Speaker 1: I was five years old in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six and me and my brother were on a
Speaker 1: two week camping trip with my grandparents in North Idaho.
Speaker 1: I was born in North Idaho, but my parents moved
Speaker 1: us to Seattle, Washington when I was four years old,
Speaker 1: so visiting my grandparents in Idaho for a month or
Speaker 1: two in the summer became a regular thing when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. My grandfather was an avid out doorsman
Speaker 1: and had all the gear, with a truck and a
Speaker 1: camper and a couple of Honda ninety trail bikes. Both
Speaker 1: my grandpa and grandma were loving and kind people and
Speaker 1: loved to go camping in the mountains of North Idaho.
Speaker 1: We were camped in my grandpa's favorite camping spot on
Speaker 1: a creek near the Saint Joe River. There was another
Speaker 1: party camping nearby and they stopped to let us know
Speaker 1: that a cougar had been seen earlier that morning walking
Speaker 1: down the middle of the gravel road, and they wanted
Speaker 1: us to be aware that it could still be around.
Speaker 1: My grandpa thanked them and let them know that he
Speaker 1: would tell them if he saw it. My grandpa took
Speaker 1: me fishing while my brother and grandma worked on collecting
Speaker 1: firewood for the fire pit. There was a part of
Speaker 1: the creek that my grandpa could walk in without getting
Speaker 1: too wet and fish a really good area on the
Speaker 1: other side of the creek. I followed a little bit
Speaker 1: into the creek, and then I lost interest and started
Speaker 1: looking for cool rocks. My grandpa wasn't very far away,
Speaker 1: maybe thirty feet or so, when his line got a
Speaker 1: hit from a pretty big trout and he yelled for
Speaker 1: me to get the net that he had forgotten on
Speaker 1: the camp side of the creek. All I ran and
Speaker 1: got the net, and I started heading back through the
Speaker 1: water to give it to my grandpa. And after tripping
Speaker 1: and falling in the water, I quickly got up and
Speaker 1: looked at my grandpa's direction. I heard him yelling to
Speaker 1: me stay there. I saw a movement on the bank
Speaker 1: of the creek in front of my grandpa. It was
Speaker 1: a gigantic cougar reaching down into the water and grabbing
Speaker 1: the fish off my grandpa's fishing line. It happened so
Speaker 1: fast that I didn't know what to do. I froze,
Speaker 1: and my grandpa started swearing and yelling at the Krueger
Speaker 1: and waving his arms in the air, and the cougar
Speaker 1: stopped and dropped the fish and started heading into the
Speaker 1: water toward my grandpa. While it was looking over its shoulder.
Speaker 1: At the bank of the creek, a large black figure
Speaker 1: walked on two legs and crashed through the trees. My
Speaker 1: grandpa dropped his fishing pole as the cougar ran into
Speaker 1: his legs while running away from this a black creature.
Speaker 1: The cougar was gone in an instant. My grandpa left
Speaker 1: his fishing pole and he grabbed me by the neck
Speaker 1: of my shirt and he picked me up and started
Speaker 1: heading out of the water to the camp side of
Speaker 1: the creek. He didn't say a word and didn't stop
Speaker 1: walking fast until we were almost to camp. He stopped
Speaker 1: and put me down, and he told me to be
Speaker 1: quiet and let him talk to Grandma. Grandpa raised his
Speaker 1: voice a little and said to Grandma that damn sysquatch
Speaker 1: is back again. Grandma started laughing and said, well, you
Speaker 1: tell him we're not leaving. I wasn't sure what to think.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel scared, but more curious. My brother thought
Speaker 1: that my grandpa was just kidding around and grabbed his
Speaker 1: bike and went off toward the road. My brother was
Speaker 1: nine years old and he was an independent kid. That night,
Speaker 1: we had a campfire and I almost forgot what happened
Speaker 1: earlier in the day. The air was warm, with a
Speaker 1: slight cool breeze coming from the creek. We heard a
Speaker 1: couple of strange noises in the bushes, but my grandparents
Speaker 1: were really good at distracting us. It was time for s'mores.
