camper, said my
father to no one in particular. It

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was my uncle who started laughing first. All right, all right, welcome

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to another podcast. It's been a
few days, and I'm glad to be

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back reading these stories because I love
doing this. Got four stories in this

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podcast, and I hope you guys
enjoy it. I just wanted to say

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thanks for clicking on the video.
Now let's jump into these stories. Let's

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do this all right, here we
go. My wife and I have been

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hunting together for twenty years. It's
tradition for us to leave our house in

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Shelby County around one am on Sunday
morning and dry three hours to her family's

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property in Fayette County, Alabama,
and then take a nap in the truck

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until right before daylight, and then
we walk out to our stands. That's

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how we've always done it. Like
I said, it's a tradition. On

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January twenty seven, twenty nineteen,
it was different. When we pulled up

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to the gate at four am,
it was noticeably silent. In the pre

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dawn hours of winter. It's always
quiet as part of the joy of honting.

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The gentle piece of nature surrounds you
and it seeps into your bones and

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sort of fills your soul with something
I can't quite explain. It's a knowledge

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or a wisdom that you're walking the
path of generations beyond memory. During that

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time, you might hear the earliest
bird chirp as it catches that proverbial worm.

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A late hunting owl might hoot it's
good night to the world. A

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rabbit might shuffle under the protection of
a briar patch, or a squirrel might

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getter along a tree branch. That's
to say that it's quiet, but it

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is silent. That morning, it
was silent. We pulled through the gate

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and cracked the windows and turned off
the truck. Within a few seconds,

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the whole cab was filled with an
odor that could have peeled the paint off

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an outhouse. It was a kind
of smell that made you ask yourself if

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you wanted to breathe it through your
nostrils and endure the smell, or open

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your mouth and wrist tasting it.
Oh, man, that's a good line.

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That is a good line, good
writing. My wife wrinkled up her

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nose and looked at me in uttered
disgust before asking, did you do that?

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Oh my god, no, I
exclaimed, horrified at the possibility that

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my body, or any human body
for that manner, could create a smell

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that nauseating. After a short discussion
on the possible origins of the odor,

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we decided to head on out to
our stands. Were looking forward to having

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a good day, and the land
that we were hunting was full of wildlife,

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and we each usually harvested two deer
there every year, so we were

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both a bit surprised to learn that
neither one of us had seen a thing.

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When we met back at camp that
night, while we were discussing our

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lack of luck and enjoying a hot
meal of my wife's homemade stew by the

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camp fire, that same putrid smell
washed over us again and hung around for

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about ten minutes before it finally dissipated, and once it was gone, we

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got our taste buds back into order, and we finished our stew and climbed

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into the camper shelf for a good
night sleep. The next morning, my

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wife went straight to her stand,
but I decided to wander the property to

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see if I could figure out where
that horrendous smell was coming from. The

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first thing I noticed was that small
trees were down across every walking trail I

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went down. After by an hour
of wandering through those paths and stepping over

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trees, I happened to look up
at a limb that was hanging seven feet

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or so off the ground, and
I saw a long clump of black horse

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hair dangling from it. I believe
in bigfoot. I think is real,

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so it didn't take much for me
to put two and two together and realize

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the situation we were in. I
texted my wife to meet me back at

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the truck right away, and when
she got there, I showed her the

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hair and I told her what I
thought. She's not a believer. She

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laughed and poked fun at me,
but I wasn't having that. But in

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the end I won. We left
that morning and we didn't go back there

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for six months. Since then,
I have sent that hair to Auburn University

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to get it tested. Meanwhile,
I leave offerings of fruit and vegetables when

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we arrived to hunt, and again
before we leave the property. We haven't

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had anything than usual happen to us
since that night. Now I'm hoping the

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offerings will let whatever it is out
there know that we mean it no harm.

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On July first, two eleven,
my life changed forever. I've been

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an avid deer hunter my whole life. I've seen and heard strange things in

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the woods before. When I was
twelve, I came face to face with

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a black panther. My only regret
was that I didn't have a clear shot

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at it. The first time I
ever heard of fox mark. It scared

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the hell out of me, and
it was years before I knew what made

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that awful sound. But like all
the other strange things I've seen and heard

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before that fateful day, it could
be explained. But this day changed me.

