In 1965, my mother and I were in West Virginia, spending time with our grandparents.

I spent many summers throughout my childhood there.

My grandmother and grandfather lived on the Cheat River before it was flooded, and they had a cabin there with a boat and a dock.

It was a down-in-the-boondocks kind of rural. And I loved that cabin.

It was small, and it slept up to eight people in bunk beds.

One night we were all sitting on the back porch.

It was pitch black outside.

Not even the moon was shining at all that night.

When the rest of us decided to turn in,

Mom said she wanted to stay out a little longer and enjoy the quiet.

A few minutes after we got to bed, my mom came running into my grandparents' room screaming,

There's a bear out there!

She said the bear came up to her and put its paws right on her shoulders.

My grandfather grabbed a shotgun by the bed and went outside ready to defend, but there was nothing there. I don't know what

put its paws on my mother's shoulders, but I don't believe for a second it was a bear. If anything,

it would have attacked or at least growled at her. It really never dawned on me then as a child, but now I have to wonder if it was not

a bigfoot. My friend Bill used to live in Eureka on the Northern California coast.

He was studying to become a forest ranger at the local university, and he worked to pay his way there.

His job was as a timber cruiser, which meant he walked miles and often dense and dark forests,

and he marked huge redwood trees

that were to be cut for lumber. In each location, a landing was made near a tree-falling area,

and this is where the various types of equipment were stored, the huge tractors parked,

...