Speaker 1: Grandpa was an early riser and went out to see
Speaker 1: if he could find his fishing pole. He looked around
Speaker 1: a little bit, but he couldn't find it. My brother
Speaker 1: was running around with a really cool stick that looked
Speaker 1: like a machine gun. He was pretending to shoot the
Speaker 1: enemy and was running in and out of the bushes.
Speaker 1: My brother came out of the bushes and called for
Speaker 1: my grandpa to come look at something that he had found.
Speaker 1: So I ran over to see what was going on,
Speaker 1: because my brother always had a way of finding really
Speaker 1: cool stuff. My brother asked, Grandpa, is your fishing pole
Speaker 1: really a tree catching pole? He pointed over to a
Speaker 1: really big cedar tree, and the fishing pole was leaning
Speaker 1: up against the trunk of the tree. It was almost
Speaker 1: like someone had placed it there for safe keeping. The
Speaker 1: line was broken and the metal loop on the tip
Speaker 1: was bent, but my grandpa said it was almost as
Speaker 1: good as new. The rest of the day was uneventful,
Speaker 1: but that night I will never forget. We were all
Speaker 1: sitting around the campfire listening to some music on a
Speaker 1: radio tape player, and Paul said, the boys are back
Speaker 1: in town. About two minutes later, we heard a whoop
Speaker 1: coming from the creek area where we had seen the sisquatch.
Speaker 1: Two more whoops came from the opposite direction, over the
Speaker 1: gravel road that leads to our camp and then out
Speaker 1: toward the Saint Joe River. The whoops continued for a
Speaker 1: few minutes until it felt like they were right next
Speaker 1: to us, and my grandpa told Grandma to take the
Speaker 1: boys to the camper and get the beds ready. As
Speaker 1: we were walking to the camper, a huge crash came
Speaker 1: from the bushes where my brother found a fishing pole.
Speaker 1: Two large black figures came out of the bushes, looking
Speaker 1: like they were wrestling on the ground, and they were
Speaker 1: making deep growling sounds. They didn't seem to be fighting,
Speaker 1: but they were playing. I think the growling sounds reminded
Speaker 1: me of two dogs playing together, but really deep sounding.
Speaker 1: They acted like they didn't know we were there. My
Speaker 1: grandpa was calm as can be, and my grandmother said
Speaker 1: some swear words, and she pushed me and my brother
Speaker 1: toward the camper, and I remember looking back, and the
Speaker 1: two figures stood up and they walked toward the creek,
Speaker 1: and I remember hearing them crashing through the water, and
Speaker 1: then it was silent. There was no sound except for
Speaker 1: the creek flowing. My grandpa said, the song was right.
Speaker 1: The boys are back in town. He laughed and headed
Speaker 1: to the cooler for a cold snack a beer, and
Speaker 1: sat back down at the campfire ll I didn't feel
Speaker 1: scared at all, maybe because my grandparents were so calm
Speaker 1: and easy going about what was happening. My grandmother went
Speaker 1: to bed, but us two boys and grandpa stayed up
Speaker 1: all night listening to the radio and listening to the
Speaker 1: night sounds. We didn't see her hear the sosquatch for
Speaker 1: the next two days. My brother was oblivious about stuff,
Speaker 1: and it seemed like he had forgotten what had happened.
Speaker 1: And well, I was thinking about it all the time,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't scared. My grandpa said, the boys the
Speaker 1: Sasquatches were the keepers of the forest and they protected
Speaker 1: everything there. My grandfather died when I was sixteen, and
Speaker 1: I remember talking with my grandma about the cougar stealing
Speaker 1: the fish and then running into my grandpa. My grandma
Speaker 1: verified the story by reading from her diary. She kept
Speaker 1: clearing detailed notes about all the times they went camping,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't the only time sasquatch had visited them.
