BIGFOOT, UFOs, AND BIGOTS

STRANGE DAYS ARE COMING

By

Jimmy Joe Meeker

Originally published in The Wilson County Advocate, Vol. 2, No. 34 ©August 25, 1992 Donald W. Gillette

“I saw something, man, but I didn’t see it working here, you know?”

-Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider

It’s about time someone had the guts to tell the truth about the mysterious, unearthly things that have been going on in Wilson County. I would have figured that spotters of any supernatural phenomenon would call this paper instead of The Lebanon Democrat, but with our weekly readership of only about 19,000 versus their claimed daily circulation of 37,000, I suppose if you want something out in the open quickly, you call them. Besides that, we’re not much on pictures. They take up too much room.

Anyway, Jeff King, a Wilson County teenager, reporting sighting one of the hairy ape-like beasts last week and although his is the first encounter that drew media publicity, I know of at least a hundred Wilson Countians who’ve seen Bigfoot over the past couple of years. I thought I’d seen some myself a couple of times. Even when I was sober.

The first time it happened, about four years ago, I caught a glimpse of something big and scary-looking coming out of a convenience store in Mt. Juliet. It had green eyes, emitted a foul odor, grunted a lot, and walked upright like a man. I climbed into the truck and followed this bizarre and frightening monster for a couple of miles. When it finally stopped, I grabbed my binoculars out of the glove compartment, and was astounded to discover it was only County Commissioner Gilbert Graves after a hard day on the farm. I was disappointed, but all in all, I figured Graves was probably as close to a monster as anything in the county.

At around midnight on Halloween in 1990, I was hiding in the shrubs around my house with a flashlight waiting to scare hell out of any punks who decided to smash my pumpkin. There’s nothing scarier to a 17-year old juvenile delinquent about to steal a jack-o’-lantern than the sight of a 6’1” 250 pound Irishman holding a butcher knife over his head and screaming, “Kill!” at the top of his lungs. And it was my intention to do just that the minute one of the little bastards set foot on the porch. But before I had the chance to consummate my little scheme, I felt something tap me on the shoulder. I turned around and found myself staring into the huge, bloodshot eyes on what I can only describe as the meanest, most evil-looking creature I’ve ever seen. I clutched my chest and tried to scream, but panic seized me and nothing would come out.

About that time, the creature stuck a cigar in his mouth and asked me for a light. I fumbled in m pocket for a book of matches, handed them to him, and as he struck one, the faint glow illuminated the face of Lebanon City Councilman Fred Burton.

“Thanks, man,” Fred said, and handed the matched back.

“Keep them,” I managed to answer before fainting dead away. I came to about four hours later and, as Fred used to say when he was a disk jockey at WCOR, it was 42 degrees in the City of Trees around my lovely knees.

Another time, right after this newspaper came into existence, I got a hot tip that a family of Bigfoots or Bigfeets or whatever the hell you call a flock of them were gathering in front of the courthouse. I grabbed my camera and notebook and got there just in time to watch the School Board shuffle up the stairs. This too was disappointing, but I expected as much. Any time you hear something about monsters near the courthouse it’s a fairly safe bet that it’s either the School Board or the Finance Committee. Any rumors about blood-sucking vampires usually indicates a meeting of the Wilson County Bar Association.

One time I saw what appeared to be a Yeti, the Himalayan version of Bigfoot, but as soon as I heard it say, “Don Simpson is crazy, I run this county,” I knew it was actually County Finance Director Chuck Howell wearing a white suit.

To tell the truth, it happens to me all the time. I saw six of them at the Wilson County Fair and another two at the Thirsty Turtle. I even saw one crawling up General Hatton’s leg last week wearing a straw hat and carrying a bottle of cheap wine.

What really surprises me is that no one has noticed the strange metamorphosis going on lately in some Wilson County children. I haven’t had time to study the transmutations closely, but I am convinced than an alien life form is at work here. Youths are being snatched out of their beds late and night and replaced by exact replicas. The only difference is that the duplicates are racists; black, white, yellow, and red racists. They’re still just as stupid as always, but now they hate everybody who isn’t exactly like them.

It’s happening in every school in the county. Lebanon High’s got more racial unrest that Los Angeles in mid-summer. Half the football team at Walter J. Bair Jr. High is scared to go out for a pass because something besides a football might hit them in the back.

It can’t be parents…nobody with any brains would teach a kid to be a bigot. So it’s got to be aliens. I’ve seen a spacecraft landing at Castle Heights every Monday night around 11:30 pm to let out a new crew of bigots. They infiltrate them into the school system and that’s how all this crap gets started. Check it out. Every Tuesday morning, there’s a big ring burned into the grass where the ship landed. The government knows all about it.

But don’t worry. This idiotic racial stuff isn’t going to last forever. It’s tearing apart schools, but not fast enough to suit the aliens. Last night I crept up close to the saucer and heard one of them say, “Screw this, let’s level the place.”

So watch out.

No one here gets out alive.

XXX