... notable events : Bigfoot's Footprint

1978. Father had shifted us out of our rented house at West Vine Street and moved us onto campus family housing. He was in his final year of his Masters at the Western Michigan University and this would be our last home in Kalamazoo before returning to sunny, tropical Malaysia.

I was still forced to learn and study my Malay although to a small kid, I couldn't for the life of me understand why Mother insisted that learning "Satu", "Dua", "Tiga" would matter the slightest bit in a world of American kids who took pride in bullying small statured Chinese boys like me.

It was an exciting year. I was in Grade 2. I was 7 years old. A big boy now, not a crybaby 1st grader! It was also a time of wonder and a time of change. Star Wars had been released only recently and having caught it with parents and sister at the local cinema, I was filled with an unstoppable sense of wonder about the world outside my limited viewpoint. I gobbled up everything I could get my hands on. TV was full of science fiction shows like Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, and the toystores were stocked with X-wing Fighter models and small figurines of Cylons. It was also the year when I got my first snow sled which prompted me to abandon my old faded orange plastic kid's motorcycle that Father had found in the basement of the old West Vine Street place. It was bright red with yellow hold ropes along the sides and heaps of fun! It was during this year when my teeth started falling out too. "Baby teeth." said mother. Milk teeth, she meant. Father also got himself a video camera at about this time and we made loads of silly videos with it, including one of my little sister with my sled in an encounter with a tree and one where I was made to stand on a table and sing. It was also the first year when I had a proper halloween complete with costume. But it was also the year I first heard about... Bigfoot.

Bigfoot. The mysterious monster in the woods. It was in the news, it flew around the school yard on the wings of rumour, it fired the imagination. Cool... Bigfoot.

I heard it first at the playground with the 3-D space frame. This playground out of a total of some 5-6 playground scattered about the campus family housing, was the only one with a 3-D space frame which I loved climbing in and out of. It was relatively far from our unit, practically on the other side of the housing area, but it happened to be the playground right by the campus residence entrance gate where I had to walk to every morning to catch my yellow school bus to go to school. So I knew exactly where it was and exactly how to get there. The kids on this side were strangers but I loved the space frame and would trudge over whenever I could. It was here when I heard the news from some of the other kids. A footprint of Bigfoot had been found! Not only that, it had been found on a small knoll, just across the road from our playground.

Little eyes watched that hill. For days I entertained thoughts of going over to explore. It was out-of-bounds of course... the little hill sat just beyond the perimeter fence, on the other side of the boundary road... but it called to me. I dreadfully yearned to see that footprint!

"Where was it exactly?" I would ask the other kids. "Can I see it?" I would bother the larger kids to show me. "There." they pointed. "Just on the right slope before the trees."

For weeks, I dreamt of going. I couldn't think of anything else. I just had to see it! The desire burned in me, a desperate need to go. It was never far from my thoughts. Bigfoot. Whoa... I was on Bigfoot-mania... it captured my imagination and fired my curiousity. It was my life ambition, my one true goal in life, my life's burning mission...

So one day, I made up my mind to go... and I went. None of the other kids would take me so I'd decided I'd go... by myself. I stepped out of the house with a purpose and made the long journey to the playground. Hanging around the playground for awhile, I watched and I waited. Seized with indecision I paused, the thoughts running through my brain. It was harmless wasn't it? The road was a carpark road, no traffic. The fence had a gap in it. Then I would be over and back in barely any time at all. I just needed to take a peek at that slope!

I could see it from my vantage point, perched as I was on the top of the 3-D space frame. So close... so very close... and I just needed to see it from even closer. But what if it was dangerous? What if I went over... and I met... Bigfoot! Did he eat little children? Probably. But dammit, I want to see it!

Seeing no other kids around, picking up the courage, but knowing that if Mom found out, I'd be whacked for sure, I went.

My heart was pounding as I walked across the tarmac. The rip in the fence was easy enough to get through for a little boy like me. I was a little fearful, yet excited all the same. What drove me was a feverish desire to see the footprint for myself, but more than the threat of Mother's whacking or Father's lecture, I was more afraid of meeting Bigfoot himself.

The climb was easy, it was summer and the grass was green and the soil firm beneath my feet. I topped the hill and found a hiking trail. Where was the footprint? I was exactly where the kids were pointing to and said it would be. Where was it?

Looking back over the residences, I saw the road, the gate, the playground and the white walls of the residential blocks. I saw the university campus spread out just beyond the roof tops. I saw some of the kids coming out to play. But I didn't see Bigfoot. I didn't see his footprint. Where was it? That it might not even exist never even entered my mind. I searched frantically. I dared not step beyond the edge of the trail. The dark woods beyond was a promise of danger too great for the likes of me. If anything, I would be safe here by the hiking trail. But beyond this, in the dark woods, Bigfoot lurked. My eyes scanned the ground... a gnawing urge to run back home but yet unable to pull myself away... desperately searching.

I'm not sure what I found. To this day, I can't say for sure although logic tells me that it can't be true. What I do remember seeing was a larger than normal footprint. Was it Bigfoot's? Maybe. But maybe not. To a 7 year old, any footprint was large. In my desperation to see a true footprint of Bigfoot's I would probably project just about anything into the form of a footprint in my mind. Could I truly have found Bigfoot's footprint in the dirt on that grassy knoll by the side of a university campus residence in the middle of the urban sprawl of Kalamazoo, Michigan?

*Shrug* Who knows.