After 68 years of running through the hills, hunting and hiking and exploring the back roads of Oregon with my dad,

I was skeptical about the existence of Bigfoot.

Then in July of 2019 I had my first encounter and it was not exactly a friendly one.

When I graduated from high school, I enlisted.

I ended up spending a total of 27 years in the Navy, the Army, and the Army Reserves. What? After getting back home

and a brief break, I returned to my civilian job as a licensed practical nurse working

for our local VA Medical Center. Once I settled back down, I resumed my explorations of the

back country up until 2007, and then I had a

stroke. The things we were exposed to overseas had started to get the better of me. With my

background in the outdoors, you could say that I know just about every big animal that roams our

forests and hills and mountains

fairly well. That was true until the summer of 2019 when something happened to me that changed

my life. In 2019, my big tom cat became ill and passed away. As it had been our practice since the 1960s,

I took him to be buried in the place

where we buried the rest of our pets over the years.

The pet cemetery is located on the shores

of a spring-fed fire helipad,

a place that firefighting choppers can fill their water buckets.

The hill overlooking the pond is covered with beautiful trees and a mixed understory of brush.

After a stop at the quarry to pick up some large rocks to cover a new grave, I drove up to the

pond and pulled under the trees where I had been burying my cats

as they aged and passed away. Our Tomcat was named Thomas Chattonjager or Thomas the Shadow

...