WEBVTT

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My father was the second youngest of
ten kids. He and his twin sister

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were born in nineteen forty five at
their family home in Clay, West,

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Virginia. He grew up being called
Buckshot, and until I was nine or

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ten years old, I thought that
was his Christian name. Although he passed

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away in two thousand and seventeen,
he told his story many times before he

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died. My brother was with him
when it happened, and he has never

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discredited a word of my dad's story, so I have no doubt that this

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story is true. In nineteen seventy
eight, when my brother Phil was eleven,

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Dad said, come on, boy, it's time you're going to go

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on your first raccoon hunt. Our
father's love for raccoon hunting was infectious,

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so Phil was tickled to death to
be joining him for the first time on

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their coal miners, light helmets,
and strap the battery packs to their waists.

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Than they headed out. The only
one more excited for the hunt that

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night than my brother was was my
dad's favorite dog. He was a walker

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named pretty Boy. Whenever he saw
Dad getting ready, he always started panting

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and barking and dancing around his legs. He knew they were going hunting,

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and he couldn't wait to see the
tailgate drop on my dad's nineteen seventy six

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Chevy Love truck so he could load
up. That night, my dad and

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brother drove twenty miles to his friend
Rick's place. Rick had several dogs of

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his own, along with two teenaged
sons who also hunted. They decided where

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they'd be going, and they set
out as it was getting dark. They

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knew they'd have good luck that night
because the farmer who lived there had been

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complaining about the raccoons getting into his
feed bins. With their good quality hunting

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dogs and their own skills, they
were sure to be able to relieve the

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arm of at least a few of
those pests. Dad Rick and the boys

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walked the dogs out on leashes,
located a scent trail, and turned them

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loose. After that, it was
only a matter of time before the dogs

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treed. Until then, all they
had to do was settle in near their

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trucks and wait and listen. It
didn't take long. Within fifteen minutes the

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dogs had treed. My dad said
they were real close. They turned on

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their lights and started up the mountains
towards the sound of the dogs. They

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had to cross a barber wire fence, but they found the dogs at the

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base of a large beech tree in
West Virginia. These trees, with their

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pale, almost white bark, can
grow to massive proportions. It can take

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three men with their arms stretched wide
to reach around the circumference of one.

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Because of the tree's size and the
fact that it still had branches of dead

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leaves here and there, they thought
they might have difficulty seeing the raccoon.

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The dogs were leashed and pulled away
from the tree. However, they discovered

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they'd have no trouble spotting with the
hounds a tree, but it wasn't a

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raccoon. Sitting up on the branches
of the tree, covered in reddish brown

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hair, was a young sy squatch. It was six feet tall, and

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Dad described it as looking like a
tall, skinny orangutan with a face like

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a man. It looked down on
them with glowing red eyes and bared its

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big, square teeth and sharp canines
at them. That's when it screamed,

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and it hit them in the chest
like a mic truck. Phil and the

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other two boys fell to the ground
and began to cry. Rick stood frozen

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in place and he was unable to
move. The dogs cowered in submission,

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but pretty Boy managed to crawl over
to where Phil was and he laid across

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him. A second later, an
answering scream came from somewhere in the distance,

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followed by another one that sounded like
it was a mile or so away.

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That was what shook my dad back
to reality. He pushed pretty Boy

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off of fill and helped him to
his feet before punching Rick and the arm

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and saying, let's get the heck
out of here. Yeah that's Rick answered,

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as he helped the boys up off
the ground. Let's go. Their

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dogs led them down the mountain as
they all hogh tailed it back to the

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woods. They were only about halfway
there when they heard something behind them come

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crashing through the woods. It sounded
like a bulldozer following them. At that

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point, Dad picked up Phil like
a football and broke into a dead run.

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He cleared the three strand barbed wire
fence and didn't stop until he reached

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the truck. The dogs were there
waiting for them. Whatever had chased them

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down the mountain never caught up with
them, but stayed just close enough to

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keep them motivated. From the top
of the mountain came another screaming sound.

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Daddy thought it had to be a
second one, but they weren't going to

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hang around to find out. He
loaded my brother and his dog into the

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front of his truck, while Rick
loaded the boys and dogs into theirs,

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and they all sped off. Dad
headed straight for home and didn't stop until

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he got there. For him and
my brother, it was the end of

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a harrowing experience, and for Rick
and his family, however, it was

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just the beginning. Dad and Phil
had a twenty mile drive to make,

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and Rick and his boys lived a
short seven miles away. As soon as

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he got home, he told his
wife all about what happened that night.

