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I'm writing this because I'm still waking up at 3.17 in the morning, like my body thinks

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it's supposed to be bracing for something to happen, and I'm not talking about bad weather.

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I'm talking about the moment my plow lights cut through the white out, and there was a

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shape standing in the road, dead center, like it was standing there ready to flag me down,

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and the shape was very clear to me. I knew what it was the moment I saw it. It was a

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person-shaped thing that was not a person. You guessed it, a big foot.

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I remembered the exact time this happened because the truck's dash-clock glowed right under

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my line of sight, and it read 3.17 AM. Christmas Eve morning.

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I work for my county here in eastern Ohio. When needed, I run a plow to clear the roads.

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I prefer to plow the back roads and the farm lanes that feed onto the main roads. Main

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roads really are a pain in the you-know-what. But even back then, I had enough seniority

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that I usually got sent any way I wanted, unless it was desperate out there, and the main

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roads needed more plows, and there weren't enough drivers.

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So let's flip the calendar back to December 2004.

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The Ohio Valley had a wopper of a snowstorm. Some areas had more than two feet of snow dumped

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on it in less than 24 hours. We literally couldn't keep up keeping the roads clear.

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The snow started heavy, I think it was on the 21st of December, and it didn't stop until

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sometime on Christmas Eve.

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Now I had been out since the storm started a few days before. I would go home just long

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enough for a hot shower, some food, a couple hours sleep, then I was back out the door again

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with a fresh thermos of hot coffee made by my wife. I was racking up the overtime too.

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I wouldn't get that fat paycheck till mid-January, about the way our years go. That would

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be when we would need it the most to recover from all of our Christmas spending.

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The storm was dumping snow so fast we were having trouble keeping up.

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I volunteered for extra shifts, but I had promised my wife that I would do Christmas Eve

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morning and Christmas no matter what with them. That was the deal. I could take all the

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overnight shifts and day shifts I wanted, and if I got home late, that's fine. But I had

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to be there for Christmas Eve and for the kids to open gifts.

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So on the night of December 23rd, I was in the county garage pulling on my insulated

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coveralls and doing the same routine I do every time. I checked the chains, checked the lights,

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checked the hydraulic lines, checked the salt levels, checked the radio, you know, all

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the important things. Then I climbed into truck 12, the big one, the one that vibrates

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like a living animal when you turn the key. Of all the trucks, 12 is my favorite. Now they're

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all the same make, model, and year for the most part. But truck 12, well, it's a different

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beast. Something about it, stronger engine it feels like. It's more aggressive in the

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low. It's really hard to put into words. But truck 12 always feels like it's a couple not

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as above all the other trucks, even though they were all bought at the same time and are

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supposed to be exactly the same. I know that sounds odd, but all of us have agreed there

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is something different about truck 12. Someone must have tweaked something a little different

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when it was being built. So I get in to 12. I flipped the radio on, and of course it's filled

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with Christmas music. Some station was playing Silent Night. I had to laugh to myself because

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if you've ever plowed during a real storm, you know the only Silent Night is the one before

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the snow started. My route that night was the same one I ran for secondary roads, a loop

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of rural roads that arced out past a couple small towns and then looped back in. The state

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route gets priority, but the county roads matter too. The buses run them, nurses drive them,

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and the folks who have to get to work on third shift at the plant also drive them. And out

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there, especially at night, it can be like you're the only one moving in the whole world.

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The first couple of hours were perfectly normal, snow falling, but manageable. The plow

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bled, scraping with that harsh, steady sound, salt chinking down on the road behind me. The

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truck lights painting the road in a flat, white glow. Every now and then I'd pass a farmhouse

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with a wreath on the door, maybe some lights blinking on a porch rail, a warm square of

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a window where you could just see that people were inside enjoying the season. And every

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time I saw that, I would think about my own house. About the way my oldest still tries

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to stay up on Christmas Eve, even though he can barely keep his eyes open. I thought about

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the way my wife handled everything by herself while I was out there plowing. I do have regrets

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about a lot of that, but she has always told me to get out there and pull in that over

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time. She's got everything handled, she would say. And it mattered that I was there when it

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really mattered. Those were her words. My kids are grown now, and they have pretty much told

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me the same that I was there when it counted, but I do still feel like I miss some things.