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At the time, I was in
a loveless marriage. The only piece

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I found was in the time I
spent alone in the wood. During April

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of that year, an E five
tornado destroyed the town of Smithville, Mississippi,

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along with almost all of my friends
and neighbors. I volunteered to help

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with the cleanup. While I was
there, I ran into a girl i'd

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known in high school. She was
in an abusive marriage and we had a

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common ground, so we began to
meet and talk and about July first.

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We had bonded over our mutual bad
marriages. That day, I was driving

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home from the bank in Tupelo,
where I had taken out the money to

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make my house payment, when I
got a call from her. She told

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me that she and her husband had
gotten into another bad fight and that she

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wanted to talk. It was a
holiday weekend and I had plans to go

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hang deer stands, but she begged
me to go with her, so I

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said, okay, I'll be there. Where I hunt is two miles deep

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into the land that is owned by
a timber company. It's a long,

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slow drive down the logging road to
it to my spot. I parked my

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truck at an old logging camp and
we sat there with the air conditioner running,

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and we talked for a while.
It was a hot day in July

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and Tremont, Mississippi. We were
parked in side of an old fire tower.

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It's all hills and hollers, inhabited
by rattlesnakes and ticks. And I

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could tell that she really didn't want
to follow me through that mess, so

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I suggested that we sit on the
tailgate and talk some more. I reached

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in my cooler and I got us
both a beer, and I turned on

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the radio, and well, one
thing led to another, and pretty soon

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we were tangled up in each other's
arms in the bed of my truck.

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A little later we were lying there, back to back. She was talking

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and I was listening, or maybe
I was just staring. There wasn't much

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to see the was there thick the
leaves and underbrush made seeing past the perimeter

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of the clearing impossible. And then
it up down. It was seven feet

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tall, and it didn't look anything
like the sasquatch you see on TV.

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It wasn't built like an NFL lineman. It was more like a basketball player.

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And it was tall, and it
was muscular, and it was covered

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in long, black, shiny hair, with a white patch on its stomach

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that I'll never forget. I couldn't
tell you what its teeth were like because

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it had its mouth closed but its
eyes and face looked very human. It

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stood there staring at me as if
it were in deep thought. All I

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could do was stare back, and
I was thinking we needed a plan to

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get out of there. About that
time, the girl I was with poked

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me in the back with her elbow
and she said, are you listening to

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me? She must have turned around
then, because then she let out a

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blood curdling scream that told me that
she'd seen what I was seeing. We

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have to go, I said,
and we climbed out of the back of

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the truck and into the cab as
fast as we could. I don't think

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I've ever taken that old logging road
that fast before. I kept checking the

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rear view mirror to make sure it
wasn't following us out on the public road.

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We stopped, and we were both
crying by then. I guess it

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was an emotional letdown after being so
scared. She noticed that she'd left her

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shoes behind, and I was thinking
about the summit dare stand that I'd left

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on the ground by where we'd parked. No parashoes or even a drestand was

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worth driving back into that spot,
as far as I was concerned, so

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I told her, no, we're
not going back for your shoes. We

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drove all the way back to Fulton, where we stopped to get a coke

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before I realized I had also lost
my wallet. It must have fallen out

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of my pocket and it still had
my house payment money in it. It

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was two thousand dollars. We had
to go back Navis. I had my

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Taurus Judge Revolver with me, and
I loaded it with forty five long code

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m O. The ground was tore
up where we had left so quick.

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I looked around for my deer stand
in my wallet, and she was searching

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for her shoes. Now. I
couldn't find my wallet anywhere, and when

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I picked up the deer stand and
tossed it into the back of my truck,

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it landed with a big bang.
For whatever reason, I glanced up

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then and I saw one of her
shoes stuck in the crook of a tree

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ten feet off the ground, and
I started tossing rocks and sticks at it

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to try to knock it out.
It was unnatural how quiet the woods were.