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They'd been home about thirty minutes and
Rick was still trying to gain control of

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his heart rate when the same screams
they'd heard up on the mountains started coming

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from the woods behind their barn,
about one hundred yards from the house.

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Rick's wife was furious, you brought
those things here. I've got babies in

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this house and you brought those things
here, and she yelled at him get

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rid of them now. Rick sent
her and the kids upstairs with the warning

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not to come down, no matter
what she might hear. He then walked

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around their farmhouse and secured all the
doors and windows. As the screams got

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closer, rocks the size of baseballs
began landing on the tin roof. Soon

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something was walking around the house with
heavy stomps that shook their antique hutch and

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rattled the china plates that were a
gift from his wife's granny. He'd brought

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the dogs inside with him when they
got home, but they were hiding under

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the bed and were of no use. Every ten minutes or so, something

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slapped the side of the house or
tapped on the window. Rick's nerves had

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just about reached their limit when he
heard his wife screaming from upstairs. He

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ran up to find her pointing at
the window in near hysterics. I saw

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a face in that window, she
claimed, But that was impossible. That

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window was twelve feet off the ground. Call the laws, she pleaded.

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Do you think they're going gonna believe
me when I tell him we have a

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twelve foot peeping tom outside our window? Rick reasoned with her, they'll lock

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us up. After his wife's screamed, there were no more sounds from outside.

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They were all able to get the
kids settled down and into bed,

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but Rick and his wife stayed up
the rest of the night. Once the

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sun came up, he went outside
and walked around the house. Then he

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went back inside and he called buckshot. My dad got there as quickly as

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he could, had his Winchester two
seventy his three point fifty seven pistol,

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and Rick grabbed his twelve gage Remington, and together they went around the house,

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the barn, and the perimeter fence. They found rocks on the low

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side of the roof and footprints all
around the house. The largest of the

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tracks measured twenty four inches long and
ten inches across, with five toes.

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Where those prints stood under the upstairs
window, they sank three inches into the

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ground. That must have been our
peeping tom, you reckon, said Rick.

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Another set of prints measured sixteen inches
long and eight inches across, but

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they only had four toes. The
third set was smaller, still at twelve

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inches, and they only had four
toes too. Rick and Dad estimated the

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smallest set must have been the one
their dogs had treed, while the middle

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sized set must have been the mother
and the largest set belonged to the daddy

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or the alpha male. Within the
week, Rick and his wife moved to

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North Carolina, where her family lived, but he and my dad remained friends

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over the years. And by the
way, the place they were hunting that

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night, it's called Booger Holler.
When I was a kid, we lived

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back in the Arkansas Sticks. There
were a lot of old, abandoned properties

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scattered around the countryside. These properties
always had dilapidated houses in various stages of

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decay and disrepair, and these houses
always had at least a few fruit trees

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around them. In the fall of
nineteen sixty three, the year I turned

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fourteen, one particular pear tree in
one of those old house shars was loaded

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with sweet, juicy pears. One
day, my dad happened to notice that

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tree, and, not wanting to
see the fruit go to waste, sent

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my sister and I to pick two
one hundred pound bur lapped sacks full.

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We saddled up our old mare and
we set out to complete our task.

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Okay, okay, I think that's
funny. I found a fruit tree.

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You kids, get out there and
get me two hundred pounds of pears.

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My dad used to send me into
the seven eleven, when I was like

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six or seven, to buy him
cigarettes. And there were several times that.

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I mean, I was a little
bit of a smart elect but there

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I never did this, but there
were several times I thought, get in

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there and get your own damn cigarettes. I don't want to go in there.

