A listener writes “In 1980 I was 12 years old. I spent the summer that year in Seattle Washington in a town called Woodinville, with my cousin Jimmy, who is my age and my aunt Bobby, and uncle Bill. Before my parents put me on a plane from San Jose, California to Seattle Washington I’ll never forget the reason why they put me on that plane.
They were extremely upset with me. I started working at an early age as a painter working with my uncle who owned a house painting company, and I was worked as his gopher that did the jobs no one else wanted to do. Getting tools for the guys, washing brushes, patching holes and things like that. I was only making, $4.00 an hour but I saved up enough money to buy this tiny little black-and-white television and there was a model of a giant ship that I wanted that was at Toys “R” Us. In June of that year it was my mom and dad’s wedding anniversary and they felt it was important for me to use the money I had earned to buy them an anniversary present. Like a lot of kids my age growing up in the 70’s I had a really bad childhood with my parents.
The last thing I wanted to do was buy them a gift for their anniversary with my hard earned money and at 12 years old I felt buying them an anniversary card would be sufficient enough but they didn’t seem to think so. I told them that I wanted this giant model at Toys “R” Us of a ship and I remember them telling me that I needed to not be selfish and do the right thing. They said I need to think about it and if I didn’t use the money I earned to buy them a gift, they were going to be very disappointed with me. So I thought about it long and hard for a day, and I got on my bicycle and rode down to Toys “R” Us and bought that model ship. My dad was always finding reasons to ground me and I was always being sent to bed early and in fact he sent me away for three months in 1978 when I had just turned 10. So buying them an anniversary present was the furthest thing from my mind.
So when I walked in the house with this big giant model, the look on their faces was enough to tell me I was doomed, but I didn’t care. Of course I was grounded, but my dad said I would be grounded for the whole summer for being so selfish. I ran away that day and running away Met that I only walked around the neighborhood for a few hours. When I finally came home, my mom and dad were both sitting at the kitchen and they didn’t ask me where I was, but my mom told me too pack my bags and that they were sending me to Seattle to spend the summer with my aunt Bobby and uncle Bill. I was so excited to be getting away from my parents. Two days later, they put me on a plane and it would be the first time I ever flew on a plane by myself. I was so into airplanes so much so that I could always look up in the sky anytime a plane flew over and I could tell what size it was and what airline it was. Every day at 1:35 a Boeing 727 Hugh’s Air west would fly over my house, making its final approach into San Jose airport. I would always sit outside and wait for it with my binoculars, and the plane would fly so low that you could see the windows and see its tail number and having the binoculars brought it in that much closer. The day they dropped me off at the airport I remember being disappointed that I would be flying on a DC-9 and not my beloved 727. Back then on tv commercials Hughes Airwest was called The Big Banana. I remember thinking I was so happy I had made the decision to be selfish, and buy that model instead of an anniversary gift because That afternoon, off I went into the sky to Seattle Washington to what would become the most memorable summer I would ever have in my life.
The flight would only take less than an hour but we ended up landing a little late. On May 18, 1980 Mt. Saint Helens volcano, erupted in the state of Washington, where I was headed. Many people lost their lives the day that volcano blew and our pilot flew right over the volcano and he circled over the crater. He circled three times to the left so that everyone on the left side of the plane could look straight down into the crater, and then he turned around and circled to the right so everyone on the right side of the plane could look down and take photos. It was amazing and I remember being afraid thinking that it was going to erupt again and we were going to crash!
Soon after, the wheels touched down and we landed and I got off the plane to see my aunt Bobby and cousin Jimmy, waiting at the gate for me and I remember seeing the big smile on my cousin Jimmy”s face. I knew I was about to embark on the best summer I would ever have. When we got in the car, my cousin Jimmy kept telling me all the things that we were going to do in the weeks to come and all the things there is to do at his house. Most exciting for me is that we were going to see the Empire strikes back the next day. I was practically jumping out of my skin with excitement!
