Back in the late 70s, I had just graduated from college and was getting ready to move from Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Houston, Texas.

Back then there was a large group of us that hung around together all the

time since we got out of high school. One weekend, we decided to go to a park just east of the

city called Beaver Creek. It was a wild prairie park with natural restored prairie grasslands.

These days, it's pretty much in the city limits.

A creek flanked this grassland on three sides with a couple of pedestrian bridges.

Thick old oak trees covered the steep bluff and a horseshoe shape around this flat picnic area

where there were a few pavilions and a

parking lot. I think that day was a holiday because there were a lot of people there throwing

frisbee's and playing at the playground. My group had settled into a pavilion just across the creek

from the dense woods. There were bushes and trees so thick you couldn't see into it at all.

We were just enjoying the day, grilling on the barbecue and having some beers.

Out of nowhere, the bushes violently rustled and a flock of birds flew wildly up into the sky. It sounded like Niagara Falls. It was

really loud. It was so startling almost everyone in the small park stopped and looked.

Then there was a monstrous chest rattling growl that lasted for probably 15 seconds.

It was like the rumble coming out of an old steam engine.

We were in absolute shock.

And then there were these earth-shaking stumps that we all felt through the concrete floor of the pavilion.

Without even thinking, we dropped everything and ran to the parking

lot along with a dozen other people. I have no experience with hunting and I'm not familiar with

wildlife, so I ask one of my friends who does hunt, do you think that was a deer or a cow?

That was no deer or cow, he replied. We stood there for about

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