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But anyway, once again, I
digress back to the story. We

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got there, and we quickly devised
a plan to complete our work as quickly

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and sufficiently as possible. I stood
up on the mare's back and we picked

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pears and then dropped them down to
my sister, who put them in the

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bags. It wasn't long before both
bags were full and draped across the mare's

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back. My sister and I managed
to climb on with the bags and arrange

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ourselves as comfortable as we could without
smashing the pears, and we headed for

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home. We were passing by a
creek bed when we saw something that I

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have never been able to reconcile or
identify in all the fifty eight years since

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we saw it. It was some
kind of animal that I have never seen

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before or since. It looked like
a hyena. Specifically, it looked like

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the species of the hyena that live
along the coast in Africa, and they

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feed on seal pups. I think
they're called brown hyaenas it's the only animal

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that comes close to matching the things
standing in the creek bed and staring at

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us. What we saw was about
three feet tall at the shoulders, Its

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hips sat a little lower than the
shoulders, and it had a mane that

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ran from its head to halfway down
its back. It was a brindle dark

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and a reddish brown, with a
wide head. It had a squirrel in

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its mouth. I've lived most of
my life in the great outdoors with only

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one exception. Neither I nor anyone
I know has seen any strange animals in

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these parts in all the years since
that day. My sister and I stared

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at it for a while, and
it stared back at us, and then

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we moved on. As for that
one exception I mentioned, it happened to

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my dad about three years earlier after
my sister and I saw the first animal.

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Daddy came barreling home and on the
old mare at a dead run.

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He went straight to the barn and
he shut her up inside. Then he

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ran as fast as he could to
the house, and he slammed the door,

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and he stood there, shaking with
fright as he told us about the

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brindled puma or jaguar that had followed
him all the way home. Science says

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that these things don't exist, but
my father believed what he saw so much

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that whenever my mother or the kids
went out to milk or do chores,

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he stood guard over us. You
could take this all with a grain of

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salt, but I'm not one to
tell lies, and I think my Dad's

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actions stand for themselves. These days, when I look back, I have

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decided that I would not camp like
I used to unless I brought a gun

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big enough to knock one of these
non existent animals down. Arkansas has a

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fairly healthy population of wild hogs,
an animal that can be just as dangerous

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as any jaguar, anther, or
any other animal out there. If people

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don't want to believe in what I
saw or what my dad saw, they

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should remember all the big hurricanes we
had and all the little zoos and wild

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animal farms scattered around. Animals escape
from those zoos, especially when bad weather

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hits. So anyone who thinks there
isn't anything out there that can hurt them

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had better get that notion out of
their head. I'm just glad I live

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close enough to the outdoors that I
love to drive there and enjoy it and

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then sleep in my own safe bed
at night. Oh Man, Jesse,

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That's exactly the way I feel.
I mean, I live out in the

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country. I live right in the
I was looking at the satellite map,

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and I've looked at it several times. There's a huge just north of me.

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There's this huge, vast expanse of
woods where there is no civilization.

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I don't know how many miles it
is, but it's a Holly Springs National

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Forest. We ride ATVs and four
wheelers back down those roads and stuff.

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My wife and I like to go
ride those things. A matter of fact,

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we were looking at one of those
dune buggy looking things, like a

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Polarish razor or something. I'm not
going to buy one, but boy,

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I wish I could afford one,
because that would be so fun to just

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blaze up and down those dirt and
gravel roads on that. But I'm getting

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off topic. Here here's the deal. He's right, and he's in Arkansas,

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And did y'all know have y'all ever
heard of the story in I think

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it was Clavern County in Arkansas where
two lines escaped. You know, these

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people were keeping exotic, exotic animals, and these two lines escaped and they

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roamed those hills in Clavering County for
quite a while. I think a deer

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hunter saw one take down a deer. Can you imagine sitting in a deer

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stand and looking at a line take
down a deer and you're just sitting there.

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He can get up that tree.
Oh yeah, yeah, line can

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get all the way up that tree. I would absolutely have a heart attack.

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And so this man's right, these
people keeping exotic pets. I've read

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a lot about this. You know, the laws on exotic pets are veryax

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and pretty much every state I know, y'all watched that Joe what was that

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show? That crazy guy that had
the tigers and him and that woman were

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trying to kill each other and he's
in prison now. And Joe what is

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his name? Joe something, y'all, I can't think of things real quick,

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but Joe exotic, that's what it
was. Y'all. Ever seen how

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many tigers he had in that place? All of would take is a good

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tornado to come through there and all
them tigers are out. But anyway,

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in Clayburn County, Arkansas, hunters
finally kill those tigers. They had to

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hunt those tigers. They were hunting
big African dangerous game in the hills of

205
00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:08.000
Clavern County, Arkansas. Look it
up on the internet. It's there. M