Aunt Bobby and uncle Bill had a gorgeous big house and their backyard gave way to acres and acres of forest with gigantic redwood trees. I remember being so fascinated because I had never seen anything like this before and I was amazed as to how dark it could get the deeper you walked in to this forest on the long sunny summer days. When we finally got to the house after picking me up from the airport, my cousin Jimmy couldn’t wait to show me around. His bedroom had shelves that were stacked with board games and model airplanes. He had airplane models hanging from the ceiling and I was so mesmerized. The house look like a big giant log cabin with all the modern luxuries inside. I had never seen Atari before and playing space invaders would become a new favorite of mine at that time.
The next day was Saturday morning and aunt Bobby had breakfast waiting for us downstairs. Jimmy told me that there was a bicycle outside in the garage, waiting for me and we were going to go exploring on our bikes out in the forest. I was so excited I didn’t even want to eat breakfast. As soon as we got done, we got up from the table and ran to the garage and hopped on those bicycles and off we went. I followed Jimmy since he knew where to go and there was a bicycle path that went deep into the forest. I remember looking down on the ground as I was riding the bike I slammed on the brakes and cannot believe my eyes when I saw this giant slug. I had never in my life seen anything like this or even knew it existed and I asked Jimmy what the hell is that? He told me they are called banana, slugs, and they were everywhere. I was in shock seeing something this big. I was creeped out by it, but still amazed by it at the same time. We hopped back on our bicycles and continued on our journey. We rode for a while until we came to this clearing, and the sky opened up and all I saw was blue sky and the sun.
We made our way to this part of what looked like a cliff and it looked down into a small canyon and I remember thinking about my swimming pool at home and how it reminded me of sitting on the step in the deep end of the pool, looking down into the water. Jimmy and I sat there for a while and hung out and watched all the birds flying around and I was thinking how far away from his house we were. This was so cool and there were so many tall redwood trees. We got bored pretty quickly, and wanted to get back on our bikes and continue, so that’s what we did. As we were riding, we came upon the small hill and I remember you had to pedal your bike fast to get over the top of the hill and then coast down, even though it wasn’t a large hill it’s just that the bikes we were on weren’t the greatest bikes, and you had to pedal them hard, and it took some effort. After a few hours of riding around, I wanted to go back home to his house and play space invaders.
We went back and we were greeted by a lot of his friends that were our age and they lived on his street. Jimmy introduced me to them and told them that I was from California and they immediately did not take a liking to me at all. For some reason they did not like people from California and one kid started acting like a punk towards me and I knew I didn’t like him right away. They all started circling me on their bicycles telling me don’t go in the forest by yourself or you’re going to meet the man and I said who is the man? One kid just laughed, and another kid said you’ll see we dare you go by yourself . I asked jimmy what they meant by that, but Jimmy didn’t know. My imagination started thinking it was a scary man that kidnapped kids. Later that afternoon is when aunt Bobby took Jimmy and I to go see the Empire strikes back. This was such a huge thing for me because Star Wars had changed my life just like it had for so many other kids . After seeing that movie, Jimmy and I would ride our bicycles in that forest, pretending we were scout troopers on the speeder bikes because that forest looked just like the planet Endor, the location for the movie.
As the weeks rolled by the summer, fun seemed to never end until one afternoon as I was nearing the end of my stay and having to go back home and go back to school. My cousin, Jimmy and I got into an argument over something. I decided to get on the bicycle And I took off by myself and rode out into the forest. On my way out there I saw banana slugs, which still amaze me and I ran into one of the kids who flew past me on his bicycle, but he didn’t say anything to me. I kept riding. I was approaching that hill where you have to pedal faster in order to get to the top, but before I reached the bottom of that hill is when I smelled an odor that was so putrid, but it also scared me and I don’t know why. It was an odor that I had never smelled before, and it was telling me that it was something bad. As soon as I smelled that I heard growls and grunting and they were strong and my first initial thought was that it was a giant pig or something.
Whatever it was, it was on the other side of the small hill so I laid my bike down, and I cautiously walked up the hill, hunched down. The low guttural grunts were getting louder and I could hear what sounded like clapping like to rocks being clanked together. I got down on my stomach when I got to the top and I looked down and there he was. He was crouched down with his knees towards his chest, and it looked like he was stabbing something with a stick, and then it looked like he was rubbing his hands together on a stick almost in the way that you would try and start a fire with a stick. My first initial thought is that this was Chewbacca. This must be somebody in a Chewbacca costume and they are doing promo shots for a poster or something. Well I knew it wasn’t Chewbacca and this thing was huge and it stunk and it was doing something, but I couldn’t tell what. It was clanking a rock, and then playing with a stick and grunting, and it had mud on it and leaves on its head and it had hair from head to toe. He turned his face a little towards me and I could see that it was gray.
