Sometimes the mind plays strange tricks upon us and with the passage of time we find it difficult to separate truth from fantasy. Time has passed, about two years to be exact, and I feel that I better write down my story before it passes into that gray area of unreality.

You who read this story can expect no great prose, no witicisms to tempt the chuckle bones, nothing to challenge the imagination. This will be a straightforward account of what happened. You may believe it if you wish or refuse to believe it. Your acceptance or rejection of this tale will have no effect on the future of the world or the future of yourself.

I had built a cabin in a small wooded area in south-western Pennsylvania. The land comprises about eleven acres and the nearest neighbor is approximately a thousand feet away. My property is in south facing slope and a small stream and road separates this slope from another slope across the way. The other slope is rented and upon it a farmer raises cattle. His land is clear and I can sit on the porch of my cabin and occasionally see his cattle through the tree limbs and leaves.

After I built the cabin I began clearing a road and making other improvements on the property. This was to be my retreat from the world of teaching earth science in a small college. I am by nature an introvert and the crush of large college classes and conversation with people leaves me physically exhausted. The cabin and wooded acreage were to be my bunker protecting me against the outside world.

The previous winter I had slept at the cabin in the silent months of January and February. It was a cold winter, the coldest on record for the county, and often the ground was covered with powdery snow. Sometimes the moon reflected a ghostly image on the snow and the shadows of trees and often as not the snow would be melted and the moonlight then played upon the decaying leaves and the dry grass of the woods. I was alone and would return to the cabin to sleep each night and embrace the silence of those woods. Here my mind played strange tricks and in the moonlight I believed I saw shadows among the bare tree trunks, shadows which were watching me.

I was not exactly living in the cabin by choice. I had committed an indiscretion the year before and my wife Sally asked me to leave so that we could work out our desires and needs without distraction. In short, she had kicked me out. We would meet occasionally and I would tell her about the watchers and the quiet of the winter nights. She would laugh and recite the stories of the watchers from the old New England poet's tales.

I finally returned to live with her and my two children in the college town and forgot about the shadows of the night. I was once again consumed with teaching and the mundane matters of society and marriage.

The adventure which I am about to relate began late on a hot August day. I had been digging a small pond by hand and the sweat rolled from me freely. I am so prone to digging ditches, holes, ponds, embankments and the like that I named the cabin area the Diggins. Anyway, after I had sweated enough and worked enough my habits called for me to retire to the porch of the cabin and enjoy a beer. I had made my way up the slope to the cabin slower than usual since I was extremely tired that day. I went into the cabin, got a cold beer, and went back to sit on the porch and relax.

I took the beer, flipped open the can and sat on the side of the porch with my feet up on a bench in front of me. I heard a slight noise to my right and so I lifted myself and peered around to the side of the cabin from the porch and there crouched before me was a large hairy creature. In an instance the creature turned and leaped into the brush to the back of the cabin and was gone. I stood stunned. "My God." I must have shouted it out loud.

What to do. Shall I tell anyone? Whom can I trust? Did I want hundreds of people tramping down my property? Could I believe what I saw? A poet friend of mine from West Virginia told me of a story from his past. He was a boy growing up in Turtle Creek. Pennsylvania. He and a handful of louts were standing around general store on a wintry day when a large snowy owl landed on an electric pole near the store. He said that every one of the buys save he, ran home to get his gun. The first to return shot and killed the owl.

My trouble was twofold. I did not want people around and did not want to see anything killed. I had given up hunting about ten years before and even winced when I cut down trees to clear my road. Certainly I did not wish to see the creature killed.

I was trained as a scientist and if I had to, I would track the creature if at all possible and study it. I would keep the incident to myself since anyone seeing "bigfoot" like creatures were portrayed as loonies by the news media. I take this method now to tell of my subsequent meetings with the creature and the events that followed. You may doubt me or believe me, your opinion is of no consequence to me or to truth.

The Second Sighting

There were many grassy areas in the cleared patches of my woods and Often I would see these trampled down. My speculation was that deer were bedding in the area although I had never seen deer except only in a situation which I will repeat later. I combed my property and the adjoining properties for signs of the creature but could find none. I wanted to tell someone about it but who would believe me and what good would it do anyway. So I was alone in my search and extremely frustrated.

August passed and September came along. Apples were ripe and I would gather these and keep them in a basket or put them out on my porch railing for the raccoons or whatever it was that took them from the railing. It finally came to me that it may be the creature that took the apples. However, I did find either squirrel or raccoon tracks on the porch in wet weather. I had given up hope of ever seeing the creature again and went back to digging the pond and sweating.

I had made myself comfortable on the porch at dusk and was munching an apple when the creature appeared at the railing about eight feet from me. I had positioned myself in the middle of the porch to avoid looking into the low sun. The neck and head of the creature were above the railing and with a hairy arm it reached out, took two apples, stared at me, then turned and bounded into the bushes again. I rose slowly and walked to the edge of the porch and peered into the bushes. I lowered myself over the railing where the creature had appeared and walked toward the bushes but the creature was not to be found. When I returned to the porch I noted that the railing was over my head by an inch or so and that it was at least six feet high. Later measurement confirmed the height at six foot one inch. Estimating the size of the creature's head it must have been seven feet tall. I was able to confirm this later but I wish to relate the story to you exactly as I remember it.

My first impression was that the creature was apelike or manlike, about seven feet tall and covered with short brown hair. Its eyes were large and its mouth expressive. It did not have a large protruding jaw or excessively thick lips as artist conceptions of apemen usually have. The body was powerful with well developed leg and shoulder muscles and sported a protruding stomach.

The protruding stomach may seem normal when one considers apes and sees pictures of them but when an artist conceives a human the human is pictured as flat stomached and muscular which is a misconception. Stand on any street corner and you will observe that humans are flabby with protruding guts. The older the human the more protruding the gut. I can say this, as I look down over my own creeping obesity. So you should not consider the creature as too much different than humans on that basis.

For about a week thereafter I set apples on the railing to no avail. I would set out two at a time and would not leave more than that overnight. The secret of the creature's appearance escaped me. My wife Sally wondered what the hell I was up to and why I spent so much time out at the Diggins. The tension which was already high between us intensified. I had become hooked on the creature and yet could not divulge my obsession. Can you imagine any man telling his suspicious wife that be was late because he was tracking a large hairy creature.

I finally hit upon some of the ingredients of my meetings with the creature. I had parked my car down near the pond and not at the cabin. I had worked hard and had a good sweat and I was on the porch. So, my next move was to work up a good sweat and stay on the porch of the cabin.

This system finally paid off for on the day of the autumnal equinox I made friendly contact. I had a good sweat, the car was parked below the property and I had my apple bait set out.

My first impression was that the creature would not appear for this was only the second day of my luring. As the sun began to set I took a pencil and drew a line on the porch railing in an east west direction for no other reason that I was a scientist and on the day of the equinox the sun always set in the west and I would always be able to observe where the directions were from my porch. As I rose from my marking I saw the creature standing about four feet from the porch, I stood still for a moment and then I made slight hand motions for the creature to come to me. I realized at once that it was not a human and hand motions meant nothing so I retrieved an apple from my side pocket and tossed it at the creature's feet. I saw then that it was a male. Its penis hanging limply in front, scarcely noticeable in the failing light. He picked up the apple, opened his mouth and with one chomp crushed it in powerful jaws. I threw him another and another and on the third apple I spoke in low hushed tones increasing my voice to normal about the tenth apple. I was now fishing apples from the chip basket on the railing. The creature loaded most of these in his arms and walked to the bushes at the end of the small clearing and disappeared.

The next evening he returned a little earlier and took apples from my hand but would not really let me get near him. As long as the railing was between us he was calm and when I went to leave the porch he would walk away. The reader may ask was I not frightened? I can assure you that I was highly excited and frightened may not be the proper descriptive term. I have always prided myself on not being afraid of anything and this seemed to be a situation in which the creature was afraid and I was the aggressor. I have traveled somewhat in Europe and have slept among hostile gypsies in Hungary and faced a knife point in an alley of Piccadilly Circus in London. When these adventures occurred to me they seemed unreal and as if it were happening to someone else, perhaps to my alter ego or some other psychological manifestation of my personality. It was and is this sense of unreality about life that makes me unafraid. Besides I was a scientist and this was a situation in which all true scientists wish to find themselves someday.

The next month or so I met the creature almost every evening. He would stay as long as I would, sitting or squatting and observing me as I observed him. We ate food together and I was able to touch him cautiously and he would touch me. I brought other fruit to try out on him. He would eat bananas, pears, and plums but not cherries and citrus fruits. He would eat the fruit seeds and all with great chomps and much juicing. At first he ate the bananas peels and all and later he would peel them.

My main preoccupation with the creature was to measure him and if at all possible photograph him. My preliminary measurements confirmed my estimate of seven feet tall. This was done by noting the height of his head as he lined himself at the side of the cabin. When I tried to take out a steel tape he would run into the woods and would not return for a day or two. I got the same response when I left the car with my camera or a transistor radio. Photographing the creature would be difficult.

After the first week of real contact I decided to name the creature. I had to do this not only for my mental references but in order to give him some recognizable calling card. The only name that seemed to fit was King Kong and this was ridiculous but I settled on Kong for his large size and friendly approaches were reminiscent of the literary ape. So Kong now was his name and I could begin attaching a personality to it.

Kong's arms were about the size of my muscle at his wrists and about twenty inches around at the muscle. His legs were perhaps thirty four or thirty six inches around at the crotch. The front muscles on the upper leg was well developed. His buttocks were shapeless and flat. Other than those features he was well proportioned. much like a human without the long arms characteristic of the ape world. His feet were not large and about thirteen inches in length about an inch larger than mine. He would not qualify for the title bigfoot. I was never able to find a footprint or cause him to make one that could be measured or cast. He did not show on rainy days, or when the ground was very soft and wet, except for incidents which I will later relate.

As I had stated earlier his hair was short resembling a mohair couch and chair set we had at home when I was a lad. The hair was longer on top of the head, under the arms, at the pubic area, and on the ankles. There was no hair on the palms of his hands, very short on his stomach, chest and face, and as far as I could tell none on the soles of his feet. When I tried to lift his feet from the ground he would not budge and would exert pressure on my shoulders on top of my head with his hands. This pressure was very strong and I did not wish to contest it.

Kong had a full set of upper and lower teeth and when he yawned I was able to get a good look at them but was not able to count them. He wouldn't let me run my finger over them. All his teeth were even, that is, they came to an even row at their lower edge or biting surface. This was true of both upper and lower teeth. They all were flat at the cutting edge as if they were all molars. I could identify the area of the canine teeth hut they seemed the same as the others. The front teeth were thinner and I suppose incisors. Generally his teeth were white except when he had stained them by eating berries or choke cherries. I could never understand why he would eat choke cherries and not domestic cherries. Anyway, his teeth seemed to be grinders and not cutters.

His eyes were brown and quite large with the iris perhaps three quarters of an inch in diameter. He seemed to be bothered by sunlight and appeared only at dawn or dusk. At this time the pupils would occupy most of the iris. There was a noticeable body odor about him, much like that of a sweating horse or wet dog. When he would exercise it would become rank and without my scientific curiosity unbearable. No wonder he approached me only when I hadn't bathed and at first when I had been drenched with sweat. His nose which was covered with fine hair was protruding with a slight bump, just below the eyes. The nostrils were not inordinately large. Fine hair also covered his face just below the ears giving him a slight mask like quality. His ears were slightly pointed and exhibited no lobes.

I experimented with food both wild and domestic. He would eat raw grain, corn, wheat, and oats. The prepared foods which he took included white bread, rye bread, whole wheat bread, corn flakes, jelly. butter, margarine, honey, molasses, maple syrup but not candy. I was hung up on edible wild foods when Kong came into my life and so I was familiar enough with these to experiment.

I would walk through the woods with Kong following a few feet behind and would pick up plants and hand them to him after taking a bite of them myself. He ate dandelions, dock, berries by the handful, choke cherries, lamb's quarters, trillium root, indian cucumber root, wild mustard, pokeweed, and wild onion. Since most of this occurred in late October most plants were old and not tender. I believed the mature pokeweed to be poisonous but this seems to be an erroneous assumption. Kong loved spicy hot food. He ate the root of the jack-in-the-pulpit without flinching. Any nature adventurer knows that the root of the jack-in-the-pulpit is extremely hot and burns the normal stomach. He did not flinch when I fed it to him without taking a bite myself. My first impression was that he might take the root and then never trust me again but he loved it. He also ate wild onions with gusto.

