On July 1st, 1974, I turned 12 years old. For my birthday, I got a Honda cb 100cc motorcycle. I lived in a small motel that my stepfather ran. It also had a small bar/restaurant attached to it. We were located at the very end of a road, just passing the motel turned into state land.
It was a small village called walnut lodge located in Tennessee on Real Foot Lake. Which has a very strange history. The state land road was a dirt and led to the back of the lake for the public boat landing. The road ran around the edge of a swamp, just a few feet above it, on the other side a small strip of woods and then the lake. Halfway between the motel and boat landing, the road ran by an old Indian burial ground.
I just got my motorcycle and wanted to see if I could find an arrowhead. You can not dig in the burial ground, but if something is brought to the top from rain or animals, you can keep it. It was a very sunny and beautiful day. I rode my motorcycle to the site, which is directly across from the swamp. I pulled a little off the road under the shade of the trees.
I could not see the ground under the trees, being in the sunlight. My bike was idling, and I was concentrating very hard on the ground, hoping to see an arrowhead sticking up. That's when I heard it! The one thing that will always get your attention being in the middle of the woods, a stick snapping. You see, the swamp consisted of water, tall grass, and small islands that a tree or two may be growing on holding the dirt together. My head snapped around, and just across the road from me, maybe five feet from the road was ( my description as a kid) . A very tall basketball player in a monkey suit. He/she was very skinny and very tall. I was on the road, sitting on my bike, and it had one foot in the swamp and on the small island with a single tree in the middle and still towered over me. You see, I watch very little TV, I was always outside, fishing, exploring, and so forth. This new generation wouldn't understand!
Never know what a Bigfoot was or what it was, I just know it wasn't a bear or anything I have ever seen! I must have startled him as much as he startled me. When he stepped on the small island, his shoulder must have hit and broke one of the limbs of the small tree. That is what made the snapping noise.
I was so scared that I think I wet my pants a little. Pulled on the throttle as hard as I could, I had water in my eyes, hoping that someone was at the landing.
Got to the landing, and no one was there. One way in, one way out. I rode the bike as fast as 100cc would carry me, saying to myself if it is still there and in the road, I will hit him with the bike and maybe get away. But when I got to the spot, it was gone. I went straight home and did not go exploring for a long time. The funny thing is I didn't say anything to anyone, maybe because I thought they wouldn't believe me and would make fun of me! Later thinking about it. I don't think it saw me until I moved. I was in the shadows, very still looking for an arrowhead, and the idling of the bike would have sounded like a small boat on the lake until I moved, and he froze.