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Now, there's a kind of loneliness in this job that doesn't hit you until the holidays,

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because it's one thing to miss a normal two-state evening. But it's another thing to be

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out there in the dark while everyone else is inside doing all the things that make beautiful

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holiday memories. I was thinking about that in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve

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2004. Now, somewhere around midnight on the 23rd, not long after my shift started, the

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snow started coming in harder and faster. It came down so fast it seemed to erase my tire

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tracks behind me, just as fast as I made them. By 1am, visibility was down to almost nothing

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but what my headlights could light up right in front of my truck. Everything else was a

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wall of white. The radio kept chirping out with updates. Other trucks were getting on the

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radio reporting where slick spots were. There were a couple of minor slides, but nothing serious

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yet. Our dispatcher sounded very tired. She had been working 16-hour days for about four

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days straight. Everybody sounded tired. I kept my speed low. A plow truck can handle a lot

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that's true, but physics don't ignore plow trucks, and we are just as liable to slide off

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the road as anyone else. I had just cleared a long straight stretch that we call the "creak

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stretch." That's a county road that runs beside a standard woods with a long creek in it

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on one side and open fields on the other. I made my first pass through that stretch roughly

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around 2.45am. Nothing unusual, just snow, wind, and the steady sound of the plow blade doing

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its work. Then I looped back, hit a couple of side roads, turned around near the old grain

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elevator, and came back toward that same stretch. That's when it happened. 317am. The snow

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had thickened into that swirling curtain of thick, fluffy white. My wipers were working

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over time, thumping back and forth, but the snowflakes were hitting the windshield hard

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and fast. And then my plow lights caught something right in the middle of the road, almost

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dead center. I squinted through the wall of white out in front of my truck. I didn't want

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to hit an animal out there, but the momentum of those big trucks is something else when they're

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rolling. You need to triple your stopping distance in that kind of weather. At that time

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of the morning, in that kind of weather, I thought it had to be a deer that I was seeing.

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What else would be out in this weather? But then I thought about it. I hadn't seen a deer

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since this snow started on the 21st. They were probably bedded down somewhere for good.

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And this thing didn't look or move like a deer. It was standing straight up. It wasn't

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down low on the road looking into the truck's lights the way most animals do, and I knew

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from the outline this wasn't some bear. I started tapping the brakes gentle at first, then

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the truck's weight shifted, and I felt the rear tires bite as the big truck came to a slow

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stop, maybe ten yards from the shape in the middle of the road. It didn't bolt, or even

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flinch as my truck came to a stop. It had stayed steady from the first second I saw it, until

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I came to a stop. It watched the truck the entire time. The only movement I saw as I got closer

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to it was the head turned just a bit as it was tracking the truck coming closer. I squeezed

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my steering wheel so hard I heard my leather gloves creak. The light hit it full now, and

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I couldn't deny what I was seeing. Tall, broad, shoulders wide and boxing like a refrigerator,

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dark, stringy, matted, snow catching in it like powdered sugar on a coat. And the face,

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well, I didn't get a perfect look at the face. It wasn't like looking at a photograph,

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but I saw enough to know that was no man there. I saw it enough to know that was a big

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foot. The eyes reflected the light, kind of an animal shine. They weren't glowing like

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some cheap flashlight trick of a costume, but they were catching the beam bright and they

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were amber red. The nose I saw was flat and wide. I'm sure there was a mouth there, but

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the snow was sticking to the fur on the face, which really was most of the lower half

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of the face, so I didn't see the lips. You drive a truck like that enough dark nights.