One of his favorite food plants was bedstraw or goose-grass as it is sometimes called. If you are not familiar with the plant it sends out long runners with roseattes of leaves around the stem at intervals. In the fall it produces little balls that stick to the clothing. Kong would eat these by rolling the long stems into a ball and pop them into his mouth in a great wad. He would chew vigorously while the juices of the plant and his spit would squirt out in all directions. In one eating period he stripped away an area which I estimated to be twelve square yards. In that area there were other plants growing and these he left in place. His dexterity in removing the bedstraw was equal to that of the most careful gleaner of materials. I visualized him as a sorter of goods in some assembly line. On a few days Kong appeared smelling of wild onions. In this condition I could barely stand him, he simply reeked. I noticed that when he did that his eyes would take on a pink to red glow in the white areas. Let me state it another way. A few times he came to me reeking of an odor resembling onions and in this condition his eyes were red or pink. I do not know that he was eating onions or perhaps he had conjunctivitis and this was an odor given off by that condition.

My property did not have many evergreens, a few small hemlocks, white pines, and five small blue spruce which I had purchased from the state department of agriculture. Kong ate the needles of these and completely stripped two blue spruce as we stood beside them one morning. I tried to stop him but as I grabbed his arm he lifted it and sent me sprawling. He wasn't trying to hurt me but merely wanted his arm free to get the spruce to his mouth.

I knew that the paltry food I offered could not support the body of such a huge creature and his diet puzzled me. It was partially explained by the event which I shall relate. I will tell this story now even though it occurred much later in time. It was evening and Kong and I were squatting in front of the porch staring at each other when a young deer appeared off to the side of the cabin. It was the first one I had ever seen on my property. It spotted us and shot up the road toward the top of the hill. Kong leaped to his feet and was off like a flash of lightning. His speed was fantastic as he ran the deer down before it got more than a hundred feet away. He picked it up in his powerful hands and slammed it to the ground, I assume killing it instantly. Instead of returning to me he put the deer under his arm and stalked off through the brush. I did not see him again for five days.

After the incident with the deer I saw him kill the following animals, two chipmunks, an opossum, a dog, and a robin. The two chipmunks were captured near an old rotting log about sixty feet from the cabin. We happened to be in that area when one chipmunk appeared on top of the log. It stopped and looked at us and froze in its tracks. As Kong walked slowly towards it the chipmunk gave out a large birdlike "cheep" and started to run along the edge of the log which must have been about twenty feet long. Like a defensive back intercepting an open field runner Kong sidestepped to the right and put out his right hand stopping the chipmunk in its race along the log. The chipmunk reversed its field but the other hand trapped it. As Kong held the chipmunk in his left hand he reached down under the log and extracted a second chipmunk with his right hand. These he squeezed into numbness and then set them down, both small animals wretching near the log. I went over and took a look at them and saw that they would soon be dead. When I returned the next evening they were gone and I assumed Kong took them with him. The opossum was an easy mark as it strolled between us as we squatted in the evening. The squatting in the semidarkness had such an aura of unreality that the opossum, which was the size of a large cat, seemed to fit right into the surroundings. It had a white bony face and a gray rumpled fur. In the fading light it appeared as a ghost mask as it moved slowly between us. Kong moved over to it and with a closed fist of his left hand knocked it over the head. He set the body of the animal out flat and stroked its rumpled fur with his hand. When he left he took the carcass with him.

The stroking of the fur was an act which puzzled me. What it meant is beyond my comprehension. Was it an act of kindness or was it the feeling of an artistic accomplishment and every out of place detail had to be righted. One other incident of this nature now occurs to me. A small rabbit had run up to Kong. Most rabbits came around in the evening in the spring but this was autumn and not only were small rabbits a rarity but this one seemed myopic as it ran right up to Kong. Kong picked it up and cuddled it in his left hand and stroked it with his right hand for a long time. He then set the animal down. It hopped around his feet for a few minutes and then bounded slowly into the underbrush.

The dog incident seemed contrived. It was a medium sized animal with whitish yellow fur and it approached us with much sniffling and barking. I thought that Kong would depart for the woods when the dog approached but he stood there looking at me with a calm facial stare. I hollered at the dog to leave. One thing I had learned about dogs is that you have to look them down or stare them down, like Daniel Boone and the bear. If you run the barking dog is most likely to become a biting dog and attack. When the dog got within a few feet of us Kong turned and started to move swiftly away with the dog growling at his heels. As if he had it planned Kong wheeled about and with the flat hand edge caught the dog just below the ear. The dog flew about ten feet and was of course dead. Like all the other animals the carcass was gone the next day.

The robin just happened to land too close to Kong's head. He was such a part of the wilderness and environment I can imagine people and animals moving right by him without even noticing him. The robin flew in and landed about two feet above Kong. He reached up quickly and caught the bird without difficulty. He then squeezed its neck with his index finger and thumb.

I was worried that Kong might try human flesh but this did not bother me after a while. He ate none of this food in front of me and perhaps he did not eat it at all. Somehow though he supported his large bulk with what must have been an enormous amount of food. After the deer incident I wondered if he had a family and did he take the food somewhere. My efforts at tracking him were in vain for he left no tracks or trails.

No doubt about it, his favorite food was apples and I could lure him with a mackintosh or yellow delicious. I tried many times in vain to set up camera triggers to apples but when the camera or any piece of equipment of that nature was anywhere near he would not appear.

By the end of October I was able to drive the car up to the cabin. When I would slam the door on the car I would holler "Kong — food" and after a few minutes he would emerge. He would come to the area of the car and stand beside it, towering over the car like some escapee from a Japanese science fiction film set. My car was a green Dodge Coronet station wagon with an electric operated rear window, the rear door opened from the top or from the side.

I could place apples on the tailgate and he would take them hut he never got inside the wagon part. I was not clever enough to set up my camera and trip it even though I sought advice from my camera nut colleague from San Francisco. Also, when I usually saw Kong the light was bad and once when I appeared with a flash bulb set up he never showed. I imagine he was somewhere in the brush watching me from a safe distance.

When Sally was particularly edgy, which was quite frequent during this time, I would often feel I had to leave when Kong and I were enjoying staring at each other. At this time he would follow me to the car and I would get in it and drive away leaving him behind with a stupified expression which bothered me. Sometimes he would hang onto the top of the car. Then I would get out and with much gesturing and hollering would send him whimpering into the woods in fright. Anytime I wanted to get rid of him I would wave my arms, jump up and down like a comedian imitating a karate expert and shout loudly. Kong would scream and run away. The only voice sounds I ever heard him make were the whimpering and screaming. He also made a hissing sound but it was not of vocal origin, then there was also a kind of stomach rumble or murmur which was more on the order of a giant cat purring.

I did wish to tell someone about the creature but whom could I trust? It was also necessary to have a companion to cover for me with Sally. My choice was Joe the printer, a friend whom I occasionally beleaguered with confidences. I asked Joe to meet me one afternoon after work. This was in late October and the turned leaves were beginning to fall.

Joe arrived at the college in his car and transferred to my station wagon. I had purposely set up the meeting at a time when Joe would have just finished work and wouldn't have had time to take a bath or clean up. Our conversation went something like this. I opened with these remarks.

"What the hell did you take a bath for, you didn't have to, we're not going to a party, just out to the Diggins to have a beer and for you to see the progress I'm making on the pond."

"I always shower after working in the print shop, I knocked off a little early so I could clean up, what the hell do you want me to go through life smelling like a horse."

The conversation continued on that line all the way to the cabin. When we got there I took a couple of apples I had on the back seat and stepped from the car hollering "Kong — food." Joe stepped from the other side and asked if I felt all right and maybe we should have stopped off at the local hospital. Kong did not appear.

I reasoned that Joe smelled too good and that something should be done about it and tried to get him to jog around the Diggins with me but he refused on the grounds that he was pudgy and not an athlete. He took a position on the picnic bench as I made a few rounds of the cabin with each return into his view I motioned for him to follow my lead but he wasn't having any of it. I can still see his expression in my mind, him sitting there with his hands on his knees and looking at me in wonder. After all, he did work a full day at the print shop and all I did was face a class of faceless students. Paper weighs a lot and lifting reams and boxes of reams onto presses and off presses builds strong muscles. Joe estimated that he moved a minimum of four tons of paper a day during his busy season.

Joe did agree to come over to the cowfield and see the cows with me. He complained all the way down the hill and made light comments about how ever since he was a boy he always wanted to see cows and he missed being down on the farm. He went on like this and I mostly ignored what he was saying. We finally got to the barbed wire fence which we climbed through, each holding the top wire for the other.

Once in the cowfield I led Joe through the areas with the most cowshit on the pretense that I was spotting out mushrooms besides trying to spot the farmers prize bull which was somewhere in the field. Joe was very dainty and he missed every pile of manure. He kept complaining about the amount of manure and the smell and I argued that we in our civilized way were not aware of the relationship we have with farm animals. Nobody stops to think that hamburger comes from cows and a cow on the hoof represents food on the table. He didn't buy my philosophy and continued to dodge the cowshit.

Finally I said to him "look you're going to think this is crazy but would you mind stepping in cowshit with both feet." He agreed that this was crazy and that he wouldn't do it. I tried every ruse I could think of including to throw him down in it if he didn't step in it hut he still didn't go along with it. Even after I told him that I would buy him a case of beer he refused. When I said "please" and that I would do him a big favor he still refused.

After much promising of just about everything he agreed to step into a pile of cowshit if I did so too. He did this gingerly with both feet and much mumbling. We walked across the road and back up to the cabin, both of us reeking of the smell of manure. When we got to the cabin area I hollered once again "Kong — food" and clapped my hands which sometimes worked instead of hollering. Joe hollered into his cupped hands "what the hell is kongfood?"

Kong didn't show and the sun was setting rapidly. I got Joe a beer which he drank hurriedly slopping it down his front. "Let's get the hell out of here," he said, "I got to get back to the shop and get back to work." I tried to get him to stay around just a little while longer but he refused and insisted on our going.

I wiped my feet in the grass and got into the car. Through the open window I warned Joe to "clean the cowshit off your shoes before you get back into my car." The only thing he kept mumbling on the way back was "you crazy sonofabitch."

If there is one humorous aspect of the American scene it is that of rural late enforcement agencies. The township officers of the Diggins area were not different in this respect and all of them may have been movie characters with a little coaching. If a criminal were ever apprehended in our township it was mostly by accident rather than on purpose.

I worried that the police might come across Kong since they were to keep an eye on the place for me. I had had three burglaries up to the time I met Kong. At this writing there are now four burglaries. When I seriously reflected on the police running into Kong I know that it was out of the question since they spent most of their time hot-rodding in the township car and drinking coffee in the only coffee shop of the area.

Each time the place was burglarized I dutifully reported it to the police who came out after a day or two to list the items taken. The township police had an unlisted number and the only way a citizen could get them was to call the county police who would contact the township police. Then the township police would contact me and we would agree to meet out at the cabin and we would compile the list of loot. I missed such trite items as canned food, knives, spoons, bedding, pictures from the walls, and half broken tools. Once they did get an old TV set from me as well as two half hearted radios.

The investigating officers consisted of a part time officer who was partly on welfare and who was once convicted of stripping a stolen car prior to being hired. The other was a full time officer who had nine children and who also supplemented his income with welfare. No wonder police are open to graft I have always had the sneaking suspicion that the police were somehow involved with the burglaries. For some reason the burglars never took an antique sign I had which pictured a horse and the message 'TRAVELERS REST 1762 ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST.' The first time the police arrived, the younger wondered the same thing. On the next investigation he said that they "didn't get that sign yet" and on the third he suggested that I take the sign out of the cabin.

Stolen and stripped cars were always turning up around the cabin area but only twice on my property. The hulks of the cars would lie around for about a month and finally the township would send out a crew to remove the carcasses. Nothing about the cars or the burglaries ever appeared in the tricounties newspaper although crimes in other areas were dutifully reported.

