LOL, I'll have to tell the story some day of the time I saw "The Fouke Monster".
Please tell, Fritsch! Either here or in another thread. I love Bigfoot stories.
OK, but it ain't what you think, or what I thought for that matter...
It was late '70's, I was about 18-19. I ran around with my older brother, he's about 10 years older than me, and his buddies. We were just a bunch of old Southern Outlaws. Long haired, beer drinking, dope smoking rednecks that liked to raise a little hell on the weekends but didn't hurt anybody. One holiday weekend, I think it was the 4th of July or something because we were all going to be off work or whatever for several days, my sister in law said her dad had just acquired a 100+ acre deer lease on the Red River in Arkansas, just across the Texas line about 150-200 miles from here, so we all said "Roadtrip!". We decided to go camp and fish for the weekend (ok, ok, it was a three day drunk disguised as a fishing trip) so we loaded up the vehicles, there was about a dozen of us or more, and set out for the deer lease.
It was a cool spot, right on the banks of the Red River. I remember there was a ferry you had to use to cross the river there, which I also thought was kinda cool. It was just a small, two lane highway going in to where we camped and when we were almost there I saw a highway sign that said "Fouke 10 miles". I immediately remembered the Boggy Creek movie and that Fouke was where it was supposed to have happened, and when I saw that sign I was excited. I started telling everyone about the Fouke Monster and how I wanted to see it and on and on to the point it was "Shut up about the Fouke Monster!" We even went into Fouke on Saturday morning to get some ice and such. They had a sign at the store about the Fouke Monster and I even asked some of them about it.
So, later that night around midnight or so, just about everyone was in their tents except for myself and two others who were still sitting around the fire. We decided that since this was supposed to be a fishing trip, we had after all brought our fishing gear and bought bait that day, that we should all go down to the river and fish, which we did. It was a good spot to sit and fish, the bank was clear and sandy where we were, but about 10 yards or so down river there was a tree that had fallen down years before and a lot of brush grown up around it, so you couldn't see any further. We hadn't been there long, about 30 minutes at most and after awhile I started hearing something down river beyond the fallen tree and brush. They were odd sounds, low grunts and such and I kept telling the other guys I was hearing something. That's when it hit me what it was and I told them "I bet it's the Fouke Monster!". They told me I was stupid and to shut up, but I kept hearing this and talking about it and finally one of them double dog dared me to walk down there and see what it was.
All we had was a lantern and a small flashlight, they wouldn't let me take the lantern so I grabbed the flashlight and took off to find the Fouke Monster. Now mind you, I HAD been double dog dared and we all know you can't refuse a double dog dare, but the fact that (even as beer and dope addled as I was) I took off down the river armed with only a flashlight to find this "Fouke Monster" shows just what I thought the possibility was that such a thing as the Fouke Monster existed. If I had believed it did exist, I would have never in my life went down there to see. I figured it was racoons or wild hogs or something and just wanted to get a look at them.
So there I went with my dim flashlight down the river bank. When I got to the fallen tree there was a small trail through the brush and over the huge log. I climbed up on top of the log, shined my light down the river bank and lo' and behold there it was...
Right there, on the beach not 10 feet from where I stood was my brother and sister and law on a blanket just a gettin' it on. I would not have been more stunned if I had saw the Fouke Monster because that was the last thing I expected. I ran back to the others with my report. I had saw the Fouke Monster, he was there on the river bank fouking his old lady. We had a lot of fun with it for awhile after that. We called my brother the "Fouke Monster" for a long time.
I love it, Fritsch! Thank you so much for sharing that story. Quite possibly one of my favorite bigfoot stories ever now!
