TAGGING THE NORTH AMERICAN BIG FOOT

By Tim Colin
Associate Editor,
Humor News Nuts Publications
Although there is not much that you can legally hunt this time of year, it is good to be preparing yourself for hunting season. This year I intend on bagging me one of those big foot monsters that scare away the entire tourist from Northern Michigan. The problem with the typical big foot monster is that they are dark colored and very hard to see at night. Nighttime is the best time to hunt big foots because that is when most of the conservation officers are sleeping.

I have come up with a unique way of solving the coloring issue of the big foot monster. I intend on creeping up to the big foot monsters while they are feeding and paint a large fluorescent ‘X” on the sides of the creatures. In order to minimize the danger to myself, I have with me my younger brother Mike who is going to assist me by actually painting these large, powerful and, hungry beasts. While my brother paints the beast with an “X” I will be hiding in the bushes ready to dial 911 in case something bad happens to my brother. I am just glad that I had the foresight to realize that this was a job that would take two people.

The paint I was using was some I picked up at the county garage. They had a lot of it sitting around so I figured they wouldn’t mind if I borrowed a five gallon bucket. That just made one less can that they would have to deal with.

The bait I was using to lure the big foots in was a garbage sack full of Walleyes. My uncle Mike had gone fishing down south of a chemical plant in Midland. He scooped up a whole bunch of fish with his net. The fish couldn’t swim too well because of all the large tumors they had growing all over them. My uncle soon found out that he couldn’t clean the fish because the stuff oozing from the tumors was eating through the steel of his fish fillet knife.

After my brother poured out the fish on the ground we both hid in the bushes. It was only about ten minutes later when a large brown big foot showed up. It ate on the fish for a couple of minutes before my brother finally got up the guts to go out there to paint an “X” on the creature. My younger brother had a dripping paint bush in his hand as he slowly edged up to the big foot monster. “Hurry up,” I yelled at him, “We don’t have all day,”

Well my hollering must have got the bears attention since he immediately charged my brother and swiped him across his belly with his enormous claw. My brother fell to the ground like a sack of flour. He just laid there shaking and bleeding. AS for the bear, he just turned around and went back to eating the fish. I starting laughing and had an awful time stopping long enough to call 9-11. Just thinking abut my brother lying twitching like he was still brings a smile to my face. The only bad thing is that the big foot ate up all my bait and I didn’t even get him tagged with florescent paint.

My brother only ended up having the front of his shirt tore to shreds and a few scratches. After a hundred or so stitches my brother was ready to go home. It looks like this year I am just not going to have any advantage at all hunting big foots here in Northern Michigan.

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NORTHERN MICHIGAN LIZARD MONSTER BECOMES MORE DANGEROUS

By Ted Collin
Associate Editor
Humor News Nuts Publications

The lizard monster is getting bigger and feeding more. He has spread his siege of terror across Benzie, Grand Traverse and now Leelanau counties. Campers and residents alike have fallen victim to his voracious appetite for bacon. Unfortunately, this creature is growing not just in reputation but, he is getting much bigger than he was when the fist reports started coming in.

The once foot tall creature is now almost three feet tall. It seems he has gone from being a lizard boy to being a lizard tween (not quite a teenage lizard but, no longer just a boy). Lizardologists (scientist who study lizards) would call him a twizzard. The real problem now is that with the growth of his physical body, this absconder of pork products now has an even more voracious appetite.

The latest reported victims were a couple in their 60’s who recently retired from downstate to a quiet cottage just outside of Suttons Bay. Dr. and Mrs. Stein Franken were the last victims of the lizard creature’s appetite. This was an especially cruel attack since the good Dr. Franken and his wife had moved to Northern Michigan to get away from the stigma the couple felt for the involvement of Dr. Franken in the creation of the monster known as the Franken Moose. The Doctor and his wife were sure they could put the past behind them in their quiet woodland cottage far from the technologies that made the creation of the Franken-Moose monster possible. Oh, does fate have no pity?

The incident with the lizard creature occurred a few days ago. It was a hot summer evening and the Franken family had a few neighbors over for a pool party and a luau, complete with a traditional pig roast. Just as everyone was skinny dipping and splashing about in the pool, a smashing noise came from over near the roasting pig. Dr. and Mrs. Franken along with their neighbors climbed out of the pool and approached the roasting pig witch was on the other side of a hedge. As they round the hedge they saw a three foot tall lizard like creature with suction cups on the ends of its fingers and a suction cup for a mouth, holding up the entire pig carcass with one end in each hand and eating it from side to side like an ear of corn. The creature looked directly at the crowd but did not stop eating. Instead, he grimaced like he was annoyed at the people watching him eat, stuffed the carcass under one arm like a football and exited through the hole in the privacy fence that he had originally broken through. Then, he ran off into the woods behind the cottage.