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I noticed that about the time I
managed to unwedge the shoe, the

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loudest, most menacing growl I've ever
heard in my life came from the holler

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below us. I looked over and
I saw a forty foot tall pine tree

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swaying back and forth as if it
were being pushed. It was time to

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leave again. Now I'm no good
at guessing wade, but I'd say that

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thing must have weighed at least three
hundred to five hundred pounds, and apart

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from that white square patch on its
stomach, it was as dark black as

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a mink. I said its face
looked human, but it was an ugly

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human. I couldn't believe how well
groomed its hair was. It didn't have

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an odor, and it approached us
in total silence. If I hadn't seen

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it, I would have never believed
in Bigfoot. I didn't until that day.

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That e F five that hit smith
Fille was a little south of where

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we were that day. It cut
a mile wide path that probably dislocated a

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lot of animals. I guess that
Bigfoot was one of them, and these

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days I never go into the woods
without my shotgun. Fortunately that day,

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I found my wallet in the floorboard
of my truck when we got back to

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town. But we never did find
her other ship. Something happened to me

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that has always haunted me. I've
never told anyone except my father and my

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00:16:11,039 --> 00:16:17,240
best friend. Neither one of them
believed me. During the nineteen seventies and

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eighties, my dad was a land
developer in East Texas around Toledo ben and

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sam Rayburn Reservoir. He would buy
lakeside lots of land and get a surveyor

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00:16:27,639 --> 00:16:32,159
to break it down, and then
he'd put in roads and eat sell the

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lots. He developed several campgrounds and
neighborhoods that way, and I grew up

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in a small town in deep East
Texas around the Sabine and Angelina National Forest

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above the Big Thicket. Every now
and then Dad would go see the surveyor

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to discuss the business, and sometimes
he would take me with him. I

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thought I would enjoy the ride.
And the surveyor had a son that I

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00:16:56,879 --> 00:17:02,279
could play with. His name was
Tommy James, and we called him TJ.

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00:17:02,559 --> 00:17:07,440
For short. He was nine and
I was eleven. He didn't go

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00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:10,519
to my school, but he was
fun to play with because he was a

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00:17:10,559 --> 00:17:15,119
simple kind of country kid, and
we would shoot bb guns and we'd whittle

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00:17:15,319 --> 00:17:18,319
sticks and get dirty playing in the
dirt. Pile with his talk of trucks.

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00:17:19,839 --> 00:17:23,079
It was while we were playing in
a dirt pile one day when TJ

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00:17:23,319 --> 00:17:27,640
slowly looked up at me and he
said, there's a Chebacca man that lives

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00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:33,400
down that trail right there. He
pointed to a thin trail in the back

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left corner of his backyard. You
want to go see it, he asked.

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00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:42,960
Chewbacca lives back there? I asked, yep, he's a Chewbacca man.

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00:17:44,279 --> 00:17:48,720
TJ assured me. I remember laughing
and saying, okay, let's go

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00:17:48,759 --> 00:17:55,240
see Chebacca man. We started down
the little path with me convinced that we

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00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:59,880
were playing make believe, and I
was surprised how far TJ was taking.

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00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:03,880
It seemed like we walked for a
long time before we came to a huge

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00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:08,440
dead fall across the trail. It
looked like a tree had fallen down and

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00:18:08,559 --> 00:18:14,200
taken a lot of trees with it. There were empty cracker jack boxes with

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00:18:14,319 --> 00:18:18,720
Little Debbie snackcake rappers strown on the
ground in front of it, and I

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00:18:18,839 --> 00:18:23,319
guess this is where TJ came to
eat as snacks. TJ looked around and

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00:18:23,319 --> 00:18:27,759
he said, well this is it. I'll call him. He let out

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00:18:27,799 --> 00:18:33,160
a long howl. I was still
convinced that this was just a game that

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00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:37,240
we were playing, so I didn't
expect to see anything. I figured this

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00:18:37,319 --> 00:18:41,240
was his imagination and overdrive. But
when he let out another long howl,

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I began to hear the sound of
walking and cracking that was coming in our

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00:18:47,319 --> 00:18:51,960
direction. TJ, what is that, I asked, as the fog of

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00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:56,480
make believe was beginning to clear.
Well, it's the Chewbacca man, he

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00:18:56,599 --> 00:19:00,359
told me. I took a step
back as TJ faced the dead fall and

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00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:04,720
him began to speak in a coaxing
tone. Come, come on, come

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00:19:04,759 --> 00:19:11,000
on. He was beckoning it like
a little puppy. The walking sound stopped

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00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:15,319
on the other side of the tree, and I could hear loud breathing like

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a horse. A horse, Yes, I thought he's calling a horse.

