Yes, I saw Bigfoot

While today my mind is as open as a Nebraska field, I was once a very black and white person. It was on/off, yes/no, good/bad all the way. Why bother with minutiae or evidence? The world is an easy place when you just make snap judgments and move on. It's how the Republican party became so popular.

I preface this blentry this way because I am about to admit that I saw Bigfoot... or something. Whatever I saw wasn't anything I had ever seen - for real or on TV. The year was 1992 and I was in love with a girl named Bridget Casey. This becomes important later in the story so file that for now. I was a manager at Burger King, because, you know, I didn't apparently want friends or a social life. It was 4 something in the morning. I was on my way to work. I was driving fast. When recounting the story later, I would say I was driving fast because I was running late. This is not entirely true; I just drove really fast in those days. in fact, I was a greasy haired, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, sports car driving teenage boy. Mothers, lock up your daughters.

Back to it. I am a bit bleary eyed driving somewhere between 60 and 100 miles-per-hour and that is when I saw "it". Bigfoot, or what I am calling Bigfoot for lack of more appropriate taxonomy was running next to my car on his two hind legs. He was silvery colored in the glow of my headlights. His fur was long and covered his body. He was no unlike Chubakka, the Wookie.

Did I mention I was driving at some speed? And has it sunken in yet that he or it was running next to my car? As in keeping up with my car. At some speed.

Good, glad we are on the same page here. Bigfoot then somersaulted onto the hood of my car. He was on the passenger side when I saw him initially, running on the right shoulder of the road. He vaulted over the hood to the driver side and disappeared as soon as he appeared.

Not only did I see Bigfoot, but I watched him do his T.J. Hooker impression at 4 something in the morning near 52nd and Breton in Kentwood, Michigan.

Go back and read the first paragraph where I foreshadowed my own indignant disbelief. You won't miss anything. I'll wait to finish until you get back.

You didn't do it, did you? No, you didn't because that would have been silly. But not nearly as silly as seeing Bigfoot, or Chubakka or whatever it was I saw. While the years have eroded the immense rush of emotions I felt at the time, I remember the unbridled abandon with which I happily told everyone I came across at work what had just happened.

Me at the drive-through speaker: "Thanks for choosing Burger King, I saw Bigfoot, pull to the second window and I'll tell you all about it..."

People thought I was crazy already. I was, after all, the greasy haired, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, sports car driving young buck who was not without energy and a way with words. I am sure the energy that I have crafted over the years to work in my advantage was at that point simply energy. I don't recall being especially fun to be around.

And now, to add to being unpleasant, I was certifiable. Great combo. I had a lot going for me.

Work couldn't get by fast enough and when 3:30 came, I was off like a prom dress, retracing my route. I guess I was hoping to Bigfoot would come back for an encore. No such luck, of course.

Now, Bridget Casey and I were never boyfriend and girlfriend. She had a boyfriend and I had no shortage of girlfriends at any given time. This because I had a job, a car and money to spend on dating. I was a good choice by default but I was not "choice".

Bridget and I went to camp together a few weeks hence and pined for each other. I called her the second I got home from work.

Me: "I have something very important to tell you. I need you to listen to me, because I feel kinda weird about it and I need you to tell me you believe me."

BC: "I have to talk to you but I think you are going to think I am crazy."

Me: "Fine, yes, but me first. This is big, I promise."

BC: "It isn't as big as what I have to say- Unless you saw Bigfoot last night..."

Utter. Silence.

Me: "Dammit, Bridge... you aren't going to believe me now. That's what I was going to tell you!"

We began to recount our stories in full confessional form. No detail was spared. It was cathartic. And comforting, since she was not any crazier than you would expect a girl who would have me as a friend to be. And I didn't feel so crazy, either.

She and her sister MaryBeth were out kinda stalking a guy that MaryBeth liked. they lived out in the country and they were on a rural road. It was dark, approaching midnight when Bigfoot simply ambled out in front of MaryBeth's maroon Pontiac Grad Prix. It regarded them, and just kept ambling.

The girls were scared and high-tailed it out of there. I would have, too. In fact I did just a few hours and about 10 miles away. Now, 10 miles is a lot of distance to walk in four hours, but if you go back and re-read up top somewhere, I told you this thing could run like, 60 MPH.

Bridget's physical description of Bigfoot was identical to mine. She went first, remember so she had no knowledge of what my experience had been.

I know what you're thinking. I was being lampooned. But Bridget was unknown to anyone I talked to that day up to that point. We were "super-secret" friends if you catch my drift. Since her parents didn't like me so much, (I was after all a greasy haired, foul mouthed, chain-smoking, sports car driving maniac- I wouldn't have liked me much, either), and she had a boyfriend. There were only a few people who knew of her existence... people who went to camp with us a few weeks earlier. I had not seen or told any of them.

So, that's the implausible but utterly true story of how I, the greasy haired, foul mouthed, chain-smoking, sports car driving maniac saw Bigfoot the same night as Bridget and MaryBeth Casey; two church-going girls of unstained pedigree and utmost honesty, I assure you.

I didn't see Bridget again. Almost ever, until the next summer we were on the same bus trip to Denver. She saw me and gave me a great big hug. She told me she loved me and we did not speak the rest of the trip, nor ever again. I guess when you've been through something like that, you've go nowhere to go. I have never seen Bigfoot since, either, but I no longer scoff at those who say they have.