Aside from the burglaries the area of the Diggins was constantly bombarded with litter at the road entrance. One weekend I counted eleven different brands of beer from the cans and bottles strewn about. People often stopped by the spring area to wash their cars and load up plastic jugs with spring water. This area was deluged with an array of paper napkins from Winkys and the Dairy Queen. Empty pizza cartons were piled up each week end as if they were sold at the spring. Plastic jugs littered the ground. About every two weeks in the summer I would gather this debris and build a fire with them. The cans and bottles I would take to the Diggins and throw into a hole that I dug for this purpose.

On one occasion I had a fire going by the spring and was gathering debris when a middle aged couple with a teen aged daughter stopped and filled up their plastic jugs with water. As they got into their car ready to leave the daughter threw a paper hag out the window into the spring. They drove away without speaking to me and I hollered "litterbug" after them.

It was a constant battle with these litter bugs. I once put a sign 'IF YOU CONTINUE TO LITTER I WILL DESTROY THIS SPRING' beside the pipe outlet for the water. Thinking myself clever I signed it 'THE TROLL' since in my thinking all springs were guarded by trolls. This didn't work. This was followed by another sign 'PIGS LEAVE LITTER' but this too made no impression. I tried to get the township commissioners to post 'NO DUMPING HEALTH DEPARTMENT' signs but their promises were never fulfilled. I was probably considered a nuisance by the township commissioners.

I had my property posted with 'NO HUNTING' signs but this didn't stop trespassers and so I switched signs to include all trespassers. Even though the Diggins was off the beaten path there was a steady flow of traffic on the road on week ends. I once came across a man in a sports car sighting his rifle up into the cowfield and adjusting the scope. His wife sat calmly in the driver's seat. I'm not sure it was his wife but that identification is close enough for my purposes here. As I pulled up alongside of him I asked him what he was doing and he answered that "there was something moving up there in the field." This was before I met Kong. I assured the man that I was glad it wasn't me up there as he fired two quick rounds, I asked him what it was he shot and he answered that he didn't know but it got away. He went around to the passenger seat, got in, and they drove away. I walked up into the field but could see nothing.

On one of the occasions when I reported the stripping of a car the police investigation had been a week in coming. During the course of the examination the older policeman took from the car a rear view mirror which was overlooked by the strippers. The mirror was placed in the hack seat of the squad car. The squad car itself was a piece of junk. I believe it was an old Oldsmobile which didn't appear to be able to reach fifty miles an hour going downhill. Anyway this was the law with which I had to contend and on which I had to depend.

It was not unusual to come to the cabin and find that the putty from a window was slowly being removed or that the door lock was being jimmied with sharp instruments. The stripping around the doors was often pried away from the frame. Anything lying loose around the cabin would be removed if it lay there for two weeks. Nothing was safe.

Another danger that was posed was that of burning. Shortly before I met Kong there occurred several burnings in the township area of the Diggins. These were obviously arson and the time of the fires were early in the morning. It was startling to be driving on the main road toward the property and see the remains of a burnt out barn smoldering, a barn that had stood the day before.

My closest neighbors thought this was the work of the junior of the area. They were an active group in their early twenties and late teens and the neighbors believed they started the fires to get some practice in fire fighting. If this was the case, then they really needed the practice since most of the buildings burned to the ground. The buildings were mostly garages, barns, and unoccupied old houses. How the Diggins escaped this I do not know. But even as I write these lines I expect that someone may be out there trying to put a torch to the place. I think I will move my typing equipment out there and finish writing this at the cabin.

I once found a pack of burnt out matches and an empty six pack of beer under the porch of the cabin. I don't know if this was an attempt to set the cabin on fire or not since it would be an easy thing to do. I keep wood stacked under it and any light would send it up in smoke. When I brought this to the attention of the police, all the old officer could say was "probably some kids foolin' around."

The highlight of my war with the litterbugs, trespassers, and burglars came when I found an old car door about ten feet up the road into the Diggins property. It was painted pink and had a Bugs Bunny decale on the middle of it. Ha ha, thought I, I have them now. I went to the township building about ten miles away and sought out the constable.

The two township police officers were a comedy team but the constable was the master. He was a tall portly fellow with graying hair and an odor of stale cigarettes about him. The whiskey smell coming from him offset the tobacco odor nicely. He was usually holed up in the township building where he passed the time talking to the grading equipment driver who never seemed to be out on duty. It was a slow and easy way of life and nothing rattled him too much. Dog violations were his specialty.

I believed that even in his lethargic state the constable would have noticed the owner of a pink car with a Bugs Bunny decale on it. When I presented him with the evidence all he could say was, "hell, there must be a least a dozen cars like that around here." I gave up and decided to protect my property by being there often and policing the grounds for litter myself.

I had tried to communicate with Kong from the very beginning of our association. He and I would mostly just stare into each others face for hours at a time. He seemed incapable of speech or speech like sounds other than screeching or giving off a soft whimper. 0nce when I tried to move his mouth to form words he inadvertently bit my finger and it bled fiercely. I remember whipping my finger out of his mouth and the blood splattering against the side of the cabin. It was my right index finger, the damage being in the middle of the middle joint. I soaked it in scotch whiskey which burned. I considered getting a tetanus shot or checking to see if it needed stitches but it had bled so much I considered this unnecessary. I remember cursing and yelling at Kong but he just looked at me with a stupid quizzical expression.

Yelling at Kong made no impression on him but if I yelled and waved my arms and jumped up and down he would get nervous and back away. I could always get him to back off by jumping up and down and yelling. In fact, by jumping up and down and yelling I can get most any person or animal to back off.

As to the cabin, Kong never set foot on the porch which was the way to enter. One could enter through the back door but I kept that bolted and locked and only used the front entrance from the porch. If I could not get Kong on the porch then of course he never entered the place. He would peer through a window at me or take things from the porch railing but never would he step on or into the place.

In about three weeks I taught him some commands that seemed to be necessary. He learned to STAY by my giving threatening gestures and holding him with repetition of the word over and over. I would put my arms around his chest and arms and press him downward and say STAY STAY in the early training. He finally got the idea. I had tried rewarding him with apples but he seemed to make no connection with the apples and the performance of the deed. I always tried to use the word STAY with my arm extended fingers out with palm down.

He learned that when I said GO he was to leave the area immediately. At first I had to make outlandish gestures and push him. Once I hit him with a switch which had no effect. I decided that this was bad policy since he was a creature of the universe and since he was in no way dangerous to me this was cruel. Besides he could have easily killed me with one sweep of either hand.

The word and sound BAH meant NO. I tried to teach him NO but he confused it with GO and would leave the area. I usually had to use BAH when he would touch me too briskly or start to eat one of the small surviving spruce trees I wished to save.

He would LIE when I said it only when I touched him. I did not like this command hut it seemed a good one to have in our repertoire. I did not like it because it suggested commands to an animal and my definition of animal did not fit Kong who had all the structures of a human including emotions which he conveyed with his eyes and mouth. He was able to convey pleasure, anxiety, fear, serendipity, and annoyance. Once I thought he was smiling hut it was only a grimace, probably from gas which he often expelled orally and anally with explosive force.

Teaching Kong was similar to teaching the handicapped or trying to communicate with someone who spoke a different language. It was me giving my terminology, my hand signals, my emphasis on living. If we are all creatures of the universe then there must be some language that two unlike creatures could use in communication. This was the attitude I had in trying to communicate with Kong.

He understood FOOD and EAT but did not pay much attention to any commands of this nature. I would leave food on the tailgate of the station wagon and would say "Kong, food on car" but there would not be an instant response to the idea of car. He would check other places where I left food before he got around to the car. These places included the picnic table, the cabin steps, the porch railing, and the base of a large wild cherry tree.

He did not seem to grasp the meaning of YES or OKAY because he had no need for asking permission. In the world of nature the creatures take what they want or do what they wish and are only deterred by superior force or logic. Therefore, he did not need to ask me if it was okay to eat an apple. If he had an apple in his hand and wanted to eat it he would do. If I took an apple away from him and he wanted it back I was not in any position to prevent this.

I once tried training him to take food from my pockets. He was able to take a small peach from my chest pocket with ease. Wanting to really try his dexterity I put an apple in my front pocket of my blue jeans and put his hand on it saying "Kong-food." He didn't understand this and so I curled his fingers around the apple and he finally realized what it was. He calmly ripped my pocket down to my knee and in so doing threw me to the ground. I was happy when the apple rolled free and away from me. Kong picked it up unconcerned and squashed it in his mouth.

When I related that Kong and I would sit and stare at each other for hours this is not exactly the case. He would not sit but would kneel on his knees, squat, or stand. The comfortable position for him was squat. I would try to assume his positions and the squatting position came easy Lo me since I was a catcher in baseball and could stay that way for hours if need be. The mountaineers of the Appalachians refer to this position as "hunkering" and these people can all do it for hours while engaged in conversation and hand movements, often balancing a jug and gun at the same time.

I often had the feeling that Kong was studying me as much as I was studying him. I do not know his purpose but mine of course was scientific and it was my obligation to report his presence to the civilized world. I cannot imagine him communicating anything about me to anything or any other creature of his own likeness. Since he existed 1 am under the impression that there are others of his kind in the universe. I suppose I should use the term earth rather than universe since the latter may convey the belief that he was from outer space. To me this is absurd.

What could possibly have gone through his mind as he sat there staring at me. I have had my boyhood dog "Pal" stare at me and into my eyes for what seemed like hours and in my childhood I wondered what he could have been thinking. Perhaps I am capable of the hour long stare that pleases animals and perhaps I hold them with an eye expression that I am not aware that I possess.

In my entire association with Kong he never once handed me anything, he never shared. His actions were one of take or ignore. He would touch me but I could never understand why. He didn't seem to be feeling my skin or analyzing me or checking me out, just reach out and touch every once in a while.

In our many hours of just squatting and looking at each other there seemed to be no purpose on his part. He seemed to anticipate that I would devise something or do something to give him something. It does not seem strange to me that we would sit and look at each other for hours. I do that with my cat to this day. Members of certain Indian tribes of South America lie in hammocks for sixteen or eighteen hours a day with no communication with each other. They stare at the trees or the sky and just lay there for days. In our social structure people who lie around for hours are frowned upon and methods of prodding and ostracism are employed against them.

The longest Kong and I stared at each other was probably two and a half hours. I do not want to give the impression that this went on in marathon fashion with a massive stare down. I would just study him for about a half hour and then do some little work around the cabin and go back to the spot and Kong would still be there ready for another half hour session. His patience was remarkable. These sessions seemed to produce a hypnotic trance on him but when I would move it would break the spell and he would shuffle. While in the staring state he would appear to be immobilized but then all of a sudden he would move and break this spell.

In our stare sessions I would often reflect upon his knowledge of his environment. I wondered if he was aware that we were on a planet circling the sun and that there were other planets doing the same thing. I wondered if he had any knowledge of great metropolitan areas. Did he know that there was such a place as China or Germany or Finland. I know so many things, the amount of my knowledge staggers me when I reflect upon it. So it is with all humans. What did Kong know? What fraction of my knowledge did he possess? I suppose it really doesn't matter if a creature is aware of atoms and molecules since it probably doesn't matter to the average human that atoms and molecules exist. They will go on with their important social relationships and their vehicle and television hang-ups and in this area worry when the Pirates have their next shot at a pennant.

If Kong possessed knowledge of anything beyond eating he didn't relay it to me. He was a creature of the environment and he took from the environment those things that he needed and ignored the rest. He was obviously shy of humans and yet he had made contact with me and seemed to enjoy it or at least he kept coming back for more.

As I have reflected on Kong so do I reflect on my failure to effectively bring the existence of Kong to some other scientist. It is a protective jealousy which inhabits the minds and hearts of scientists. We work in secret until we have proven theories or have completed our works and then we spring them on the world. If the theories or works go wrong then we don't admit it and keep our secret failures. But hope springs eternal within us and we all wish to make some contribution to the world of knowledge. It was with this high hope that I did approach another scientist with the knowledge of Kong. These events are related later in this story.

From my observations I would have to suggest that Kong was a creature of the deep forest. He ate wild plants with gusto and could kill animals as large as a deer with ease. He broke tree limbs for their fruits. He once broke a wild pear tree limb three inches in diameter like it was a stick. I did not see him climb trees for their fruits but I assume he would if he had to or so wished. If the tree had visible fruit he would shake it and gather what fell. Once he shook an apple tree for at least ten minutes with no results. The tree was about thirty feet high and it shook furiously from its trunk to its top. The lack of fruit fall did not prompt Kong to climb up after it.

