Bigfoot sighted east of Gentry

I live about five miles east of Gentry on Flint Creek. Our back deck looks out over the Flint Creek valley. The creek itself is directly below our house. During the winter months we have bald eagles sitting in a large sycamore tree behind our house. They sit there most of the day and are there most every day. Over the years I have seen some pretty interesting creatures down around the creek. We used to see bobcats more than we do now and one day my daughter-in-law, Jessica, saw a mountain lion in her front yard.

As to the sighting referred to above, I am reminded of the fact that where I grew up in Louisiana was not so far from Fouke, Ark. If you remember, Fouke was where the Fouke Monster, aka the Southern Sasquatch, was seen back in the early '70s. They later made a movie about it called "The Legend of Boggy Creek." Around about that time or a little later, I stayed the night with my oldest brother, Don and his family. Back then, Don's son Robert was just a young boy. Robert wanted to show me the new Star Wars movie which I had not seen. Now, I must admit that, as a young single man, I had a keen interest in seeing that movie. I was excited to hear that he had it.

But then my brother Don spoke up and said, "Hey, Robert, we don't want to see that silly stuff. Let's watch a good movie. Where is the 'Legend of Boggy Creek?'"

So, long story short, we ended up watching an absolute dog of a movie and Star Wars had to wait. I hid my disappointment the best I could by seeking solace in the popcorn bowl.

When I was still living at home, I worked with Don in the pulpwood business. Several of us brothers worked together along with a couple of black men who either ran chainsaws or drove truck. One of those men was named Calvin and, I have to say, Calvin was one of the funniest men I have ever had the privilege of working with. It wasn't that Calvin tried to be funny; he was funny in spite of himself. I remember one day we were all sitting around taking a break and Calvin caught a large tick that was crawling on his pants leg. Back then we used old plastic gallon milk jugs to carry our gasoline and oil fuel mixture for the chainsaws. Without thinking, Calvin dropped that tick into the gasoline jug. He stared intently into the jug, watching the tick.

"What's he doing, Calvin?" I asked him.

"Nuttin' now," he said.

Well that struck us all funny and we laughed about that off and on for the rest of the day.

Our truck driver was Delton Manning. He was from over by Sterlington where they have the world's largest fertilizer plant. Delton used to tell the story of how, one day, a large limb fell out of a tree he was sawing down and hit him on the head. Fortunately, he was wearing a hard hat; but even so, it knocked him out. It also knocked the hard hat down over his ears. They actually had to pry that thing off. Delton said the whites of his eyes were blood-red for a couple of weeks after that. I would say Delton was lucky to survive that accident. He says that, when he came to, a doctor was bending over him and looking in his eye with a scope. Delton was confused -- he didn't know what was happening. So, before he could stop himself, he reared back and gave that doctor a tremendous whack with his fist. He said that doctor never said a word, just picked himself up, reared back and knocked the devil out of him. After that, he went back to taking care of Delton like nothing ever happened.

In those days we used the big Homelite C-72 chainsaws. When buying a new saw, the first thing Don would do would be to put on a shorter bar and chain and gut the insides of the muffler. That way, without the sound-reducing baffle, the saw would run freer -- and louder; my ears ring constantly today because of listening to all that noise.

We usually cut pine trees that went to make paper. Most of the time, they were plantation pine that had been planted especially for harvesting. Sometimes we were merely thinning the trees so the remaining trees could grow better, while at other times we clearcut the entire forest, cutting everything that was big enough to fool with. We cut pulpwood on private land as well as for timber companies. We did a lot of work in southern Arkansas for Deltic Timber Company. We also cut for Georgia-Pacific. In the winter, sometimes I would plant pine trees for OlinCraft. Most of the timber we cut got hauled to the paper mill in Bastrop, La. There were paper mills in several of the towns around in north Louisiana and southern Arkansas. There was one at West Monroe, La., and also at Hamburg, Ark. Some of those mills have since shut down, but the pulpwood industry continues to be important to that entire region.

With the growth of the timber industry came the whitetail deer and, with the deer, came their natural predators -- the class of animal, I must assume, to which Bigfoot belongs -- but I see I have run out of space and time, so that story must wait for now.

Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and weekly contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.