Bigfoot Sighting

For years, Rockton Mountain has been known 

as a possible home for Bigfoot. 

We first heard of the the possibility over a generation ago 

when a Rockton woman found footprints near her pond 

and, upon further investigation, 

discovered some fish were missing. 

She concluded that this was the work of Bigfoot.

Why?

“Those footprints were an inch deep. 

My husband’s footprints are only a half inch deep 

and he’s a big fella, 

so the thing that made these footprints 

has to be bigger than my husband.”

And so it began.

A man returning from a New Year’s Eve party 

briefly saw something in his headlights. 

Bigfoot? 

One has to wonder what else he saw on the way home, 

but that same night, 

a woman who had NOT been drinking 

also saw an unidentified something in her headlights.

Later, a local jogger saw an unidentified creature cross the highway. 

Could it be a bigfoot?

Half-eaten roadkill?

Bigfoot.

Peculiar smell? 

Bigfoot.

Damage in your garden?

You guessed it. 

Bigfoot.

Even though primatologist Jane Goodall 

supports the possibility 

of the yet-unconfirmed ape-like creatures, 

we remained skeptical.

Over the Mountain restaurant, 

a mile from our house, 

advertised an upcoming meeting 

of The Bigfoot Society. 

We smiled condescendingly when we drove by 

and declined to attend.

And then the mystery invaded our lives.

At 2:20 on June 4, 2019, 

we were driving down the mountain 

toward the Anderson Creek bridge 

when I saw the silhouette of a bent over old man 

waiting to cross route 322. 

Behind him was the Moshannon State Forest, 

and in front of him, where he must have parked his car, 

was a spring at the bottom of a very steep, rocky mountainside. 

I watched him walk quickly and furtively across the highway. 

It looked like he was carrying something. 

I assumed he had picked up something that had blown from his vehicle— 

the day before I had watched a man 

retrieve an errant propane tank— 

but I could not see his vehicle 

as the highway curved and obscured my view. 

In ten seconds we reached the spring at the bottom of the mountain, 

but when we got there, 

there was NO vehicle. 

There was NO old man,

and there is NO WAY that a human could 

climb that mountainside in ten seconds.

“Whoa!” I said.

“Whoa what?” said Denny.

“I saw an old guy cross the road 

and then he just disappeared... 

I can understand why some people believe in Bigfoot 

because I have NO IDEA how to explain what I just saw.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see a deer?”

My vision is not what it once was, 

but I know a deer when I see one.

“Deer have four legs. What I saw was on two legs, bipedal.”

I enthusiastically continued to think about 

and then discard possible explanations 

until Denny reminded me that it was possible to think silently, 

a subtle suggestion.

When we saw friends that night, 

I told them of my Bigfoot sighting.

They smiled skeptically but admitted, 

if anyplace around here would have a bigfoot population, 

it would be on Rockton Mountain. 

Mary Kay listened attentively, 

then asked, “Are you sure it wasn’t a bear?”

I assured her that the creature was walking on two legs,

but later that night, eyes wide open, 

I contemplated her remark again

and padded downstairs 

to enter “bear walk two legs” in a search engine. 

Up came a video of a bear walking on two legs.

It. Moved. Exactly. Like. My. Bigfoot.

I phoned a friend, a retired Penn State Wildlife professor, 

and asked him if a bear would walk across a highway on two legs. 

“That would be highly unusual,” he responded, 

“but it is possible...”

So now I think my Bigfoot sighting 

was really a highly unusual bear 

crossing the highway on two feet. 

Two big feet. 

But I could be wrong.

Remembering Walt Shaffner

Denny's dad Walt was the ninth child in a family of thirteen.
He was born in Orviston,
learned to walk in Howard
(our cat is now named Howard)
and ran from the Deer Park in Snowshoe
when his house caught fire.
All that was saved from the blaze
was a deer hoof hat rack,
his dad's 32 Remington,
and the Edison record player.

Walt didn't speak until he was five.
"Him want cookie!" his younger brother Fred would say.
When Walt did start talking,
he made friends all up and down Mill Road.
Life in Clearfield was about school,
at least until the eighth grade,
but mostly life was about baseball.
He became known as "Slick" Shaffner
and was offered a tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates
but couldn't afford the bus ticket to Pittsburgh.
He became a CCC boy instead
in Cross Forks
where he planted thousands of pines in the Pennsylvania mountains.

Walt signed on to help build Harbison Walker's third brickyard
and stayed to ultimately run a lift truck.
He married nurse Golda and became a family man.
Walt taught his sons
Paul (Bozo)
and Denny (Fozdick)
how to play catch,
rake stone,
plant trees,
cut brush,
build bonfires,
cut wood,
graft trees,
pick apples,
raise calves, 
mow backyards and graveyards,
shear trees,
ride on running boards,
drive Gravely tractors
and pickup trucks,
shoot a 22,
shovel coal,
raise turkeys,
kill snakes,
sleep on the ground,
cook bacon and eggs,
tear down buildings,
straighten nails,
recycle copper pipe,
build tree stands,
skin deer,
and shower by flashlight
when you didn't want anyone to know you were home.

He taught his boys about gift-giving:
"If you don't know what to get her,
get her something you like."

Walt also taught Paul and Denny to take a risk.
In 1956, he took out a second mortgage
to buy one hundred acres of
overgrown farm on the Rockton Mountain
and worked to build a second home on the old barn foundation.
It is that financial risk
that has allowed us to raise our family here on the mountain.

When Walt wasn't working,
he would tell scary stories of the Side Hill Gouge
and visit abandoned "Julius houses"
on Sunday drives in the Rambler.
Those drives often ended at Miller Dairy
where Whitehouse was a favorite.
Ice cream was also a treat during the Ed Sullivan Show,
but Walt could be persuaded to eat saltines with milk and sugar.
Vacations were mostly to visit family in "York State"
but after Paul was killed,
vacation destinations expanded.
Washington, DC,
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel,
and Baltimore's fish market
were stops enroute to the traditional summer vacation spot,
the Islander Motel
on 42nd Street
in Ocean City, MD.

When Walt became a grandpa,
his name became "Pap"
and he took his grandsons
Paul and Luke
for rides in his truck.
We could hear that truck start up
from a quarter mile away.
"Pap's coming!"
"Wanna go for a ride around the horn?" he'd say
and the boys would hop in.
He'd let them steer
and laughed when they drove into the ditch.
They'd get a drink at the spring
and return dirtier than they left.
Always.

Walt always had a positive attitude
through many operations--
"Do you want to see where they rolled my guts out on the table?"
and as diabetes took his legs
and his vision
he would sit on the porch
and listen to the Pirate games
while chipmunks crawled onto his lap to eat peanuts.
He died young at eighty-five.
That was fifteen years ago.
Had he lived,
Walt would have been one hundred years old today.

We miss you, Pap.