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You get to know what animals look like in the dark all lit up by headlights. You know

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what makes it usual rounds in that area at night, and you will also know what you almost

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never see. And in all the years that I had been plowing before that, and all the years

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from then until I retired, I never once saw a human out there in several feet of snow

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without a car nearby. Never. I don't know how large Bigfoot's run, but this one was pretty

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big. I'm used to looking down on everything from inside that big cab of the truck, but

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I didn't look down to see that Bigfoot, not far. We were close to being almost eye level

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with each other. I might have been a foot higher, but even that was unsettling for me. And

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that Bigfoot was looking at me in a steady way I really didn't like. But I knew that if

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push came to shove, and I hoped it didn't, I was pretty sure my truck could flatten that

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Bigfoot. Bigfoot versus Plow Truck? No question who was going to win, so I wasn't very scared.

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But it wasn't moving. Maybe three or five more seconds passed, but it still wasn't moving.

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It stood there in the road, looking at my truck, though it was now angered a bit sideways,

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so it wasn't getting the truck lights head on. After a while I really didn't know what

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else to do, so I hit the horn. I mean I let go of a full blast of the horn. It did flinch

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only slightly, but it didn't move. It was now more broadside to me, but the upper body

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was turned at the waist, and if it was possible, it had a meaner look on its face than it

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had before. Then it took one slow step, then another. Not toward me, but toward the side

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of the road, like it finally realized that it had better move, because it wasn't going

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to win this fight. It reached the side of the road, piled high with snow from my earlier

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pass. It stepped up to the top of the snow pile, and instead of stumbling like a normal

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person would in the snow, it stepped up onto it, like it was climbing a single stair step.

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Then it turned slightly, presenting its full side to me. And for half a second I saw the

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line of its back, the thickness of its arms, and the way the hair clung to it in wet ropes.

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Then it slipped into the trees, and was gone in the darkness. I let the truck idle past

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where it had been. And my whole body felt like it was buzzing. Adrenaline, fear, disbelief,

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shock, everything came at me all at once. Then I told myself, "It's late. It's snowing.

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You saw something weird. Your brain is filling in blanks with all the things you've seen

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recently on television. That's all that's happening."

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"That was I?" I hadn't seen anything about Bigfoot probably. Well, since I was a kid, all

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the same. My hands were shaking on the wheel in a way that they don't shake even when I

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almost lit into a ditch one time. That's how I knew this was different. That's how I knew.

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It was real. I radio dispatched. I almost didn't because, "Well, what could I say? Hey, I think

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I just saw Bigfoot out here?" No, but I did keep it simple. Dispatched. This is 12. Just had,

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I just had a large animal in the roadway near the creek stretch on 33. Heads up. Dispatched

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came back, bored, and half asleep sounding. Copy that, 12. Dear. And there was my chance to

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let it all go, to say yes, and just keep moving to bury it under the category that makes sense.

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But I couldn't. Negative, I said, and my voice cracked a little bit in my own ears. Not a

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deer. There was a pause on the radio. Just static and wind in the faint murmur of other trucks.

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Then Dispatched said. Copy. Not a deer. Use caution. And that was it. No questions. No pushback.

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Maybe Dispatched thought I was messing around. Maybe Dispatched thought I was tired. Maybe Dispatched

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thought I had seen a cow that got loose, or I just didn't know what I saw. But the thing is,

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I did know what I saw. I went on plowing because, well, that's what you do. You don't get to stop

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your route just because you saw something you can't quite explain. But I'll tell you something.

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Once you've seen something like that, the dark out there changes. Every tree line looks deeper.

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Every shadow feels like there's something hiding in it. I came around my doop again about 40 minutes

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later. The snow had eased slightly, just enough that my lights reached a little farther than they

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did before. And that's when I saw it again. Not in the road this time, but up on the snow berm,

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the one I had made from plowing. He was walking along that ridge of piled snow parallel to the road,

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like it was on a sidewalk. It moved with this steady, purposeful stride that was unbothered by all

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of the snow and the hailing winds. I slowed the truck without meaning to. The truck's engine dropped

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into a low growl, and I was now pulled alongside the big foot on the side of the road.

