And you thought I was crazy!

It was about 10 years ago when I was a witness to something that many people accused me of making up. If you've heard the story, here is a refresher, if you haven't, prepare to be amazed.



As I said, it was about 10 years ago and my brother Brian and I had traveled to Tennessee to visit our dad, who was in the early stages of his battle with cancer. My father had planted a few acres of tobacco to make some extra money, but do to his declining health, was unable to take proper care of it. Family and friends had been helping, not an uncommon thing in the great state of TN. On one particular day, my grandfather ask Brian and I to help spray the field, and we agreed. Now Brian and I are what you might call city folk. We had spent a lot of time at our grandparents farm as young children, but by no means were we country. Some of the things we were being asked to do were foreign to us. I'm not sure if that is the way they are done or if our grandfather was having a laugh at us at our expense. We drove to the field, which was quite spectacular. You had to go up the side of a mountain on this narrow, barely visible dirt road. The vegetation was thick on both sides of the "road," so you could only see a couple of feet off the side of the truck. As we reached the top of this mountain, we drove out of the trees and into an open space covered in tobacco, but no canopy overhead. It's like they shaved off the top of this mountain for what must have been 10 to 12 acres. Plus, there was a barn up there as well. I thought that if you were trying to hide out, this looked like an ideal place. From the paved road, far below, you would have never guessed this field was there. Our grandfather hooked up his modified sprayer to his tractor to start the job. I say modified, but if you knew him, you would know that this was nothing unusual. He was famous, in our family anyway, for fixing or making things out of spare parts. Lets call him, affectionately, MacGyver. Now MacGyver had rigged a 55 gallon drum, full of a liquid that I'm sure would be considered toxic, at best, onto the back of his tractor with a typical spray attachment coming out of both sides. Nothing unusual yet. Now on this mountain top field, you would naturally have a drop off at the end of the field itself where the trees began and the slope of the mountain goes down to the valley below. MacGyver's tractor and sprayer can't reach the last 5 or so rows of tobacco, so this is where MacGyver shows his stuff. He had rigged a tube from the drum, up to another smaller sprayer that was then attached to the end of a 2x4. Brian and I were instructed to put this 2x4 on our shoulder, with the sprayer over our heads, and walk in between the last rows of tobacco so they could be sprayed with this lovely yellow brew that sloshed in the drum. Not 2 minutes before we left on this ill advised adventure with the 2x4, we watched in horror as MacGyver attempted to fix the contraption, only to do what I can only describe as bathe in said poison. I don't know what that stuff was, but I assure you, you wouldn't want to be covered in it. It actually went well, we didn't get covered with I began calling Agent Orange, but I did get a single drop of it on my shoe, which was still there when I threw them away 3 years later, not kidding. Brian and I sat down to rest after this, while our grandfather finished up the spraying. Brian found a canister which we believed was the powder that was used to make the Agent Orange. Brian opened it and accidentally inhaled a bit of it, we both thought he was going to die. From his description of the smell/burn, I wasn't too keen on opening the canister myself, so I let him enjoy that on his own. Brian got in the truck to drive and I stood in the back leaning over the cab, because I didn't think that the brush with poison was enough of a life risk, I wanted to top it off. As we began our descent down this narrow road, Brian and I both witnessed the scariest thing I have ever seen. It ran across the road right in front of the truck, which Brian had stopped just short of this creature. We both stared and said nothing. Our grandfather was driving the tractor and was either behind us or in front of us, I can't remember which, but he wasn't a witness to this thing running across the road. You may be asking, "What was it, Bigfoot? A mutant snake?" As I stared in disbelief, I leaned into the window to see if Brian had seen it as well, and I could tell by his stare, that he had. I asked anyway, "Did you see that?" He responded, "What was it?" The fear was in his voice and I was afraid to utter the next words, but I knew what I had seen. I said, "It looked like a raptor." I know what you are thinking and no, there was no moonshine on the top of that mountain. I've tried to tell myself that what I saw was a lizard running across the road on his back legs, but I don't believe it. I wish I had a picture of it, but I can tell you that if I had a camera, the best shot I could have expected at that point was of the inside of my pocket because I wouldn't have been able to get the camera into any other position in my state. Here it is 10 years later and I have proof of our sighting that day. While doing my research to possible vacation spots, I found the following link on the Kentucky Visitors website. You'll have to click on the link, change the "Interest" drop down menu to Nature/wildlife, then look at the description under Cranks Creek Public Wildlife Management Area.



http://www.kentuckytourism.com/tourism/KI.Tourism.CMS.Templates/InterestResultsByRegionPage.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7b1E835BFD-AEA0-4E7F-944B-8DAAA10E2E69%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fsitestosee%2fboonecountry%2ehtm&NRCACHEHINT=Guest



For those of you that don't want to do that, here is a paste of what it says:



Cranks Creek Public Wildlife Management Area
HARLAN - Daniel Boone CountryAccess Hwy 1138, Cranks
Type of Interest: Attraction
Public hunting on 4,224 acres. Grouse, squirrel, turkey, deer, and rabbit. View raptors. No Camping. Managed by Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife.



Did you see what you can "view?" Why the hell isn't this big news, raptors are alive and I'm guessing, breeding, in Kentucky. I will argue that they are in the wild of northern Tennessee as well. And why would you want to camp in raptor country, didn't you see Jurassic Park? Those bastards are mean. After years of ridicule by family and friends, all I can say is, AH, vindication!