Speaker 1: I ended up moving back to North Idaho when I
Speaker 1: was twenty two, and I took care of my grandma
Speaker 1: until she died when I was twenty eight. My mother
Speaker 1: ended up buying my grandparents' house and she moved from
Speaker 1: Seattle to North Idaho. My mother died several years later,
Speaker 1: and my brother and I cleaned out the house and
Speaker 1: we sold it. I have most of the diaries and
Speaker 1: other things that my grandma I wrote about. I will
Speaker 1: be compiling the information and I will eventually write about
Speaker 1: the experiences my grandparents had as well as the experiences
Speaker 1: I have had. I live in a small town in
Speaker 1: north Mississippi. I'm not from here. I married a man
Speaker 1: in the army in the mid seventies. I am from
Speaker 1: Germany and I lived there until I was twenty two.
Speaker 1: This year, I will turn seventy five years old. My
Speaker 1: husband is gone now and I live alone, and I
Speaker 1: do just fine. I've lived in the American South long
Speaker 1: enough that if you met me on the street and
Speaker 1: we spoke, you would have no idea that my first
Speaker 1: language is German. I was determined not to stand out,
Speaker 1: so I not only made sure to learn English quickly,
Speaker 1: but I also spoke it with the local accent. The
Speaker 1: German accent is difficult to overcome, but I did it.
Speaker 1: I have no family in Germany, and I haven't spoken
Speaker 1: the language in years to anyone other than my living children.
Speaker 1: A few years before my husband died, he and I
Speaker 1: vacationed out west. It was a great vacation and I
Speaker 1: got to see some of the beauty of this continent.
Speaker 1: We spent two days at the Grand Canyon. We drove
Speaker 1: all across the southern Rim, stopping at every place of
Speaker 1: importance or the places that had a view. The people
Speaker 1: travel from all over the world to see the canyon,
Speaker 1: and while we were there, I heard many different languages
Speaker 1: spoken between family members. When I finally heard a couple
Speaker 1: speaking German, I immediately approached them and explained that I
Speaker 1: had not spoken the language in years. Did they mind
Speaker 1: if I talked to them? Awhile? I think they were
Speaker 1: as excited as I was. They had been in the
Speaker 1: United States for three weeks, they didn't speak English and
Speaker 1: had had a difficult time communicating during their stay. Well,
Speaker 1: we were staying in Flagstaff for the night, and so
Speaker 1: were they. They wanted us to join them for a
Speaker 1: meal that night, and I accepted. Before I asked my husband,
Speaker 1: I knew he wouldn't mind. We spent hours that evening
Speaker 1: talking about everything from my home country. They were from
Speaker 1: a town close to where I grew up. It was
Speaker 1: a joy speaking to them, and even helping them, even
Speaker 1: for only a short time, translate the menus and interpret
Speaker 1: for them to the waitress who took our orders. The
Speaker 1: conversation was lively, and I had no time to repeat
Speaker 1: in English everything they had said in German. To my husband,
Speaker 1: I know he felt left out, but he never complained.
Speaker 1: I think he saw that it gave me a great
Speaker 1: sense of pleasure to speak my native language again, and
Speaker 1: it was a fun night that I will never forget.
Speaker 1: Our life together we had three children, and I taught
Speaker 1: each of them the German language. I saw an old
Speaker 1: reason to deprive them of that part of their heritage.
Speaker 1: Once the first two knew the language, teaching it to
Speaker 1: my youngest son was a breeze. His brothers would fill
Speaker 1: in the gaps, and there were many nights around the
Speaker 1: table that German was the only language spoken. I have
Speaker 1: no doubt that my husband had listened long enough that
Speaker 1: he knew the language well enough to understand much of
Speaker 1: what was said, but he always said he didn't. He
Speaker 1: was that way. But when I would scream at him
Speaker 1: in anger or frustration, he sure understood it then, and
Speaker 1: I still laughed to myself about those times. Tragically, we
Speaker 1: lost one of our sons in an accident. Nick crushed
Speaker 1: both of us, and we spent a year grieving along
Speaker 1: with his brothers. But it has been many years, and
Speaker 1: while we never forget in the pain of that law
Speaker 1: never leaves us, we learn to adjust and cope with it.