I do not wish to give the impression that Kong did not climb trees for he did once and was very expert at it. He was heavy but had great agility. On this particular occasion he raced to the upper branches of an eighty foot tree without effort. His climb with feet and hands took about four seconds, about the same time it would take me to move eighty feet on the ground. It was hand to feet and up onto the branches. He seemed barely to touch the small branches as he sped upwards. He rose, seemed to look around, shook the limbs he we holding with his hands and then descended just as quickly. On his way down however he took time to run his hand into a bird nest which was within his reach. He did not remove anything from the nest. As he hit the ground his pot gut was shaking up and down.

I wondered about the bird's nest incident. Did he do that in search of a bird or eggs. I didn't try eggs on him and I guess he would eat them if he had a chance. There was a pheasant nest near the cabin the spring before I met Kong. It had sixteen eggs in it when I discovered it and in one day they were all gone. There was no sign of shells Around and I just assumed that some raccoon or weasel or something like that carried them off.

Several times before I met Kong I would see the tops of trees shaking in the distance and assumed that this was the wind patterns around the Diggins. After one high wind I had at least a hundred large trees blown over. From that time it was obvious that the wind patterns around the Diggins were modified by the shape of the hills and when an isolated tree started shaking it did not seem strange to me.

The winds and the air around the Diggins held many strange phenomena and I do not associate some of the events with Kong at all. Once I had a strange experience with a small brush fire I had built near the cabin, or rather the cabin site. When I had selected the cabin site I cleared away many of the trees and there remained a lot of small limbs to burn since I kept the trunks for fence posts and firewood.

I had the fire going pretty good on the late afternoon when I noticed that the smoke only rose to about twenty feet and flattened out. I assumed that this was a temperature inversion and the smoke would trail out down the valley. All of a sudden there was an explosive sound and the smoke which was overhead suddenly was forced to the earth. The fire went out, and I gasped for a long while trying to get the smoke out of my lungs. The air became cool and the smoke dissipated except for the smoldering fire which I blew into, getting a burst of flames going. This experience was strange and even my training in meteorology could not explain it.

Another weird experience before Kong was the incident of fog. It appeared to come out of nowhere and stopped just below the cabin and made a cliff like appearance along the road. I had seen fog in many shapes and forms but never a formation like this and a halted one at that. It stayed for a long time and I must admit a chill came over me as I watched it dividing the landscape in two. I took this matter up with my neighbor who was an old woodsman from West Virginia. He said that when he was a lad living near the town of Bluefield one of the spook stories the elders handed him was that when someone who had died wanted to talk to you they would appear as a white cloud near the ground and if you wanted their message you merely had to go and stand beneath the cloud or if it were low enough to stand in it and the message would be transferred to you. Well that's it, I do not wish to digress but those incidents seem to be premonitions of things yet to come.

Anyway my conclusions that Kong was a creature of the deep forest was based not only on his feeding habits but on many other criteria. He was uncomfortable in half light and in broad daylight he hid his eyes with his hands and squinted. From this I conclude that he was a creature of the forest where sunlight seldom penetrated. He did not approach buildings or man made objects easily. Perhaps the others of his tribe never approached them at all.

He was also terrified of cultural objects made of metal, plastic, or glass. If there were others like him around, indeed he was the pioneer of them all since he had approached and befriended man.

Once we sat in the midst of my woods eating, I chewing wild mustard while he ate handfuls of bedstraw that I had mentioned before. For an instant I thought I saw a dark figure through the brush about fifty feet away. I leaped up and ran toward the area to find nothing. After reflection on the event I realized that Kong moved with blinding speed and if there were others of his band about they would have to want to be seen for me to see them. No human could possibly find these creatures in the wild if they did not wish to be found. Many could possibly trick them but this seemed remote. Perhaps a long range telescopic camera might do the trick hut I doubt it. Close range cameras are out of the question.

Someone may someday have a camera in his possession and come upon such a creature sleeping and take it by surprise but even this seems unlikely for Kong's hearing was phenomenal. He would perk up and stare in a direction and later a sound of a plane or car would come from the direction of his stare.

I really don't know how he slept. I assume that he did sleep but this never occurred around me. Perhaps he slept in the daylight hours since I never saw him except at dawn a few times and often at dusk. He was willing to stay late into the night. When I once built a fire near the picnic table he left the area. Figuring he had departed for the night I covered the fire only to have him appear. My conclusion was that he was afraid of fire and this was correct. When I later tested this theory by striking a match, he screeched and leaped away. It is probably for the best that creatures like Kong do not use fire and do not cook their food. Imagine what would happen to the large forests if there are many such creatures and they used fire as humans do.

I have stated that Kong would only whimper and screech but on one occasion he made another sound which seemed to emanate from his stomach and chest. One moonlit night after I had squared my absence from home with the powers that resided there I sat on the porch of the cabin drinking some cheap red wine when Kong appeared. His eyes reflected the moonlight in a manner that created a ghostly set of pits in his head. The only item in my experience to compare with this was the appearance of the Walleye fish. This species is also known as a pickerel and yellow pike. The fish have these ghostly round moony eyes. That moonlit night the eyes of Kong were like those of a small animal when car headlights beam upon them.

I came down from the porch and squatted and Kong immediately squatted but rose again and started to walk away. I followed. He led me on a rather brisk walk through the weeds and into cut over patches where berry bushes and scrubby thorny brush abounded. All the while he made this singing noise with his chest and stomach. Finally I had to quit the race since I was exhausted as well as badly scratched and cut from the bushes. Kong continued on and didn't look back as I returned to my cabin to bathe my wounds and remove thorns.

It was a cloudy day in the last week of October and I sat at the picnic table sipping a beer. The table was one of those low types with attached seats. It was under a medium sized tree near some low brush. Beside the table, about eight feet away was a pit and grill surrounded by log seats. Kong was to my left on the other side of the log seats scratching in the ground, probably for roots or grubs. I contemplated what to do about divulging Kong's existence and what was to be the future of the creature and our relationship. I couldn't keep him to myself very much longer and yet I hated to expose him to the world not of his own choosing. It was a feeling, as I recall, like I was about to double-cross an old and trusted friend although I had only been acquainted with him about six weeks up to that time.

As I remember the situation the air was warm even though the clouds cast an aura of gray over everything. A slight wind was blowing from Kong to me and I could detect his odor in the air. It was a mild form of damp dog and if I smelled it to this day I would be sure to recognize it again. There must be something primeval in the sense of smell since an odor once recognized is never forgotten. I guess that's what the perfume industry is based on. Well anyway, the perfume industry wouldn't have been interested in duplicating Kong's odor for it was a disgusting thing and I remember the fact that I was downwind from him on that particular day.

I heard a slight noise to my right and looked up to see an old gentleman approaching about ten feet away. He was dressed in a faded red shirt and what apparently once were dress trousers. He wore glasses, the rims of which seemed to hold up a straw hat. I shouted to Kong "STAY." Terror filled the eyes of the creature and he froze in his digging position. Kong was pretty good at freezing in place and he could hold a position for a long time almost without breathing.

The old man approached and put one foot on the table seat on the opposite side of the table. He made some familiar "how are yous" and the usual first friendly remarks. He stated that he was gathering mushrooms and that he didn't know that there was a cabin here. He displayed about half a chip basket of mushrooms, some of the edibility of which I doubted. He smoothed them over in front of me and picked up a few of the large ones and held them between us and made remarks about the ages of the mushrooms and how he cooked them and so forth along those lines. He stated that he and his dad had gathered berries and mushrooms on this property for years.

The old man went on to say that he had just suffered a long illness and was now allowed to go out alone and walk in the woods and gather berries and things. He had missed the berry season and about the only thing growing now was mushrooms. There were nuts but the butternut trees were all gone from this area and the hickory nut trees were all bitternut hickory and the walnuts were plentiful but they were more trouble than they were worth. Did I mind if he worked over my property and I assured him that it was all right. I worried that he might notice Kong and made plans for shifting my body around and would lead the old man down the road. He was so engrossed in looking into my face that I was certain that he wouldn't notice Kong.

The conversation went this way for about five minutes and then the old man spotted Kong, crouching and staring at him from his freeze position. The old man looked at Kong and then at me and laughed weakly, "heh, heh, heh." Then he shot his eyes from Kong to me and back again to Kong and then to me and gave a series of "heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh" which resembled a toned down woody woodpecker. I made no comment but looked at him while he continued this eye shifting from Kong to me and the nervous laughing. I really didn't know what to do, I didn't want to introduce Kong or tell the man anything at all and so I just pretended Kong wasn't there. Finally the old man removed his foot from the bench, picked up the mushroom basket which he had set on the table and started over to the road. His gait was halting and I expected him to fall down or something but he reached the road and moved down it swiftly without looking back.

I thought that this was the end of my secret Kong for the old man was sure to tell someone and they would come out to see the creature. Perhaps no one believes an old man's statements for no one ever came around to investigate. Then perhaps the old man never told anyone. He might have even had a heart attack before he had a chance to repeat his story. Maybe the mushrooms got him. I walked down to the property line to see if he made it all right and he wasn't anywhere around so I guess he got off okay. Then again maybe the old man's illness was mental and he did not wish to return to confinement. Anyway there was no evidence that the man had ever informed anyone about the encounter.

After I returned from the property line Kong was no where in sight. I assumed that he had moved away but after about ten minutes of my return to the table and well started on my second beer Kong came out through a tall stand of brush. He apparently was checking on the old man himself. I then went to the cabin and returned with two apples and handed them to Kong. He pushed them both into his mouth at once and chomped them around with the juices squirting out in all directions.

Had I not been there and told Kong to STAY I wonder if he would have been seen at all. The old man came from the same direction toward Kong as I was sitting and it was likely that Kong thought his footsteps were made by me. Kong was also upwind from us and if he was keen at detecting odors he would have had difficulty from his position. I had no knowledge of Kong's ability to detect odors except that he first came around when I was sweaty and unbathed. Also, we may have been taken by surprise for Kong's vigilance may have been relaxed with me around.

Biology and anthropology were not my fields and I felt at a loss for the proper way to study the creature. I was willing to give complete credit to anyone I could trust and turn over the creature to him. It was not my acceptance alone which was necessary but Kong would have some say-so in the proceedings that were about to be undertaken.

I ran several scientists in my area through my mind and reviewed my association with them. Most were good fellows who liked a joke and light conversation along with their serious pursuit of science. I finally settled on two possibilities, a wildlife expert from my own college and a zoology instructor from a neighboring institution. I finally decided on Barney Prescott the zoology instructor.

It was a Wednesday morning when I drove the thirty odd miles to the other college. Parking was at a premium there since this was a commuter institution. I ended up parking in the street, several blocks from the campus. Students with jock jackets were all over the place, leaning on parking meters and sitting on curbs even though the weather was quite chilly. I asked directions to the biology department since I had never been there even though I knew Barney well from having served on several state committees with him.

After several false starts I found the place and read the roster outside the main biology office. Dr. B. Prescott was in office 206C and his office hours started in about a half hour. I didn't want to have to track him down so I went over to the student snack bar and had a cup of coffee while I waited for the time to elapse. There I studied the boisterous behavior and language of the students and compared them and their life styles to those of Kong. Kong won by comparison. I finally found Barney in his office and was greeted warmly. We talked for an hour or so and I told him that I had a lead on a bigfoot-like creature and perhaps he might wish to check it out with me. Even though he and I had many a joke and beer together at conventions he knew that I was serious and so he responded seriously.

Barney stated that this was a topic of interest to him and that he had made several casts of possible footprints of such a creature when he was a student in Idaho. He had also traveled to western Oregon where he had interviewed many people about the Sasquatch and he was certain such creatures existed. Sasquatch was the Indian name for such creatures. He showed me a footprint cast he had made. I put my foot beside it and felt that it could not possibly be related to Kong since his feet were not that large. It appeared that I had come to the right man.

Barney related stories of hunters, fishermen, and lumbermen of the Cascade Mountains who saw the creature. He told me about a ten second film made by a man on horseback. Barney had a theory about the native Indians knowing and communicating with the Sasquatch but keeping these associations secret since the white and black man are both deceitful and cannot be trusted.