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The figure kept pace with me for maybe five seconds, ten at most. And that's plenty,

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though, when you're staring at something like that. It was closer now. Close enough that I could see

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the hair on its shoulders plastered flat with wet snow. Close enough that I could see its arms

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swing low, the hands hanging near its knees. Close enough that if I had rolled down my window and

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leaned out, I could have smacked its shoulder. If I'd had any doubts about it not being real before,

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those ideas were shot out of the water. It was as real as the truck I was riding in.

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After a couple seconds of me riding beside it, it turned its head toward the truck,

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not in a frantic or worried way, just curious, like, "Why are you following me?"

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Kind of curious. And that's the word I keep coming back to. And I hate it because curiosity feels harmless.

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And I tell you, this thing was not harmless. Not with that size, not with the intent and the

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expressions that I had seen on it already. I don't know what I was expecting, but for some reason

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I wanted a reaction from it. So I hit the horn again. And it did react this time, but not like I expected.

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It suddenly stopped walking, looked over at me in the truck, and I mean it looked at me.

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Not the truck. Then it turned the other way and stepped down off the piled ridges snow and

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walked into the trees slowly and deliberately. And then it was gone. I kept driving, but my mind was

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racing. I had seen it in the space of maybe an hour. It was walking my route, but it had learned

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to stay off the road. Was it learning? Or was I reading too much into it? Around 4.30 am, the storm

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surged again. When picked up and snow started to blow in hard sheets that made the road disappear

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under my blade, even as I cleaned it. I got a call from dispatch. Stringed vehicle reported on one

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of my side roads, small sedan, often a ditch, hazard lights on. Can you check on it when you swing

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by? Dispatch asked? "Copy," I said. I really didn't want to. Not with what I'd already seen.

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Not with my shift nearing its end, and then I could go home. But you don't leave somebody

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stranded out there. Not in weather like that, for sure. The side road in question cut through a

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wooded section before opening into a little cluster of homes. I turned on to it, blade down, pushing

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snow, tires crunching all the way. The sedan was exactly where dispatch said, "nose down in a shallow

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ditch, hazards blinking weak orange through the falling snow." I pulled up behind it, and I put my

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own flashers on. The world outside my truck cab was a spinning tunnel of white and dark. I grabbed

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my flashlight and stepped down. The cold hit me like a slap. It smelled sharp, metallic. It was all

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salt and diesel and snow. I trudged up to the car's driver window. The glass was fogged. I knocked.

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A woman's face appeared, wide eyed. She cracked the window down a couple inches.

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"I'll thank God," she said, her voice shaking. "I slid, and I can't get any traction."

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I nodded, noticing that one tire wasn't even touching the road as I walked up.

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"Instead," I said. "Are you okay?"

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"Yeah," she said, just scared, and my phone's dying.

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I told her to keep the car running if she could, to conserve her phone battery, and that a deputy

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and a tow truck were on the way. I offered to let her sit in my cab, but she didn't want to leave her car.

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Some people just won't. Call it pride or fear, whatever. I didn't blame her.

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As I turned back toward my truck, my flashlight beams swept across the road and into the ditch line.

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And it caught something. At first I thought it was a tree trunk, but the tree trunk shifted.

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A very small movement, just enough though, to make my blood spike.

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There was a shape down there, half hidden behind brush and snow.

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Too tall to be a deer, too upright to be a bear, too big to be a human. I froze.

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I told myself, "You're seeing what you want to see. You're seeing storm shadows,

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branches. You're just on edge, and you're seeing bigfoot everywhere you look."

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And it was kind of true. Since that bigfoot had stepped down off the snow mound along the road and

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went off into the trees, I was sure I was seeing it again and again, at least a dozen times as I drove.