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I took a huge breath and I
released it in a deep sigh of relief.

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T J began to almost sing the
word Chewbacca and a gentle voice.

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00:19:33,519 --> 00:19:37,279
He was calling it again. A
few limbs shifted and moved in the dead

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00:19:37,319 --> 00:19:41,640
fall, and then I heard it
utter, a single, deep but faint

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00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:49,960
word. Oh. All of my
former relief slipped away in this place was

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00:19:51,039 --> 00:19:55,000
a hard nod of fear and anxiety. That the thought of whatever was on

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00:19:55,039 --> 00:19:57,839
the other side of those trees that
was big enough to have a voice that

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00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:03,079
deep. I could almost feel its
mass as it stood there, breathing the

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00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:08,960
air into its lungs. That must
have been massive. Come on, TJ

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00:20:10,279 --> 00:20:15,200
sweetly beckoned again. Tommy, I
whispered, let's get out of here.

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00:20:15,519 --> 00:20:21,039
At that second, the thing released
a loud sound, and it shook the

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00:20:21,039 --> 00:20:23,039
world around me, and it shot
through me, and it rattled in my

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00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:29,240
chest, and it left me stunned
in my tracks. My eyes widened in

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00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:33,720
fear, and my own lungs ceased
to function. T J was still calling

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the thing. I felt hot and
sick, and beads of sweat broke out

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00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:41,559
all over my body, while my
heart was jumping up into my throat.

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00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:45,079
If I could have made my legs
work, I would have run away.

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00:20:45,319 --> 00:20:49,480
In my mind, this wasn't happening, This couldn't be happening. But t

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00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:56,720
J wasn't afraid. Limbs and the
dead fall began to move and snap again,

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00:20:56,200 --> 00:21:00,880
and I thought the thing was coming
over it or through it, and

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00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:06,279
big grunts of breath mingled with the
sounds of limbs slamming and cracking. I

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00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:10,759
was still frozen and could only stand
there and listen to the thing raising hell

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00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:15,519
a few feet away. TJ turned
to me and he said, he doesn't

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00:21:15,559 --> 00:21:22,000
like you. As he spoke,
I saw arms coming up over the dead

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00:21:22,079 --> 00:21:26,960
fall. I didn't want to see
more. Tommy, run, I screamed,

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00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:30,599
Now, wait, it's okay,
he was calling to me. I

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00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:36,319
had already taken off, and I
left TJ standing in the path with that

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00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:40,920
thing with the long arms and the
deep growling voice and the loud scream was

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00:21:41,039 --> 00:21:45,839
chasing me. I could hear it
coming up the path behind me. It

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00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:51,400
was exhaling great puffs of air with
intense force. I barely felt the limbs

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00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,480
slapping my face as I raced up
the narrow path. I had to get

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00:21:55,519 --> 00:22:00,279
to my dad behind me. That
thing seemed to have left the trail all

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00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:04,960
together. All around me, branches
were snapping and trees were cracking. And

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00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,319
then it was in the woods next
to me, and from the sound of

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00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:11,960
the brush I could tell it was
running a wide circle, and I guessed

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00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:18,839
it was about twenty five feet out. Glimpses of its enormous black body with

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00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:25,839
long arms swinging flashed through the leaves. It was so big and unbelievably fast.

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00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:29,839
It was pulling ahead of me,
but the trail was endless, and

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00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:34,240
panic stricken tears began to blur my
vision when I realized it was gonna cut

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00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:38,920
me off, and ahead of me, I could see into TJ's backyard.