We decided to meet on Thursday at three and I would lead him to the area of my suspicions. Barney had a jeep and we would go in that vehicle. He wanted to meet earlier but my last class was over at two and I couldn't possibly get away before three.

I walked back to my car thinking that I had made a good choice and how great it would be to work with a pleasant fellow like Barney. When I got to my car I found it vandalized. My radio antenna was broken, the hub caps were gone and the window was jimmied on the passenger side and my brief case was missing. I made my way to the local police station and dutifully reported the incident to a bored desk clerk who sent me away with the comforting thought that my insurance would cover it.

At three the next day Barney pulled up in his jeep with a grin of high expectation on his face. He was dressed in a camouflage outfit including a duck hunters cap. This seemed funny and he asked if I was bringing anything especially some scotch whiskey since he knew my addiction to the stuff. I said "no" and piled in and told him to head for the main highway.

As we drove along I looked in the back and saw walkie-talkies, binoculars, cameras, and to my horror a high-powered rifle. I leaned over the seat further and spotted a box of rifle shells.

After questioning him about the rifle he stated that his investigations indicated that the Sasquatch were huge people and even though no one has been harmed by them we shouldn't let our guard down for a minute. We had to be prepared to protect ourselves and we wouldn't use the gun unless it was absolutely necessary. However we would take it into the brush with us.

I let him drive by the Diggins road and led him to the state game lands just north of Dunbar where I had spent many days hiking in the past. The enthusiasm had gone out of my personality and out of my relationship with Barney. We unloaded from the jeep and I laced my hiking boots and adjusted my jacket. We had about two hours of daylight left and I planned to hike him over the rough and ragged rocks up and down every mountain possible. Who knows, we might have seen bigfoot in this wilderness area since it was game lands with food for wild animals.

We walked fast and furious. Barney kept protesting that it would be best to get to a cave area and explore it so I took him to a small cave area I knew and he poked around it with his rifle ready while I pretended to sit upon the upper rocks and act as a spotter. There were many assorted tracks around the cave and a grouse startled Barney sending him reeling backward.

Darkness was falling fast as we got to a tributary stream to Dunbar Creek and followed it to the main creek area. In the near darkness a raccoon could be seen at the waters edge where the tributary met the main stream. Barney pulled up his rifle, took aim and blasted the raccoon into oblivion.

I asked him why he shot the coon and he answered that he hated to bring out his rifle without using it and he was anxious to try out his scope. He didn't take to the idea of shooting a tree or the already bullet riddled signs along the creek area.

We walked over to the animal which lay there with its head half shot away. Along its side was a fish of some sort about eight inches. long. The coon was apparently eating or getting ready to eat the fish. Barney nudged the lifeless carcass with his foot and with a quick jerk he drop kicked the coon into the water. With disgust and a sick feeling in my stomach I kicked the fish in and we made our way back to the car by moonlight.

When we got into the car Barney stated that even though we didn't see bigfoot it was a lot of fun and we should do it again soon. I promised to call him but have not contacted him to this day. With this event I scratched all people from my confidence list.

It was the middle of the first week of November and Kong had not appeared for a few days. The Diggins seemed lifeless without him as I walked the new road around the property. It was early afternoon and I carried my machete with which I cut brambles or limbs which protruded onto the road.

As I cut away a few brambles 1 looked down and saw two spent shotgun shells. Suddenly it dawned on me, hunting season had begun in Pennsylvania. My thoughts were of Kong. I had to get him out of this populated area. Even though no one bothered me in the middle of my woods, at least they didn't bother me while I was there, there were signs of hunting and trespassing. My cabin was burglarized but these elusive beings did not frequent the area when I was about. The side of the cabin was peppered with buckshot the first year it was built and since that time there were hunters but never while I was there. My cabin was in the midst of a large hunting population and in November the roads and hillsides of this area were dotted with red, brown and orange clad men followed by yelping dogs. Pennsylvania sold more hunting licenses than any other state last year, and it is truly a hunter's paradise, teeming with all sorts of game. What could I do to protect Kong.

I mulled over the situation and wondered if the hunters would obey my NO HUNTING signs but already there were spent shells. The urge to kill something must be innate in humans. I remember my encounter with the thirteen year old boy who stopped by my pond one day. After our initial approaches and getting acquainted palaver he indulged me with stories of his killing prowess. Even though it is illegal for a boy his age to possess a firearm in our state he claimed that his mother had just bought him a seventy five dollar gun for his thirteenth birthday. With this weapon he succeeded in knocking off hundreds of crows, some groundhogs, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits. and possums. With each species blasted he was able to relate somewhat interesting stories of their demise. I asked the kid why he did it and all he could say was that "it was fun." At the time I hoped that this was just a juvenile bragging but the kid had a real knowledge of the hunting experience and I credited him with at least half his kills. He would probably grow up to be a professor of zoology like Barney.

My brother-in-law hunts out groundhogs each summer and leaves them lie where he shoots them. It's hard on the groundhog but the carcasses do return to nature that which it took from nature, just as yours and mine will. As the boy and I continued talking, a hawk flew over and the boy made a motion as if he were raising an imaginary rifle to blast it. "Bang" he shouted. I tried to get to him by saying that if he killed the hawk it would be a split second of satisfaction to him and the hawk would be gone forever from the earth. It would be a living thing destroyed never to return. He countered by saying that he knew a place in eastern Pennsylvania where millions of hawks pass through each year and someday he was going to go there with his dad.

The boy came around about a week or two after our first encounter and asked if he could spear some frogs and when I refused he went away. I did find some frog remnants around the pond a few weeks after that which I attributed to him but had no proof of his involvement. He must be a pretty big kid by now and I hope his itchy trigger finger has been satisfied and he has taken up other pursuits.

My plan was to lure Kong into my car and transport him to a less populated area if that was at all possible. I had two nearby areas to pick from. There was the various wilderness areas of West Virginia and the northern forest areas of central Pennsylvania. Either one of these would suffice to hide him from the hunting population.

First I had to see Kong again, a thought flashed through my mind that he may even be shot now but it would have mad the papers if this were so. He was still around and it would not take patience to see him with so many people out in the wild this time of year.

I returned home and told Sally that I was lecturing to a conservation group that evening and I would not be home for supper and would probably return home around midnight. She reminded me that she still did not trust me and asked for more information. I made it up as I went along. I told her that there would be a dinner for the group at the Holiday Inn in the county seat of Washington, Pennsylvania and I was the main speaker. I did identify the group since it was a complicated title but would tell her all about it when I returned home. She appeared to accept this.

As late afternoon approached I waited for Kong with much nervousness. I was extremely relieved when he did appear. The sun was sinking rapidly emitting a red glow which framed the approaching Kong on the horizon, visible through the naked tree trunks. I greeted Kong by touching him and handing him an apple which he quickly devoured.

To complete my lure I put apples up front in the wagon and told Kong to get them. He had never been in the car before and leaned over to get to them from the rear without actually getting in. I picked up his feet, he was heavy, and pushed him into the rear. He resisted little and helped by stooping down further and following my pushing lead moved his body to the front where the apples were. Once I had him inside I closed the tailgate and went around to the driver's seat.

Kong panicked when I slammed the door and started the electric rear window winding upward. He began screaming and clawing wildly at the upholstery, tearing huge chunks of it away. I put my hand back to stop him but he caught my hand with his wrist as he swung wildly, the pain shot all the way to my shoulder but my hand and arm was not broken, just bruised. I yelled at Kong to STAY but he continued whacking away at the rear of the wagon. I was hoping that he didn't get his body set where he could get leverage. Finally when I turned the car to back around he was thrown flat to the front. I said LIE as loudly as I could. The word exploded from my lips. Kong momentarily stunned, rolled over on his back with his head toward the front seat. I put my hand on the top of his head and started the car. He whimpered but I kept my right hand on him and clumsily drove the car with my left hand, the wrist of which was aching. I believe it was the initial trust that I built up with Kong which made him quiet and accept the ride.

After about a half hour the stars came out and Kong settled. I could take my hand from him but I kept up a quiet low patter of conversation. Kong watched the stars fly by as I headed the car north toward the New York border. There was wild country up there that I had known many years ago. There were several nice places to choose from. There was Cook's State Forest which had large virgin hemlocks and oaks. There was the Allegheny National Forest which had smaller trees but very few tourists and settlements. This was the place upon which I had decided to release Kong. Here lived deer and bear and a host of lesser animals. The only known lobo timber wolves were in cages near a town called Kane. This was the icebox of Pennsylvania, deep remote woodlands. Surely Kong would be safe there.

The trip up was uneventful except for my apprehension. Kong traveled well and I was able to keep my hand from him in the dark areas but when I had to drive through a small town he would whimper and I would handle him as we went under streetlights.

I finally arrived at my destination, a secondary road halfway between the towns of Pigeon and Lynch in the heart of the Allegheny National Forest. The area was slightly southwest of Bradford one of the larger oil towns of this remote northland. I stopped the car, rolled down the rear window while Kong whimpered. Opening the tailgate I called to Kong to GO. He stepped out of the wagon and approached me as I backed off. I made the gestures and shouted GO but he just stood there.

As one would abandon a dog I jumped into the car, tailgate still down, started the motor, peeled out, spinning tires and drove away. I got a glimpse of Kong through the rear view mirror and was glad that it was too dark to see his expression.

When I returned home about an hour after midnight Sally was waiting for me. "You're still running around with that girl aren't you. Well I called her parents and told them all about you two." It appeared that somewhere, some poor girl was now catching hell from her parents.

This was the gist of the conversations for the next ten or fifteen minutes. I denied my guilt and told her she could check my story. She was way ahead of me for she had driven to Washington and to the Holiday Inn where the owner had never heard of such a banquet. What's more she was now considering divorce. I wondered if Kong was worth the price I had to pay for my association with him.

College classes resumed and the next day I routinely met my groups but my lack of enthusiasm was obvious. In the early morning I called the local newspaper and gave them a news story about my alleged lecture with appropriate quotes from the speech. The man who took the story seemed glad to get it and agreed to have it printed in the afternoon edition. I felt at the time that I was saved.

At supper the paper arrived and I let Sally read it first. Anticipation rose within me as I watched her read every page out of the corner of my eye. She seemed to take exceptionally long and I wondered if the article I had called in had made the edition. Sally made no comment about my article and when she put the paper down I grabbed it eagerly.

The article was there all right but everything was mixed up. My name was so misspelled that it was not even remotely familiar and the facts of the speech was so fouled that it was impossible to figure out the nature of the article let alone the gist of the speech. Some of the facts were near enough and I pointed this out to Sally. She fumbled around with the paper for a while and then deftly creased it and tore out the article and took it upstairs, I assume to her files.

There was nothing to do but to go to the cabin. The atmosphere at home was intense and few words were spoken. I began to understand such phrases as "the silence hung heavy." I drove mechanically to the Diggins. The lack of sleep was catching up on me.

When I got to the Diggins who should be waiting beside the porch but Kong. How did he get back so quickly? He had covered over two hundred miles in less than a day. His body reeked of foul sweat but he appeared happy as I gave him several apples. He flashed much teeth, I don't think he was smiling but there he was flashing teeth which I hoped was a sign of good cheer and that he was not planning to bite me. I must admit that I was very happy to see him and the disturbances at home made me look upon Kong as an old friend.

Let me review what had transpired. Kong had traveled about two hundred miles, that's as the crow flies, in less than twenty hours for a minimum speed of about ten miles per hour. He had found his way back from a remote area of Pennsylvania. Perhaps this was his interest in the stars and perhaps he traveled by them or he was familiar with the area and had traveled around here many times.

After reflection on the situation I decided that Kong could be elusive if he wished and that my fears of his being shot were unfounded. For the rest of November I heard shotguns and rifles firing within my woods and on neighboring property. When the hunting season ended and December appeared Kong was still alive and still coming to the Diggins for his ration of apples. Apples were now getting rarer in the markets and I went to an apple cider mill and made a deal for several bushels which were being saved for a future pressing.

I tried to get Kong into various activities in order to test his agility, strength, and speed. These did not meet with much success. I would run but he would not follow. I would break sticks but he would not. I would throw stones but he would not. I tried blocking him like a football tackle but he just stood there without changing his position. I brought him a volley ball but he ignored it. When I crowded him and he objected he would merely shove me away and I would go sprawling.