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But each time what I saw turned out to be something that was definitely not a bigfoot.

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But then it moved again. And then I saw the curve of a shoulder. The dark hair slipped down,

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I saw the bulk of it. It was crouched low like it was trying to make it soft smaller suddenly.

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And that made my fear rise, because it meant it understood hiding.

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I backed up toward my truck without turning my back fully. My boot slipped on pack snow,

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and the sound of my own breathing got loud inside my hood. The shape stayed very still.

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But I felt it watching me. This wasn't some spooky sixth sense. It was just the simple fact that when

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you're in the open and there's something out there in the darkness, well, you know the advantage is

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not yours. I climbed in my cab and shut the door hard enough, the whole truck shook. I radio dispatched

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with my voice low. Dispatched 12. I'm with the stranded vehicle. Toad and deputy still on route?

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A firmative dispatched said, "ETA about 20." Oh God, 20 minutes felt like a year.

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I glanced at the woman in the sedan. She was still in there. Car hazard's blinking.

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I didn't want to scare her, and I didn't want her to bolt out into the storm from fear.

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I was certain she didn't know that something was out there watching us.

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So I did the only thing I could think of. I stayed put with my truck lights on.

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Let the engine idle. I had the blade raised slightly, so I could pull out fast if I needed to,

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to say, flatten a troublesome big foot. And I watched the ditch line.

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Snow-kipped falling, soft and relentless. Minutes passed. Then out of the corner of my eye,

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I saw a movement. It wasn't right next to me. It was farther back. Near the tree line,

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just where my lights almost faded. There was a tall silhouette sliding between the trunks,

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the way a person would walk carefully through a crowded room. It stopped at the edge of the light.

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And for a moment, it stood there, looking between my truck and the sedan, like it was deciding something.

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Then it took a step forward. The light caught it now, just enough to show a face full of intent,

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and it didn't look good. It was focused on the sedan, and presumably, the woman inside.

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The woman in the sedan was facing forward. She didn't see it. She had no idea anything was there,

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but I did. And I knew then what it had been deciding. My mouth went dry. The thing leaned slightly

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forward and began inching through the snow toward the sedan. I remember saying no, out loud in the truck.

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I revved the truck engine, then let loose with the truck's horn again. I laid on it long and loud.

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That horn blared, echoing through the woods and off the ditch in the empty fields.

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It was an ugly noise out there in the quiet of a wintery snowy landscape, but I felt I had no choice.

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The bigfoot looked right up at the truck, and it inched backwards a couple feet. I could tell it wasn't happy.

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It was staring at me in the truck. Oh, it was angry for sure. I can't tell you exactly how I could tell it,

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but there was something in the way it moved, its posture, but I could tell. Then it stood completely

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straight up. It turned, and effortlessly glided through the deep snow and was lost in the trees.

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I sat there shaking, staring at its retreat. I jumped when there was a knock at my driver's side door.

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The woman from the sedan was standing there, looking worried. I rolled down my window.

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"Is everything okay?" she asked.

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I swallowed hard, and I leaned out the window, and I said, "Yeah, I just got my sleeve caught,

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and it was stuck on the horn button." Now I totally made that up, of course, and what I said couldn't

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have happened with the horn, not like that, but I was banking on her not knowing what a truck's horn

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was like, and apparently she didn't. Then I asked her, "You doing all right?"

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She nodded, "Yes, but I could tell she was rattled. She got back in her car, and I kept my mouth shut,

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kept my lights on, and I watched the darkness all around us."

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The deputy arrived first, lights flashing blue across the snow. The tow truck came just a few minutes

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later. I told the deputy what I needed to tell him, conditions, location, safety, without saying a word

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about what I had seen. Because what's the point? If you say, "I saw a big foot,"

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well now you're the story. Now you're the guy people laugh about at the local diner.

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The tow truck got the sedan out, and the woman thanked us all a dozen times over,

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then she drove off, slow and careful. The deputy pulled up next to my truck afterwards, his window down.