Speaker 1: Now I've done that for years now. One thing that
Speaker 1: helped me was to visit my son's grave on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. Now my son is not there. I knew
Speaker 1: this when I began my visits. My son is asleep now,
Speaker 1: waiting to be raised again by our Creator. We are
Speaker 1: Christians and we believe this or we know this to
Speaker 1: be our hope. But even with the knowledge of our future,
Speaker 1: in the state of my son's body and soul as
Speaker 1: well now with my husband since his passing, going there
Speaker 1: is comforting to me. I still drive and go there
Speaker 1: once each week, still at the age of seventy five.
Speaker 1: Now I talk to those men and I tell them
Speaker 1: about my week, and I speak to them like they
Speaker 1: are there, And even though I know they do not
Speaker 1: hear me and know I'm not crazy, they don't speak
Speaker 1: back to me, it still gives me comfort and hope.
Speaker 1: My husband and my sons were and are hunters. Deer
Speaker 1: season around our house was a festive time of year.
Speaker 1: There's nothing a mother of three and joys more than
Speaker 1: watching the excitement that came every opening weekend and even
Speaker 1: throughout the season. My husband's family has land in the
Speaker 1: Holly Springs National Forest. It's been passed down for generations
Speaker 1: and remarkably, not one acre has ever been sold, and
Speaker 1: that is where the boys hunt, and boy have they
Speaker 1: taken some big deer from that area. My husband and
Speaker 1: son are buried there with generations before them, some who
Speaker 1: fought in the Civil War. So when I make the
Speaker 1: thirty minute drive there once each week, it is a
Speaker 1: serene and beautiful place to be, especially in the spring,
Speaker 1: and to talk to the two men that I've lost.
Speaker 1: My husband talked about a creature that roamed the woods
Speaker 1: of their property. He called them buggers. For many years,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what he was referring to. I didn't
Speaker 1: really care. There were occasions I thought he was joking,
Speaker 1: maybe to even get a smile from me. Once the
Speaker 1: boys were old enough to hunt, he insisted that I
Speaker 1: have apples on hands so that they could take them
Speaker 1: into the woods on their hunts. They would drop a
Speaker 1: few apples at the base of the tree from which
Speaker 1: they hunted, for the boggers to pick up later. He
Speaker 1: never made a big deal of these creatures, but he
Speaker 1: would talk about them like you and I would discuss
Speaker 1: the behavior of a dog, any common animal. He once
Speaker 1: explained to me what they were. He didn't want to,
Speaker 1: but I had pestered him for some reason almost the
Speaker 1: entire deer season to tell me what they were. I
Speaker 1: needed to get an image in my mind so that
Speaker 1: my imagination wasn't creating a creature that was nice when
Speaker 1: it wasn't, or one that was sinister when it wasn't. Finally,
Speaker 1: one evening at the dinner table, an evening that we
Speaker 1: were only speaking English, he and the boys, who were
Speaker 1: teenagers at the time, explained what the creatures were. Later
Speaker 1: that week, we watched a movie on VHS called The
Speaker 1: Legend of Boggy Creek. Creature in that movie was not
Speaker 1: nice or it didn't seem to be nice, although it
Speaker 1: never harmed anyone. The boys explained that the Boogers lived
Speaker 1: in the forest and had probably been there for many years,
Speaker 1: maybe even hundreds of years. They had all seen one
Speaker 1: and spoke about the creature with great authority, much like
Speaker 1: they would talk about anything else they knew well. It
Speaker 1: was important to them to leave an offering with each hunt.
