An Encounter with Big Foot?

When my son Brian was 10 months old, we decided to take our vacation in our newly acquired folding tent trailer that I bought from a next door neighbor. We had always liked the coast so we headed for Patrick’s Point State Park north of Eureka. When we got there, it was fogged in and a park ranger suggested Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park a few miles north. It was in a deep canyon and when we finally got there, there was a nice circular level campground and we set up the tent trailer for the first time. We were the only campers which was nice. It had two folding queen sized platforms on each side of an aisle. We set up our sleeping bag on one side and little Brian, in his bag, had the whole queen sized bed to himself.

Later, about dinner time, we heard the roar of some motorcycles coming down and to our dismay, a bunch of “Hell’s Angels” type, complete with leather jackets with painted pictures on the back, settled in across the road from us and started getting drunk. We almost decided to pack up and move on when a county sheriff’s car came by, slowed down and looked at the “Angels”. He went around the campground a few times, slowing down each time and the “Angels” finally got the idea and left. The sheriff came back and told us we would be O.K. now.

We went to bed and were awakened once in a while by loud screeches and breaking of twigs. About 2 AM, I heard a noise and looked toward Brian and he was gone! I rushed out the door and found him hanging by one hand with his thumb in his mouth and feet 10” from the ground. He had fallen out between the canvas top and plywood platform.

In the morning, we had breakfast and, while Lorrie was getting ready to leave, I decided to take him, in a Gerry Carrier backpack around a circular trail through the woods varying from 30’ to 50’ above the campground floor.

I began hearing twigs crackling and figured it was a deer until Brian all of a sudden said “Hi” which made my hair stand on end. I started whistling and walking faster. After covering a 100’ or so, I heard Brian say “Bye, Bye”!

I don’t even want to think about what it was that he saw and we finished packing and got out of there.

Barnstormer

In the mid 20’s, there were lot of barnstormers around the country who had been pilots in World War I. The only one to come to Live Oak landed in our field one day. My dad didn’t have anything planted there and there was plenty of room between our house and Highway 99. The pilot came over the house and asked my dad if he could use the field to sell rides to town’s people who started to arrive in cars or walking to see what was going on. We lived about a half mile from downtown.

His plane was an old two seated biplane like a “Jenny”. The pilot was handsome in his goggles with a sheep skinned leather jacket. People lined up with their $5 in their hands for the 20 minute ride over the town and surrounding area.

Later in the afternoon, when he was about to leave, he asked my brother, Donald, if he would like to go up and, naturally, he accepted. Donald got into the front seat and they got going. The motor roared, the dust blew and after bouncing over the field, they were air borne.

They climbed up pretty high and the pilot who had worn the sheep skinned leather coat earlier, decided to take it off. He put his “Joystick” between his knees to control the plane. He almost had it off when he hit an “air pocket”. He lost control of the plane struggling to get rid of the coat. The plane wobbled, lost elevation and it was a terrifying moment for Donald until control was re-established.

Donald, of course, had told me this story since I wasn’t born until 1930. My other brother and sisters had seen it happen but I could only listen to the story.