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"You doing all right tonight?" he asked. His voice was casual and friendly,

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but there was something in his eyes, sharp, knowing. I hesitated, and I know he saw it. I could have

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told him. I could have said, "There's something out here, and it's big." But I didn't. I just nodded

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to him and said, "Yeah, it's just been a long night." He looked past me toward the trees for a second,

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like he was thinking about something, or looking for something. Then he looked back at me and nodded,

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"All right then. Be safe," he said, then he drove off into the night.

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"After that, I wanted nothing more than to finish my route and get back to the garage and

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get home to my family. It was now Christmas Eve morning, but the storm kept hammering us,

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and I kept plowing, and twice more, twice. I saw that figure along that creek stretch as I made my

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loops. It was always at the edge of the light along the road. It was always watching me.

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Once it was standing behind a stand of saplings, and I saw just its head move as I passed,

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tracking the truck, like it was studying it. The other time it was farther back, just a silhouette,

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but unmistakable in its shape and height, and it was becoming very visible with the lightning

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sky with the coming dawn. I got back to the garage a little after 7.30 a.m. Just as the eastern sky

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started to lighten into that pale winter grey. I parked truck 12, shut it down, and for a second,

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the silence in the cab was so complete, it felt like pressure in my ears. My supervisor was there,

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nursing a cup of coffee, looking half dead. "Well, how's it doing out there?" he asked.

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"It's bad," I said, probably a lot worse in the creek stretch than I've seen anywhere else.

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He nodded like that all made perfect sense. "Any incidents?" he asked.

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"I thought about the sedan, about the deputy, about that shape in the road."

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"No," I said, "nothing worth reporting."

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He clapped me on the shoulder and said, "Go on home, get some sleep." "Mary Christmas."

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"Mary Christmas," I said back, and it sounded strange on my tongue after the night I had had.

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At home, the house smelled like fresh pine mixed with cinnamon and ginger.

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My wife had the treelit, fresh coffee made, and she was making pancakes for the kids.

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I kissed my wife, hugged my kids, and we all sat down together and shoveled in some mickey-mouth-shaped

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pancake as fast as we could. I tried hard to be present that morning, but I was exhausted from

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several nights of long plowing, and every time I blinked, I saw that shape in the road, dead center,

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not moving. At one point my wife touched my arm and asked me quietly, "Are you okay?"

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I almost told her. I thought about it, but I didn't want to drag that darkness into our living room,

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not on Christmas Eve morning, not with my kids happy and excited waiting for Santa to come that night.

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So I just said, "Yeah, I'm good, just tired."

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Later on, after the kids were busy, and my wife was in the kitchen, I stepped out onto the front porch.

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The snow had east up. The world was still blanketed and clean.

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But I was wiser now. I knew what walked around out there in the darkness, and I could never be the same.

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I did go out many more times over the years on many snowy nights, right down that creek stretch, too,

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but I never saw it again, though I always looked. I have many unanswered questions, like most people that

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have a sighting. Mostly, what was it going to do to the woman in the sedan? I've often thought it

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might have done nothing. That maybe it was just curious. That maybe not. For whatever reason,

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it didn't think I was any kind of a threat to keep it from doing whatever it was going to do.

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That also was another unsettling thought for me. I also have to wonder, I kept seeing it. Was it

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following the flashing lights on my truck, maybe? You know what else? I still wake up on many winter

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nights at exactly 3.17 am right on the dot. It's like my brain wants to keep reminding me of what I saw

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all those years ago. I sure wish it wouldn't. If you share this, please keep my name in county out of it.

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I am retired from the county now, that's true, but I am working full-time for another service here in town,

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and I just assume not be known as that guy. And if anyone listening drives those rural stretches

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during a winter storm, slow down. Keep your eyes up. Because sometimes the thing in the road is the

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last thing you expect. Thank you again. Just call me a county plow driver.

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