Once I produced a sheet of paper and with a pencil I drew a quick sketch of Kong with eyes and all as he watched me. I was rather pleased that he stood for this and when I handed him the paper for him to view it closer, he took it, sniffed, and then ate it.

Kong was just a big hunk of a creature. He did not get angry, he did not get frustrated. If he had desires he did not communicate them to me. I wondered if he contemplated his creator and his place in the cosmos. Ideas do not seem to be of any value unless they can be communicated to another being. I wished that I could discuss the nature of the universe with Kong but he was not up to it and the many questions and ideas that I had in mind were of no significance. I reflected on hermits who lived with their dogs and goats and wondered how they satisfied this need to communicate with beings that would understand and feel the frustration of an idea which would never bear fruit.

I did have one partial success with discovering how to communicate with Kong. It was a success which could have been devastating had it not come to a conclusion. I had wondered if I could train Kong into doing some useful chores for me. My property was overrun with scrub trees and berry bushes in a section which was once a plowed field and now allowed to grow over. I thought that if I could get Kong to uproot some of the smaller trees I could clear the section and have a small tract of pasture land available. This would attract a series of open held animals and birds and add to the variety of life forms on the property.

I walked to the section with Kong one evening just before sunset. It was not his habit to follow me when I walked away from the cabin area but if I withheld the apples I could lure him along for a short distance. It was getting colder as winter was coming on and the chill in the air was biting. The leaves were gone and the bleakness of the winter sky was in harmony with the bleakness of the vegetation. The wind whipped up the dry leaves underfoot as I and the creature walked along. This was to be an experiment in communication and if I could get my message across I would save myself many hours of work and would have made a giant stride in my relationship with Kong.

When we got to the brush area I pulled up a small bush. It did not come out easily and there was much puffing and straining. I decided to get out a smaller bush and told Kong to watch. He didn't know what I meant and his head rolled from side to side studying the brush. What I was doing was of no concern to him.

I went over to him, took his hand and led him to a small plant, a crab apple tree about two feet high. I bent the plant over with my feet and pulled Kong's hand down until it reached the base of the tree and tried to put his fingers around it. He gave me a shove with his other hand and once again he sent me sprawling. I let fly a series of curses and went back to him and tried to explain that I wanted the bush torn up and took his hand again and placed it on the bush. He yawned and was unconcerned. I pulled up several more.

Kong started to watch what I was doing. I pulled up a few small wild cherry, haw, crab apple, and black locust trees. After each pulling I would smooth the dirt back with my feet and put the small bush on a brush pile which was growing fast.

After about the fifteenth bush Kong came over to where I had smoothed back the dirt and ran his hand through it turning up a few milk white grubs. To my surprise he picked these up and ate them. He went to the other spots which were torn up and did the same thing. These were not as rewarding as the last spot. Perhaps the grubs had a chance to burrow deeper. Kong pulled up a few plants then and searched the roots for grubs. He beat the plants against the ground and went through the materials which had fallen off. It was getting pretty dark by then and the things he ate from the refuse I assume were grubs.

I told Kong that I would see him tomorrow, I don't think he understood. My path back to the cabin was difficult; Kong did not follow me but stayed behind tearing up small bushes. He seemed to have great night vision and was perfectly comfortable in the failing light.

As I rode back to the cabin the next day I was pleased with myself for having made a breakthrough with Kong. It was now a matter of time before I could find the secret of communication and put him to use. This was to be the highest level of exploitation. I would get hard work in return he would get almost nothing.

When I reached the cabin area I was shocked to see all the low planting and much of the side brush torn up and scattered about. I had created a monster much in the pattern of Dr. Frankenstein. How could I now control him. I didn't want the entire county torn to shreds.

As I viewed the uprooted trees while sitting on the railing of the porch the sound of a distant motor grew louder. It was a bright orange pick-up truck coming up the driveway and as it cleared the trees I could see that it was a West Penn Power Company truck.

The truck pulled to a stop and a middle aged man wearing a yellow hard hat and carrying a clip board jumped out. He walked briskly by me without speaking, went to the side of the cabin and jotted down the reading of the electric meter.

As he came back he was startled and remarked that he didn't even see me and wasn't looking for anyone since he didn't see my car. We exchanged pleasantries and he finally asked "what the hell happened here?" I told him I wasn't sure and he countered by theorizing that it was halloweeners. "Them goddam kids should all be in jail" and "you should see what they do to my truck when I just leave it out overnight." With a few more remarks along these lines he entered the truck hitting his hard hat along the upper rim of the door frame. He slammed the door, started the vehicle and whipped it around and gassed it out of sight.

Much to my satisfaction the uprooting of small plants had ceased almost as fast as it had started. Kong had had a one night binge and then forgot what he had done or preferred not to do it again. I breathed easier the next two days when I found no new areas of uprooting.

I had learned a few things from the experience. I would not try to get him to do anything which might lead to damage again. One of the trees he tore up was a black locust twelve feet high and four inches in diameter measured two feet above the roots. Its top was stunted and it probably should have been taller. It was here I learned that Kong would eat grubs and when I mentioned him digging for grubs earlier in this story I was not aware that that was what he was doing at the time. I wondered if he would eat mature insects and I was about to set up a test for him.

A few days after the tree uprooting I captured moths in my woodpile and tried to get Kong to eat them but he refused. He also refused various kinds of larva which were under the bark of logs in the woodpile. He did eat a few small black beetles, wings and all, but this did not seem to be of any significance. Humans can, of course, eat almost any insect or larva without ill effects. In fact, beetles, ants, bees, and cicada are nutritious and if we could get over our prejudices against them we would find them welcome additions to our diets. I do not want to give the impression that I do not practice what I preach. I have eaten beetles, ants, bees, and cicada and that is why I mention this. These are best roasted on an open pan in an oven and they take on the consistency of popped corn or cornflakes. I have not been able to bring myself to eat grubs or any other kind of larva. Grasshoppers are plentiful and I understand that certain peoples of Africa and the Middle East eat them. The American Indian was supposed to have eaten them but I cannot avoid my prejudices and have not been able to try to eat these. As a boy my friends and I slaughtered the grasshopper locusts in large numbers and the memory of their juices flying will never leave my mind.

One strange action or reaction by Kong that will probably never be understood by me occurred in a late afternoon thunderstorm. The weather had been particularly hot that day and all day long I noticed the build up of huge banks of clouds. The clouds would start off as white large fluffy clouds to the southwest and as they approached directly south they would have high vertical development. They would be in groups of four or five and they would move on and after an hour or so a new group would move in and pass along.

As the daylight hours dwindled the clouds moved closer to my area of the world and I sat on the porch and watched them approaching. Just as the light began to fail flashes of lightning appeared way off in the distance and a light rain splattered on the roof of the cabin and tinkled down the aluminum gutters and into my rain barrel.

It was with the onset of the rain that Kong arrived at the cabin and he picked a spot near the rain barrel and crouched there. He stared straight ahead and my talking did not evoke any response from him. He refused the apples I held out to him. I put the palm of my hand against his forehead to see if he was warm but he was not. The pressure of my hand did not budge him from his crouching and staring. Not only was his reaction strange but it was strange since Kong did not appear at the cabin in wet weather.

A great gust of wind flapped the tar paper of the cabin roof and bent the large trees. Lightning split the air and a round of thunder peeled across the landscape. Kong leaped to his feet and jumped up and down like an Indian dancing in a second rate movie. The rain started in earnest, beating colored leaves to the ground while lightning flashed again lighting the darkness and exposing Kong's dance.

Kong rushed toward the underbrush and with a snap of his wrist broke off a five foot cherry tree at its base. He started whipping the ground and the larger trees. I moved up on the porch for the force of his blows were echoing through the darkness and I didn't want to he hit with such force. Kong continued the whipping with one hand and then two hands until the storm subsided and the local lightening and thunder had moved on. When he whipped with one hand he would hit his chest or pound his thigh with the other or put the unoccupied hand in motion as if to keep his balance. This display lasted about twenty five minutes in all.

When he finally threw what was left of his switch down he went to the rain barrel and put his head up to the overflowing water and slurped huge slurps. I turned the cabin porch light on and went around to the front of the cabin to see him. I could only see him by indirect light because a direct light would cause him to seek the shadows unless it hit him by accident.

Kong put his head and body into a crouching position as I approached. Water was dripping from his hair sending out glints of reflected light. I approached cautiously since this head bent crouch was a new position for me. As I got closer Kong's posture changed to one of challenge, eyes front, arms out from his sides, fingers extended and knees bent. He looked like a gunfighter without side arms.

When I finally confronted him I could see fear in his eyes. While this was going on the clouds had cleared and a three quarter moon lit the yard. Away in the distance heat lightning flashed. Kong presented a rather fearful image. He flashed his teeth which seemed enormous under the circumstances. He stood there crouched, eyes wide and staring, and teeth flashing. A hissing sound came forth with each flash of teeth. I stood and watched this for a few minutes and then I backed off. Walking backwards without breaking the stare down between us I made my way to the porch steps and clambered up.

Kong relaxed from his hunch position, took another large slurp of rainwater and made for the underbrush. His exit was swift and as the large frame entered the brush area it made no sound. I waited a few minutes then walked over to the same underbrush and walked in. The noise of twigs and snapping brush that I made must have disturbed everything around.

It was the last day of the year when I went out to the cabin about noon. I had planned to check on things and affix signs to the cabin saying that the place had been set with booby traps. This was to scare away burglars since another raid had been made on my place and the rain barrel mentioned previously had been taken. It was a large wooden barrel with steel bands, the kind used to make wine. I now had to be content with a steel drum.

To my surprise I found Kong huddled near the porch. As I approached he slowly extended an arm with the hand clenched in a fist. I touched his extended hand and held it awhile with my left hand. He drew it closer to him, worked his fist loose and tucked both arms up together under his chest. He closed his eyes, he was obviously ill.

I felt his forehead and it was hotter than hell. I didn't know what to do. I entered the cabin and withdrew a blanket and brought it too him and covered him. This was the first time I had attempted to put a manmade object upon him. He did not resist, he just crouched further, almost under the cabin.

I really was at a loss as to what to do. Sally was expecting me home. Since our bitter arguments of a few months ago I felt that I should toe the line and it was best that I return home and take her to dinner or somewhere.

I returned to the cabin and took three aspirins out of the bottle and withdrew a glass of water and went to Kong. I held the tablets and said "Kong — eat" but he didn't move. I then took his head, turned it toward me and said "OPEN" which was the cue for him to open his mouth when we played at this. To my surprise he feebly opened his mouth and I threw in the three aspirins. He closed his mouth and refused the water. It started to rain and we were half under the roof eave and half out with both of us getting wet. I bent him over and forced him under the cabin which was about two and a half feet off the ground at this point. He fell forward stretching out to his full length and with reflex action slowly curled into the fetus position. I crawled in beside him and covered him with the blanket.

I must have stayed another half hour before I decided to get on to home. When I arrived Sally quizzed me about the worried look on my face and what was I thinking about anyway.

Supper was a routine matter and I worried about Kong. The rain had started down in earnest and the loud splashing outside made me more apprehensive. Penn State was playing Oklahoma in a televised bowl game that night, New Years Eve, and we were to watch it.

Finally eight o'clock rolled round and I announced to Sally that I was going out to the cabin to spend New Years Eve and that I was troubled and she should not take it personally. She accused me of going to meet "some whore," and she worried that I would have the only vehicle available since her car was being repaired. I agreed to leave the car with her and I would walk to the cabin, a distance of eight miles.

So I bid her farewell, dressed in raingear, took the flashlight and with an umbrella I took off for the cabin. I arrived there sometime around ten o'clock and sought out Kong. He had left the place under the cabin and I could see drag marks near where I had left him. About twenty feet away I found the blanket, it was soggy and wet. Kong was nowhere in sight.

For the rest of the evening I searched for him. I must have walked twenty miles at least, this on top of the eight miles I walked to the cabin. I was drenched to the bone, sneezing, coughing, and calling "Kong." It was of no use so I returned to the cabin.

The porch light of the cabin was on and when I went up on the porch I could see that the window in the door was broken. I had locked the cabin when I left. Could Kong have broken in? The door was still locked.