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00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:45,039
Daddy, I screamed, Daddy.
And then as I broke through the underbrush

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00:22:45,079 --> 00:22:49,640
into the yard, that thing came
to a sudden, violent stop, and

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00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:55,680
everything went silent. The thrashing of
the limbs stopped, and the sounds of

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00:22:55,720 --> 00:23:02,920
its breathing stopped, and the sounds
of those impossibly footfalls stopped too, And

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00:23:03,039 --> 00:23:06,240
had chased me all the way back
up the trail, and it almost caught

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00:23:06,279 --> 00:23:11,920
me. I ran into the office
building where my dad and the surveyor were

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00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,359
talking, and TJ came running up
behind me. Well, I was out

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00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,759
of breath and I was crying and
whimpering. As I began to tell my

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00:23:18,839 --> 00:23:23,519
dad about the big thing that was
chasing me, TJ stood behind me and

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00:23:23,559 --> 00:23:29,240
he never said anything. Well,
our neighbor has a ghosts to get out

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00:23:29,279 --> 00:23:33,839
all the time, the surveyor offered, I'll bet one of those nannies got

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00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:37,720
out and got after you. Well, Dad could see that I was really

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00:23:37,839 --> 00:23:41,279
scared, and he laughed and he
patted me on the head and he told

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00:23:41,279 --> 00:23:44,519
me to go wait in the truck. Well, I ran to the truck

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00:23:44,559 --> 00:23:48,599
and I got in and I locked
all the doors. I watched TJ walked

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00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:52,680
slowly over to the truck, and
I waited until he was standing beside it

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00:23:52,759 --> 00:23:56,839
before I had the nerve to roll
down the window. I told you there

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00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:02,839
was a Chewbacca man. He said
it. I saw it. I said,

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00:24:03,039 --> 00:24:07,839
what was that thing? He's the
buggey Man. He's a Chewbacca man,

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00:24:07,279 --> 00:24:12,359
was TJ's only answer. Dad came
out to the truck and I rolled

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00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:17,039
up my window as he got in, and we were pulling away, and

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00:24:17,079 --> 00:24:21,119
I looked back to see TJ walking
towards the back of the house. He

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00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:26,599
turned around and gave me one last
look before disappearing around the corner. Are

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00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,119
you okay? Dad asked, you
got chased by a goat? Huh,

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00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,640
No, Dad, it was not
a goat, I answered, and I

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00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,119
told him the whole story on the
way home, but I could tell that

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00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:42,319
he didn't believe me. He thought
maybe a cow or a bullet chased me

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00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:48,400
out of the woods. Well months
later, Dad asked me if I wanted

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00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:52,279
to go to the surveyor's house with
him again, and I gave him a

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00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:56,480
solid no. Okay, I just
thought i'd ask, he said, holding

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00:24:56,559 --> 00:25:02,519
up his hands in surrender. He
knew how I felt about that place.

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00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:07,359
I never went back there again.
Many nights, I've laid in my bed

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00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,559
and I thought about what happened to
me that day. I thought about TJ

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00:25:11,799 --> 00:25:17,039
and all those wrappers around the trees. I figured he must have been going

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00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:21,200
down there and feeding that thing.
I guess he had kind of made a

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00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:25,839
friend of it. I've also thought
about what would have happened if I hadn't

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00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:30,839
run. Some time after that incident, I overheard my dad telling my mom

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00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:37,079
that the surveyor had taken his family
and moved out of the state. Neighbored

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00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:40,000
down the road. Said that they
had moved back to where his wife was

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00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:45,559
from. Was Alabama or Mississippi,
He couldn't remember which. It's funny.

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00:25:45,839 --> 00:25:48,599
Dad said that he didn't tell me
he was leaving. He just up and

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00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,960
left, and I got him a
lot of business. He didn't even call

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00:25:52,039 --> 00:25:59,559
to say goodbye. My father was
disappointed. My father died several years ago

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00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:03,359
without us ever talking about the incident
again. But I think I know what

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00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:11,759
made them move without warning. TJ
called it that Chewbacca man. Thank you

328
00:26:11,799 --> 00:26:15,200
for joining me on this podcast.
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So if you just go to my
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335
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thanks for joining me, and we'll
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