A listener writes “I grew up in the Akron/Cleveland area. A little place called Medina, Ohio. I became interested after seeing the Patterson film and the Legend of Boggy Creek. As a young man, I spent a lot of time outdoors hiking, fishing, hunting, plinking….. Me and friends spent a lot of time in the woods outside the city limits on the east side of Medina county roughly 1974-1980.
Though we did not have any direct encounters, I did have some observations. Outside one of the developments, a set of railroad tracks ran east west. in the woods on the north side were woods that we camped in quite often. Directly on the other side were rolling hills and wooded sections. On “our” side, there was good squirrel and rabbit hunting. On the other was what we called the “Dead Forest”.. There were areas across the tracks that were down right spooky. Nothing moved.. Nothing. Simply a land of loathing.. Our campsite was about 150-200 yards from the tracks.
On many occasion when we where camping, the “Crazy Lady” would cause quite a ruckus across the tracks in the “Dead Forest”. This was rationalized because there was a hermit like elderly woman that lived somewhat secluded about a mile and a half away on the other side of the “DF”. Numerous times we heard crashing charges. Tree shaking. whooping, screaming, baby wailing. We never gave it much thought because when we camped out, we were always heavily armed. Sometimes we would engage in a past time called Tree Kabonging.
To Kabong a tree, you need 4-5 guys and a young tree 5-8 inches in diameter. The smallest guy (usually me) would climb the tree first going as high as possible. Once the “Kabonger” was up, the other “anchor” men would climb into the tree. Once in, we would use our collective weight to pull the tree over. Once over, the kabonger would be delivered to the ground from 30 -50ft. up. With brief ceremony, the tree would be let go… Kabong!!! The tree would whip back and forth thrashing through the other trees 6-8 times before coming to a halt. Reminiscing this I just came to realize it always seemed like kabong nights had a lot of activity going on across the tracks. Now that I think about it what better way to rile up a squatch than with a little territorial tree thrashing??? Unfortunately, this was the extent of these encounters and me and my friends simply shelved it as “whatever” and never gave it much thought after that.”