When I got into the cabin there was a note on the chair in front of the fireplace. It was obviously not from Kong. It started off "you bastard, you led me to believe you were coming out to the cabin and when came to check on you, you were gone. I never should have trusted you in the first place." It went on from there with a list of past crimes and charges. Sally had acquired several new charges to be held against me.

I cut up a cardboard box in which I had some hardware stored and made a cover for the broken window. I taped it into place with masking tape and put small tacks into each corner. With the excess cardboard I built a fire in the fireplace and got a fine blaze going. With that I took off my wet clothes, dried myself with the sofa cover and went in the bedroom to lie down. The rain still beat down and thoughts of Kong out there sick somewhere and my wife home in a bad state of mind kept me off balance. I finally did fall asleep.

The agreement I made with Sally was that she would pick me up at eleven on New Years Day and we would have lunch together at home. This she did but with an extremely pained expression. The ride back home was not pleasant.

This was the day of the bowl games and she usually made stuffed cabbage rolls and pork. Often we would have large crowds of people watching television with us and we would drink beer and gorge ourselves. This year it was just the two of us. Our personal troubles and my involvement with Kong had made us shun friends.

The games were the usual and if you have seen one bowl game you have seen them all. Variations of pass, plunge, and punt were paraded for a total of about nine hours. We had the cabbage rolls, sauerkraut, pork, and beer but hardy spoke.

Before the first game was over there were references to the death of Roberto Clemente, our local baseball hero. I had told my wife that I watched the Penn State game last evening in a bar three miles from the cabin and that is why I was not at the cabin when she arrived. She didn't believe this but may have accepted it had I not made comment on the news of the death of Clemente. She stated that it was continually broadcast the night before and if I had spent the night in a bar watching the Penn State game as I had claimed it would not be news to me. The lying bastard character within me had once again emerged victorious.

What was Kong? Was he subhuman or ape? Was he the missing link that anthropologists have sought since the times of Darwin? I do not know for certain but perhaps a brief discussion of primate characteristics should be included in this story.

Can it be said that primates are those animals which walk on two legs. Then we have difficulty in classifying chickens, lizards, and bears. It is probably better to leave the classifications to experts and simply discuss some of the common links between apes and humans. The class Primates includes not only fossil animals, humans, apes, and monkeys but the curious insect eating shrew. Most primate groups are associated with trees and living in trees. Kong did not live in trees but he had a fascination and knowledge of them. He could climb them readily and tear off limbs and uproot small trees without difficulty. He ate many parts of many different trees. If tree living is criteria then I am a primate and I don not live in trees.

The tree living adaptation of primates is suggested by the flexible hands and fingers and the moveable feet. It is an ability to climb by grasping and holding on with flexible digits and nails. All tree climbing creatures other than primates climb by digging in with claws or some other system such as sticky oozes. Humans are about the only order of primates that have given up the safety of the trees.

Most mammals have eyes set on the sides of their heads, these eyes in many cases separated by a long snout. As primates are classified from primitive to advanced the snout becomes smaller and the eyes move closer to the front of the head and forward vision is enhanced rather than side vision. The animals which have wide apart eyes do not have the ability to judge depth well, therefore, they are handicapped in moving through trees. The fact that primates have accurate depth perception allows them to dive from branch to branch and judge other jumping distances as well as to estimate the distance of food on the hoof.

As the snout decreases and depth perception increases the primate suffers from a decrease in the sense of smell. Experiments have shown that higher primates not only see in stereo but also can judge color. Kong would pick at red flecks in a certain knitted gray sweater that I wore. Hw was not able to get them since they were part of the fabric but he would move his fingers to my sweater and then to his mouth in an attempt to eat the red flecks. When I first wore the sweater he spent about twenty minutes doing this. As a test I wore a similar gray sweater with yellow flecks in it. He did not seem to notice these, at least he didn't pick at them.

Humans are not really much advanced over higher primates. We don't exactly react the way chimpanzees do but we have the same abilities of smell, sound, taste, and touch. So when I try to give Kong human characteristics I have to back off and remember films of chimps in clothes, riding bicycles, and in some cases displaying understandable speech. Kong was able to understand my directions but so does my cat when she has a mind to.

When moving in trees monkeys climb along the top of the branch while higher apes such as gorillas swing along the bottom of the branch. These same gorillas can walk along on their back legs but are usually found moving along with the aid of their hands and on their knuckles. Kong moved in a very human fashion with a slight forward lean. His hands were much like mine as were his feet. In this respect he certainly was more human than ape.

In the movement of his arms Kong was superior to me or to any ape I have seen in life or on film. He was able to reach directly behind him and take an apple from me at waist level. When I moved the apple up his back he was able to reach his neck moving his hand from his waist upward. If I had to do that I would have to reach up over my shoulder from the front. Scratching his own back was no problem to Kong. Scratching was something he did often, usually around his waist.

Kong was also able to move his wrists in a much wider circle than I can. When I bend my wrist backwards it makes an angle of about 90 degrees with my arm and that is putting pressure on it. By grasping one hand with the other I can force this angle to 100 degrees. I observed Kong in this motion to about 150 degrees. I have no idea how much further he could have gone had he grasped his own hand and forced it back. I tried forcing his hand back once and we engaged in a form of Indian arm wrestle for about five minutes and I was definitely losing the contest and was very happy to get my hand out of his before he crushed my fingers.

Somewhere I had read that the highest ape functioned at a much higher level than the lowest human. Kong, if he were an ape, could do many things with his body and mind that I could not do. If he were an ape then certainly humans are closely related to apes. Kong was definitely not to be classified as human although we must have had a common ancestor somewhere. Your grandfather and mine are not related however they descended from some similar ancestor. Millions of years ago there was probably a primate which produced the offspring leading to both higher apes and humans.

I could not understand Kong's fear of metallic objects and so I started to read voraciously in primate behavior. In one source by George Schaller, his experiences with gorillas were similar to mine with Kong. His books were published by the University of Chicago Press in 1963 and 1974. He states that until the gorillas were thoroughly used to him he never looked at them directly in the eye, nor did he point a pair of field glasses or a camera at them in case they might have interpreted the staring eye as a threat.

People who deal with gorillas usually take months of painstaking preparation in making contact and then they must proceed with caution. To even photograph gorillas takes a team of experts. I was handicapped in being alone with an especially sensitive being, nervous, with keen senses, and blinding speed of movement when necessary. Kong was not a gorilla nor was he human.

If Kong had others of his kind lurking nearby I was not aware of it. Except for the one related instance there was no evidence of others and even that one instance was a feeling of intuition rather than fact. Primates seem to be gregarious and the hermit primate is rare. The social behavior of baboons, chimps, and gorillas seem to be very much like that of humans. It would be safe to assume that Kong has such social relationships. However, the fact that he befriended me and the incident with the cow perhaps suggest a lack of social relationship with others of his kind.

In the class of higher primates there is dominance and submissiveness and an individual baboon or gorilla knows where he fits in the social order. When a particularly aggressive male cannot dominate the clan because of a superior male the second or third order male may migrate to a new clan with the intention of dominating it or at least moving up in the social order. Perhaps Kong was on his way to a new clan or was driven out of his old clan for some reason or other. Maybe the others of his kind could speak and he was mute. In the early years of our civilization mutes and other cripples were driven off or left uncared for as children. Was Kong a superior individual embarking on an expedition of exploration or was he an inferior individual driven from the tribe? Are there superior individuals of his kind lurking in the wilderness areas of North America? I believe there might be. Just as the cat catches only weak or crippled or deviant birds, humans are witnessing the slower less cunning primates that are migrating across the country.

In experiments and observations of gorillas it was found that they rarely fight. They will thump the ground with their hands, beat their chests, charge and stop, or throw things in the air but only on rare occasions actually attack the person of another gorilla. This lack of physical warfare is true of all the higher primates, except humans. Since Kong was a higher primate I was fortunate that he was passive and if others of his kind exist then humans that live in the wild areas are also fortunate. Assuming that his sensitivity is characteristic of his kind then they are shy, suspicious creatures afraid of humans and ready to retreat. To hunt such a creature with a gun would certainly be a high crime against nature. If an animal's main method of survival in warfare is to retreat then those best suited to retreat will survive. A pattern of survival behavior is established within groups of animals and those that are best adapted IO that behavior survive the longest. In the higher primates, except humans, retreat is the method of survival. If an attack is necessary then it is merely to delay an adversary until the clan or the individual can retreat safely. Kong's speed enabled him to survive by rapid retreat. Even though his huge size fitted him for attack there is danger in attack and so humans are spared hand-to-hand combat. We have nothing Kong or his kind wants and if these creatures exist in large numbers the greatest threat to them and to us would be the destruction of the wilderness areas especially those containing large tracts of tall timber.

I do not know if Kong could fashion tools or not. He used sticks to swat the ground. He used a switch to slap his legs but this may have been coincidental. He dug up grubs with his hands and didn't seem to need tools. 1 do not doubt that if there was a problem which called for the use of a rock or a club he would have risen to solving it. From what I observed of his way of life, tools were unnecessary. Perhaps in constructing his sleeping arrangements he used tools but what were these sleeping arrangements. Perhaps woodsmen are coming across these sleeping quarters and are not interpreting them correctly. I noted much trampled grass in openings around the Diggins but I am convinced Kong was a creature of the forest and the trampled grass was not of his doing. I note once again that he certainly didn't use fire.

The evidence for others of Kong's kind is simply in the fact that if he existed so must others like him. There is also the evidence of the young deer and smaller animals. Where did he go with the deer if it was not to share it with others. Perhaps he was trying to buy his way back into a clan from which he might have been ostracized. Sharing of a kill is typical of all primates. However, most primates except humans do not pursue game and the killing of such is more of a quirk of fate rather than a planned event. Primates, except humans, do not engage in hunting expeditions, they forage for vegetation.

In the realm of the arts I wished that I had had an opportunity to play music for Kong, say a flute or recorder if nothing else. My singing, which is very bad, had no apparent effect on him except when I got loud he backed off. He came to the Diggins clutching a piece of red dog one day. Red dog is a stone created when the clay shale from a coal mine refuse dump is hardened when the accompanying coal in the dump catches fire by spontaneous combustion. These dumps burn for years and the sandstone, shale, and bits of poor coal are turned red in the process. These dumps litter the landscape in the soft coal areas of southwestern Pennsylvania. The material is used for surfacing material on country and other secondary roads. Anyway he had this same stone on two different occasions. It was oval shaped about three inches long and appeared to be sandstone rather than shale. He wouldn't let me handle it but kept a firm grip on it. It could have been a tool but I believe it was a lucky stone such as a child would carry. I don't know why I said a child for I have many stones around my house which serve no purpose other than decoration. Perhaps this was an insight into the artistic tastes of Kong. He either lost the stone or hid it because I saw it on two different occasions and then no more.

In the social order of primates no individual ever leaves the group for any long span of time, no individual except with the human group that is. Kong also left his clan, if he had one, for a long period of time. In this respect he was more human than ape. When a baboon is ill or crippled It must keep up with its roving brethren or perish. When nomadic humans are ill they rest in camp while being nursed as the rest of the band moves on. If Kong was a member of a group why did he choose to hang around me. What happens to the rest of the creatures, if there are others and surely there must be, after they die.

After contemplating the higher primates one must come to the conclusions that out of all of these, humans alone live on the ground, they do not need the trees for food or protection. Humans think about the past, record it, and speculate on the future. Kong did need the trees for food as well as protection. He gave no evidence of thinking about the past or the future. Somehow in our association though there was evidence of anticipation in his actions. But is this a sign of thinking in the future or to some course of events. My cat asks to be let out of the house, runs to her food dish, and acts very excited when I enter the house. Was Kong's action any different than my cat's? I do not think so.

Several days passed and when I went out to look for Kong he was not to be found. No evidences indicated his presence at any time since the new year had begun. It was disheartening. Sally had asked me to leave the house for a time for both of us to consider our relationship and whether or not we wanted a legal separation or a divorce. Now I was free to search for Kong but he was not around. I was now living at the Diggins.

