My First Encounter

My first Sasquatch encounter happened in the spring of 1958 just as I turned 9 and was in the 4th grade at Muscoy Elementary School. My teacher was a Mr. Wilson and I and my friends probably were a menace.

Muscoy at the time was a suburb of San Bernardino and our home was a 2 story lighthouse trailer that my father had bought in 1953 when he went into carpentry. I believe our address was 2384 Blake Street and at that time zip codes were something the postal service was thinking about.

I had helped my dad pour a concrete slab for our trailer on 5 acres he had bought and hoped someday to turn into a mobile home park. That never happened but behind that 5 acres was a huge wash which was bordered on the south by Highland Ave and over toward the east by what is now known as the I-15 Devore Cutoff. There's some scattered developments and a golf course adjoining the wash but it's essentially a flood control zone for the San Bernardino Mountains and when it rains heavily it can and does really flood.

There was a pig farm next door to us and an older couple owned it and had lived there since the end of WW II. I only knew them casually as they didn't have children but they used to complain about losing many piglets all at once. Now I realize their complaints were justified and who was most likely taking the piglets.

Around 3/4 of a mile behind our mobile ran a creek with spring runoff from the mountains. This wash was made for a young boy and since both my parents worked and my sister was in junior high school I had it made. I spent many hours alone exploring various parts of the wash and seldom met anyone except a few hunters, an occasional motorcycle rider and the usual collection of equestrian riders on the weekends.

One spring day we had a half day of school and I got home and headed off to the wash. I went down by the creek to see if there were the usual rabbits or frogs and what might be there with the creek running. There was a bend in the creek and a couple of big holy hock bushes growing there along with some manzanita bushes. One thing I did notice as I walked toward the bend that there wasn't much of anything moving around on this beautiful spring day.

As I approached the bend the holy hock bush branches began to shake really hard. I realized this wasn't normal and after several seconds of watching I followed another game trail towards home. Nothing followed me and I remember telling my best friend, Scott Tonn, at the time but he didn't get much of a chance to go to the wash. His father was a retired CMSgt from the USAF his mom was a homemaker so he was kept pretty close to home.

I don't remember ever seeing any Bigfoot prints in the wash but there are reports from this area and the Lytle Creek Watershed to the west. Most of the area is hard packed gravel sand or loose sand with some vegetation but not a lot of trees except near streets or homes. Strong winds will erode prints in a matter of a few days or weeks and the wind does constantly blow through this area.

I still wonder what was shaking the bushes and I now have a pretty good idea but will never really know for sure.

LL