According to the witness, it was late afternoon and she was on her way home from Liter's Quarry with a pick-up full of gravel. "My load was pretty heavy so I was going slow. I'm not sure I would have noticed it if I'd been going over the speed limit." She thought she saw some movement up the hill side, "It was something BIG," she said. Thinking a deer might be about to run out in front of her...or even a loosened boulder...she slowed down even more and prepared to brake. "I couldn't believe my eyes! It was so imcomprehensible that I thought it had to be a tree that jumped in front of my car." When her senses restored and told her that "trees don't jump into the road" she blinked and looked again. "It leaped from about 30 feet off the pavement to smack-dab on the yellow line. It landed on it's two hind legs and suddenly turned and looked dead at me. I think it was 'surprized' at least that's my impression--and it sure surprized the h*** (deleted) out of me!" Asked if she felt in danger, the witness responded, "Well, at first I did. Then a funny thing happened...and if you don't think I'm crazy already, you will when I say this: I SWEAR I think it 'grinned' at me." Grinned? "Yes, you know that look...when you're unexpectedly caught naked? I can only describe the look as that. If it wasn't so green I'd swear it was blushing! Of course, I wasn't scared after that...in fact, it almost seemed funny." What happened next, I wanted to know? "It tip-toed to the side of the road and then leaped into the bushes along side the river and disappeared. It must have jumped into the water because there was ringed wake in the water when I tried to see where it went." This newest sighting of "Wally" spawned an impromptu gathering at the small, near-by local store. Outside I found a county resident, Mr. Cecil Peyton, formerly the Bethlehem Postmaster, and asked him if he'd ever heard of anything strange around Lockport." "No...well, I did hear about the dam pigs...."
"So you never heard of him or saw him?" "Who?" "Wally." "Wally! Where?" Mr. Peyton's head ricocheted left and right, then left again as he snapped a digital camera out of his pocket. "Where's Wally?" "So you haven't heard of Wally, you haven't seen Wally, and you don't believe in Wally? Do you always carry a little camera with you?" "Only when I come to Lockport," was his reply. I turned my attention to the people congregating in the store. I tried not to draw attention to myself and keep my ears open. They were talking about "Wally" alright. I had to pull out my pen and pad and take some notes, which made it pretty obvious why I was there and they started to crowd me. Annemarie Ivers, secretary at the Henry County Cooperative Extension Office, said she'd seen him late one summer afternoon coming home the store. "I thought I'd been working too hard looking at the computer screen, but there it was! I never told anyone..who'd believe me? Besides, it didn't scare me, just surprized me. Actually...I think it was cute." "Cute?!" someone else piped in. "I'd just gone to the McDonald's in Peddleton and I dumped my whole soda in my lap!"
Looking over his shoulder, A.J. explained that the dragon-like creature was moving fast and it startled him, so he guessed he must have moved when he clicked the shutter. "He hopped up on the lock and then disappeared into the water. Then he popped his head back up before he was gone for good. Wally's way cool!"
"I brought my cam-corder. Just let him show up now," declared award winning videographer Jim Powell. "Eat your heart out Arthur Kent!" "Oh what a crock! It's a natural phenomenom," a man in the back called out. "It's natural if you drive around without enough sleep you'll observe weird phenomena." The upstart got stared down, and another woman came forward. "You know, "Wally" isn't anything new...he's been here longer than the white man. There are old Native American stories about the 'big fish that walks.'" "You think Wally is a big fish?" But before she could answer a man in overalls and a John Deere cap shouted, "Hey, I heard that the National Enquirer is sending out some kind of animal specialist to have a look around." "You mean a Cryptozoologist?" I asked. "Umm...yeah...I think that's it." "Wrong...it's the Examiner that's sending the Crypto-Zoo Guy." As the two men argued, the man behind the counter whispered, "Hey, ya think we'll be on TV or something?" I closed my notepad and smiled at him, "Or something..."
Thanks and respects to the named and unnamed
"witnesses" that unwilling lent there names |