Speaker 1: They always feel dressed their kill on the spot, left
Speaker 1: the internals, or they left apples. They would simply drop
Speaker 1: them from their tree stands when they arrived so they
Speaker 1: wouldn't forget. We bought the local grocery store out of
Speaker 1: apples during deer season, and that is how I learned
Speaker 1: about the Boogers. After my son's death, while at the cemetery,
Speaker 1: I began seeing shapes move through the trees while I
Speaker 1: was there. I wasn't sure what it was, and I
Speaker 1: was never alarmed. They would come in and out a few,
Speaker 1: never fully revealing themselves. I never put it together until
Speaker 1: one day. I mentioned the strange events to one of
Speaker 1: my sons while he and I met for lunch one day. Well,
Speaker 1: those are Booger's mom, he said. They knew Jacob and
Speaker 1: they see you visiting him. They know you're his mother.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they know, but they know. Otherwise
Speaker 1: they'd scare you away. Well, I remember sitting in silence
Speaker 1: after he told me this. I wasn't sure what to
Speaker 1: make of it. I had never fully believed in these boogers.
Speaker 1: I suppose since I had never experienced them, they were
Speaker 1: a joke in my mind, because I wondered for years
Speaker 1: whether my husband and the boys were laughing at me
Speaker 1: all the way to the woods with their backpacks full
Speaker 1: of apples. You do know apples are a favorite food
Speaker 1: for deer, right. Well, I finally verbalized this to my son.
Speaker 1: He smiled at me and he laid his hand over mine. Mom,
Speaker 1: they're real now you've seen them. You just said it.
Speaker 1: You just didn't know what you were seeing now the
Speaker 1: same thing happened to all of us, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: thankful that Dad was there to explain them to us.
Speaker 1: He said, well, should I be afraid, I ask? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. He said, if they wanted you afraid,
Speaker 1: you would know it. You should keep visiting and don't
Speaker 1: change anything. They will someday let you see them fully.
Speaker 1: If it takes ten years, then it takes ten years.
Speaker 1: But they will show themselves. They've done that for all
Speaker 1: of us. One year ago this week, I began bringing
Speaker 1: a bag of apples with me on my weekly visits.
Speaker 1: I leave half on my son's grave and half on
Speaker 1: my husband's grave. They are a few plots part. The
Speaker 1: next week, the apples are gone. Now. That could be
Speaker 1: deer coming into the cemetery and eating them, or other wildlife,
Speaker 1: but I don't think so. Last week, after many years
Speaker 1: of visiting the cemetery and hundreds of words to those
Speaker 1: men who never hear me, two of the creatures showed
Speaker 1: themselves to me. The temperature was in the seventies, which
Speaker 1: is nice in January, and I had been there an hour,
Speaker 1: sitting at the cheap little picnic tables the boys had
Speaker 1: placed there for me. When I saw the same movement
Speaker 1: I had seen so many times before, and one and
Speaker 1: then two walked into full view at the edge of
Speaker 1: the woods that encompassed the area. They never gestured, nor
Speaker 1: did they make any sounds. They didn't really look my
Speaker 1: way more than a few times. They just stood there
Speaker 1: in full view, almost shy in a way, shifting their
Speaker 1: weight from one foot to the other, like a child
Speaker 1: might on his first day of school. They were enormous animals,
Speaker 1: and I should have been terrified, but I wasn't thanks
Speaker 1: to my son's explanation. I sat there and I watched
Speaker 1: them until they walked back out the way they had come,
Speaker 1: and it was over. As I walked to my car,
Speaker 1: I whispered to my boys in that cemetery, your bookers
Speaker 1: came to see me today, Well, I hope they heard me. Now,
Speaker 1: at age seventy five, I feel like a child again.
Speaker 1: This spring, when the weather turns warm, I want to
Speaker 1: begin to bring my grandchildren with me to the cemetery
Speaker 1: and I tell them about the creatures that live in
Speaker 1: the surrounding forest. They are teenagers, and one or two
Speaker 1: are in college, but I will invite them to go
Speaker 1: with me when they are in town. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they'll go with me, but they should. I'm hoping
Speaker 1: their fathers will encourage it. They need to see this
Speaker 1: and hear the stories.