Each evening I returned to the cabin, built a fire, made scotch and water, and settled down for deep reflection on my state of affairs. I still did not have running water and I carried water in three five gallon plastic jugs from the spring. This was not all done at once and usually only one jug a day was needed unless I took a bath in the round zinc tub, then two jugs of water were needed. One gets to know the use of water when he has to carry it. Turning on a tap does not give an individual an appreciation of the value or nature of water. Five gallons of water weighs forty pounds and lugging two jugs up the hill was not an easy task.

My toilet habits were geared such that I used the toilet at the college during the day thus I never used the outhouse that I had built. The usual night and morning urination could effectively be commenced over the porch railing. This has always been a psychological lift to me, that is, to be able to urinate over the porch railing, to be alone in the wilderness and free from the confinements of society.

It was a delayed urgency that prompted me to go to the outhouse that rainy midnight. I put on my heavy shoes, donned my jacket over my pajamas, and with umbrellas and flashlight in hand, headed for the outhouse. The rain was mixed with snow and the wetness of it sunk into me. On the path in front of the outhouse I found Kong lying in the rain. He was dead.

I stood stunned and forgot all about my urgency to use the outhouse. I must have stood there for several minutes before I tried to test his state. He was dead all right, rigor mortis had set in. I couldn't move his arm. What to do. My first thought was that I now had evidence of his species, to measure, to show to the public. The horror of the public asking me questions and invading my private life was too much for me. I returned to the cabin and got dressed. My decision was to bury Kong with the idea that I could dig him up if I ever decided to do so and needed to do so.

I probably should have buried him on the property where He fell but at that time I was not thinking as logically as I am now. I should have released him to the public but to this day I will not discuss him with anyone personally and even if you the reader should discover who I am I will refuse to discuss these events with you. Just assume that this is fiction and not worth legitimate time.

I tried to back the car up as close as possible to Kong but it started to sink in the wet ground. Although it usually snows in the middle of January it was unusually rainy that year. I decided to let the car stay on the hard stony driveway and try to drag Kong to it. It was impossible, he was too heavy. I finally got the long rope from the sleeping loft of the cabin and tied it around his left ankle but could not drag him. The rope was too short to reach the car. Finally I hit upon the idea of getting the 100 foot electric extension cord and using that as a rope tied it to the car bumper and the end of the rope which was tied to Kong. Once I got him moving he dragged easily over the mud surface of the outhouse path. I stopped dragging once I got his body out to the driveway. However, he was too heavy for me to get into the station wagon.

I had covered the station wagon floor with my army poncho that I had secreted from that service twenty years earlier. I knew there would be some use for it someday. Eventually I got Kong into the back of the wagon with the aid of an old door that I used for an emergency picnic table when the regular table was full. By making an incline I was able to pull him into the wagon with the aid of the rope turned around the front door frame. It took almost a half hour for this process. I apologized to him as he humped into the back seat and the tools that I had stashed there.

I made a hurried count of the tools and threw a shovel on top of him and covered it all with the same blanket which I had covered him with on the first day of his illness, at least it was the first day I noticed his illness. We were off.M

I had once considered buying property in a place near Wymps Gap in Chestnut Ridge, the western most ridge of the Allegheny Mountains. It was an area just north of the West Virginia border. Wymps Gap was remote and at two in the morning I was unlikely to be disturbed. I would bury Kong in this area.

The ride out was lonesome with me talking to the dead Kong and explaining that this was the best way. He did not want to be dissected and put through meat grinders and by the time we reached the ridge I was probably crazy for I was convinced that I had convinced him that this was the best way.

There was snow in the mountains where in the lowland there was rain. Wymps Gap is on a hard road between a little town called White House on the Pennsylvania side of the border and a resort Lake in West Virginia called "Lake Of The Woods." Although there were people living at Lake of the Woods on a permanent basis they did not use the Pennsylvania road but went out through West Virginia to a town called Clifton Mills. I had spent some time in Clifton Mills and a mountaineer town it was. I guess I would rather fight Kong than the inhabitants of Clifton Mills.

I drove over the ridge, through the gap and cut the motor, drifting down the snowy road to where I could stop and do the burial. Finally I found a nice pull off spot about two hundred yards from the Mason Dixon line which was identified by a swatch cut through the big trees.

I tried to drag Kong into the woods but he was too heavy. There was only one thing to do. I took out the axe and started cutting him into movable pieces. First his head came off with one deft stroke. There was a clap of thunder and it started to rain. My feet were in snow and my head was in rain. His arms came off with difficulty. his legs needed several hacks and by this time I was crying uncontrollably. Some blood formed on the wet snow. I took out my bottle of scotch and swilled much of it down. Then I started carrying the pieces into the woods. I have no idea how far I went but it was a good ways. I made one trip for the arms, one each for the legs. and one for the head. I had to drag the torso behind me with the rope. It kept getting tangled on greenbrier and small saplings.

The rain pelted me, the lightning flashed and I could see West Virginia over on the other hillside as I dug the grave. The pieces of Kong lay in disarray about me. Finally the hole was about three feet deep and full of water. I dug a slit trench in the hillside to drain most of the water away. Snow was still in abundance on the ground.

I went to the car for the poncho with the idea that I would wrap the body pieces in it before I buried them. When I left the car with the poncho I found a car wheel. The West Virginia-Pennsylvania border is strewn with car parts. Every hillbilly in the state must have parts of cars in his yard. This extension of the hillbilly yard was no different. I took the wheel with the idea that if I ever wanted to find the gravesite again all I had to do was bury the wheel with Kong and use a metal detector to find it.

I did not bury the poncho but instead threw in the parts of Kong and the wheel on top of them. His head splashing and bobbing up in the little water was ghastly and it haunts me to this day.

The covering job was a nightmare and I was glad when it was completed. After the job I repeated "I am the resurrection and the life sayeth the Lord and he who believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and he whoever liveth and believeth in me shall have everlasting life." I don't know why I said, it, I'm not a religious person but this laying to rest of one of God's creatures evoked this testimony of sorts from me. I returned to the car with my shovel, my rope, and my poncho. When I got there I finished the rest of the scotch, got in the car, threw the bottle out the window, turned the car around and skidded up the hill to the gap and down the other side.

For many years there have been reports of large anthropoid creatures in the Himalayas. To the native humans of the area the creatures are known as Yeti and to our wild eyed news media as the abominable snowman. The largeness of these creatures are an exaggeration of the journalist for the Tibetans who claim to have seen the Yeti say they are about four feet tall and have long light brown hair and that they live in the rhododendron forests just below the snow line. Rhododendron is a common plant in the wild mountainous areas of Oregon and Washington where there have been numerous sightings of Bigfoot or Sasquatch. These stories are so well documented that to pursue them here is repetition. If Kong is of this stock then his group may have migrated here through the north woods of Canada to the areas of the Adirondacks and south over the Appalachians. Recent sightings of large creatures have corresponded to those areas thick with rhododendron and laurel. Laurel is so abundant in Pennsylvania that it is the state flower.

How is it that these creatures and Kong have survived without accurate identification by humans. I am sure that there are many creatures on this earth not cataloged or found in the libraries of the world. The Coelacanth fish was a recent living discovery after its fossil remains were long identified. The native fisherman of the southern coast of Africa long knew of its existence but no scientist had seen one up until its presentation to the world.

Why are there no fossils of Yeti, Bigfoot, or Kong like creatures. Since these beings live in the forest it is harder to create fossils, especially animal fossils. To create fossils takes quick burial in a protective medium. When I visited the Great Plains I expected to see the area strewn with the remains of buffalo slaughtered by the army and Buffalo Bill when the government was trying to drive the Indian back to reservation living. I found no such remains since even in that short period of time the animal remains had disappeared.

My theory is that the relatives of Kong have some way of disposing of their corpses which precludes fossil making or burial finds. On the other hand, forests create coal and there have been fossils of manlike creatures found in coal deposits of Italy. This fossil find was given the name Oreopithecus which means "mountain ape." The coal and fossils were of Miocene Age. The mining operations have broken up many such fossils and loose skull and jaw parts are presently being pieced together to try to get a look at the whole creature.

If we are to look for fossil remains of these creatures in North America then I would suggest the bogs and swamps of old mountain areas. I have searched out the place where I buried the parts of Kong to see if it is still intact but have not been able to document the exact spot. I did find a hole about three feet deep with an old car wheel beside it but I don't think that was the spot. If it was the spot then he was dug up and the body removed. My superstitions concerning death are so strong that I am apprehensive when I go back to that area south of Wymps Gap and I do not really wish to go back there. I must and when I do and if I find the exact spot I will report it to the world.

The days pass slowly and I have reflected upon my association with Kong and my obligation to the scientific world. I do not wish publicity and yet I sit upon this powder keg of knowledge. I can affirm that the creature did exist. The summer following my association with Kong there were sightings of similar beings around a small town called Hutchinson in Pennsylvania not more than thirty miles from here. A creature was sighted crossing a trailer court. Wild eyed witnesses were paraded before television cameras and pictures of them appeared in print. A sighting also occurred at Crabtree and another near Mt. Pleasant both in Pennsylvania. Another man claimed a creature with red blood shot eyes peered through his window nine feet off the ground. Television has had a hey day, sensational mags have covered the events. Creatures smelling of sulfur, flying saucer sightings, nuts and crazy people abound. What is the truth. It is difficult to sort out, I can only relate the story as it happened to me.

There are so many bigfoot sightings in Western Pennsylvania that I am inclined to believe that this area is a rendezvous point for the creatures. My experiences are calm and scientific compared to those of others. I hate to mention names but since local papers including the widely circulated Pittsburgh Press have mentioned them I guess I will also. This is cowardly of me not to reveal my name but to do so with the names of others.

The most accurate description given to date was by eleven year old Debbie Colello who was walking with her father near their home in Luxor, Pennsylvania which is in Westmoreland County. It was August 1973 and they were walking around supper time when they heard something crashing through the woods. Debbie's father described the cause of the noise as a huge hairy creature which broke small trees. The arm of the creature was two or three times the size of a man's. He told Debbie to start running. As Colello watched his daughter she turned to look at her father and saw the creature behind him. The Press reported that Debbie's description was that of a Grade B monster movie. Little did they realize the accuracy of her description. Colello didn't think his daughter made anything up. Neither did he think that the arm he saw was that of a bear.

Another accurate sighting was made by Chester Yothers on Labor Day 1973. He lived in a mobile home in Whitney also in Westmoreland County. He thought somebody was messing Around his garage so he pulled back the drapes and saw "this big thing standing there" and later checking showed the thing to still be standing there. Chester then went to wake up his wife and she reported seeing it too. They then called the police. When they got back to the window the thing had disappeared. Yothers description was a seven or eight foot being covered with brown hair and with arms that reached to its knees. He said he didn't notice the creature breathing since he was breathing very hard himself. "Rather" said Yothers, "the creature probably heard him."

When our local UFO and mysterious creature man Stan Gordon arrived on the scene and took samples of a red stain from the side of the trailer they thought it was blood. This wouldn't surprise me since many people of this area shoot into the darkness at all hours of the night. However the sample turned out to he chewed up apple and the analysis couldn't tell anything from the saliva. This fits in with Kong's habit of loving apples. I wanted to call Gordon and tell him about it but I do want to remain anonymous. Even though Gordon keeps his informers confidential it would make me very uneasy.

Yothers didn't stay at home for a week after the sighting and he was still afraid to go outside at night a year later. The Pittsburgh Press states on June 1, 1975 "he has taken his share of ribbing." Yothers remark was "that was no bear and it was no human being either. They can ridicule all they want. I saw it." And he did, and so did Debbie Colello. and so did I.

The news reports of creature sightings in Westmoreland County of Pennsylvania stress the sulfur like smell about the creatures. Speculation suggests that the creatures sleep in abandoned coal mines and the iron and sulfur smell rubs off on them. A class of junior high school students recently searched for evidences of large creatures near an abandoned coal mine near Bakerstown, Pennsylvania. They turned up some spotty evidence which resembles footprints.

If these sightings and smell reports are accurate and I have no reason to doubt them then my experience has shown that the strong smell of the creature existed when the creature had exercised. I do not believe the coal mine theory to be accurate since I hold with the idea that these creatures are natives of the forest, particularly rhododendron forests.

It is near midnight as I finish this report and I am at the Diggins. As I typed that last statement I paused and went out to the porch. I believe I saw shadows darting into the bushes. I hope I am right.

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