I knew this was not a person. I knew what Bigfoot was, but I always thought there was only one big foot I didn’t know there were others. I also knew at that moment that this must be the man those kids were telling me about, but it’s no man this was a Sasquatch. My heart was pounding so hard and so loud I knew this thing had to of heard it. He kept looking towards me, but he would never make eye contact with me. I almost feel like he knew I was there. In fact, I knew he knew I was looking at him. I was frozen with fear and I couldn’t move. I even started crying a little and I was trying to be as quiet as I could because I thought he was going to grab me and take me off into the woods. He was making sounds just like the Sierra sounds recordings. I slowly backed down from that hill, crawling backwards on my stomach back to my bicycle. All the while this thing kept clanking the rocks together and doing something with sticks. I got back on that bicycle and I took off as fast as I could on that bike, and I kept looking back to see if it was chasing me because I felt like he was but when I looked back, there was nothing there. I could still smell it. I knew that there had to be others around because a as I was heading towards Jimmy‘s house, I smelled another strong odor. I’m sure they were probably watching me.
When I got back home to Jimmy’s house, I put the bike in the garage and I went in the house and went upstairs and jumped on the bed and put my face in the pillow. My aunt Bobby came in and asked me if I was OK and I said yeah I’m just tired and she asked me why I was so white? I told her because it was hot outside and I was riding my bike, but she didn’t believe me because she told me I should just be red all over not pale white. She thought I was getting the flu or something but I insisted I was OK.
I never said a word to Jimmy about what I saw, and I never said a word to aunt Bobby or my uncle Bill. No one would believe me. I never even told his neighborhood friends that I saw what they call the man. The rest of my stay I never went back into those woods. I had another week before I had to go home and not once did I get back on that bicycle and I stay close to the house. At this time Jimmy and I were doing separate things and weren’t really hanging out much with each other because I , because I think we got sick of each other. After it was over, they put me on the plane to go home and I was excited to see that I would be flying home on my beloved Boeing 727 Hughes Airwest Airlines. I remember sitting on the left side of that plane and at roughly 135 when he made that left turn to make his final approach. I looked down at the houses below, and I was looking for my house and at first I couldn’t find it, but then I saw our swimming pool. We were the few houses at that time that had a built-in pole and I and I knew it was my house because it was a kidney bean shaped Pool.
When we landed, and I got off the plane and walked towards the gate, I saw my mom standing there, waiting for me, and she was happy to see me. I never spoke a word to her about what I seen that afternoon. No one would believe me anyways, because I was just a kid, everyone would think that I had seen Star Wars too many times if I brought it up. It wasn’t until about 15 years ago when I started telling the story because I was still so afraid of ridicule. I remember the first person I told this story to thought I was ridiculous and told me there’s no such thing and it must’ve been a homeless person. I remember being very adamant and telling him that this is exactly why I don’t tell anybody things. I told others about this and some believe me and some just think I’m nuts.
After that afternoon, so long ago that I won’t ever forget, I got older I started seeing documentaries on Sasquatch and more and more videos have become prevalent and that’s when I started to realize that I now know for sure that is what I saw that day. I had experienced a Sasquatch. The They had come down through the mountains because of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. I had read stories about firefighters that had found the bodies of so many of them that had died. There’s even the story of the team that went in looking for these things, and had a live Sasquatch with them who they took out into the areas to try and find other Sasquatch’s that were in caves. So that’s my story.”
John P K
This was very well written. The story places one alongside this rebellious teenager during his summer of discovery and adventure.
Chad W
I very much enjoyed reading this, both the backstory and the sasquatch sighting. I’m glad that you weren’t harmed by the creature. This experience provided a memory for a lifetime, whether you wanted one or not!
Charles R
Quite the experience as a kid of 12, you got to see the Man, makes me wonder if others in Jimmy’s gang had encounters with the Man. Thanks for sharing.