None of the skinny dippers would go after the great lizard since behind the privacy fence were several large poison ivy plants. As soon as it got dark enough so no one could see them, the neighbors went home leaving the Frankens to suffer alone. . The party was ruined and all the participants will need many years of psychoanalysis to remove the trauma from their psyche.

The Frankens already lost a daughter over the Franken-Moose tragedy. She no longer has anything to do with her parents except over the summer and holiday breaks. She also calls them every week to get money since, she is now a junior at Central Michigan University. Beyond that, she never speaks to them.

How much longer can the people of Northwestern Michigan put up with these cruel attacks? We are suffering so much and yet, the federal government does nothing to protect our pork products from this lizard monster. Perhaps it will take the killing of other animals before the federal government decides to get involved. If this creature were killing off some endangered species of mosquito then, the feds would be all over this story.

Well, I digress. We just need some relief. If you can’t count on your pork being protected by your government then, what good is your government? Please, someone just help us stop this monster.

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HUNTING SEASON FOR HARPIES IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN

By Mike Colin
Well, as most of you know I love to hunt just about anything. Recently, the government in Michigan said it was alright to hunt Harpies, provided that you paid for the proper license, and had your dead harpies weighed and checked out for rabies by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. In Michigan, harpies are the number one spreader of rabies to both humans and domestic pets. They also spread an even more dreaded disease known as cooties.

This year I staked out a nice place at a state park where there were lots of grills for down state people to roast their weenies on. Harpies love to eat whatever you have on hand but, harpies really love weenies especially the all beef kind. Harpies won’t go near weenies that have mechanically removed turkey parts in them. It seems even harpies have standards.

Well, as the campers gathered and started to cook their weenies the harpies of course showed up and sat in the trees for a while. In appearance the harpies have the head of an old lady and a thin lizard body with a long tail like a dragon and ears just like Mr. Spock on Star Trek. When the harpies swarmed down to steal the weenies I open fired with my crossbow. Bullets won’t even phase a harpie, but a cross bow will bring them down if you hit them directly in the heart. It took me a few tries but eventually I ended up with a couple of five foot long harpies that I was able to take to my parents to clean and serve that day, for a nice Sunday dinner.

Although the meat of the harpies is really tender the taste is very nasty like dead fish smothered in pig swill. Luckily, mom had some vinegar on the table, so overall, the harpies were edible. Although the harpies were not good tasting, perhaps I saved some weenies for some family on vacation to eat. I think I did good.

112223

THERE ARE NO BEARS IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRY ANY ACTIVITIES FOUND ON THIS BLOG. WE ARE INVESTIGATIVE PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST. IF WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING THAN WHO DOES? TRYING TO DO ANYTHING THAT OUR STAFF DOES IS PURE FOOLISHNESS. IN SUMMARY, ONLY FOOLS DO WHAT WE DO.

For many years people have been told that there are bears in the woods in the Northern region of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. In truth, I have never seen a bear in Michigan except at the zoo. I believe that the rumors of wild bears running around in Michigan are fostered by the Wisconsin tourist industry. They are trying to scare people out of traveling to our wonderful state. Well, I have decided to put an end to these vicious rumors once and for all. So, with my brothers Mike and Ted, we are going off to the deep woods to spend a couple nights camping and looking for evidence of bears in the area.

Day 1
No Bears
Well, we're camping out in Kalkaska County in a large cedar swamp. Bears in Florida like swamps so we figured that bears in Michigan, if they exist, will love this big smelly swamp we found on Google. This is state land but, it does not appear that anyone has ever camped here. The mosquitoes are really bad. Hopefully, when it gets dark the mosquitoes should go to sleep and not bother us until morning. All we have to do now is gather up some firewood and heat up a can of beans and roast our hot dogs. We probably shouldn't’t be eating the beans. We’re liable to have a midnight musical extravaganza. I just hope its country or rock music and not some disco crap like we had to listen to on our last camp out.

2 Hours Later
Well, the sun has gone down but, the strange thing is the mosquitoes have not gone to sleep yet. Instead, they are swarming all around us and seem to be biting more often. Ted said mosquitoes never sleep. I hope Ted is wrong or this is going to be a really long night.

In order to get some bears to come around our campsite, we have left out some chopped up pig carcass on the hood of the car. The engine was really hot by the time we got back here so we decided to cook half of the pig parts a bit to get the scent in the air. The rest of the pig parts we left in the back seat in case we needed more bate for later.

The pig parts were left over from when we were chumming for great white sharks out on Lake Michigan. I’m going to have to pick up a lot of pop and beer cans downtown to pay all the fines the Department of Natural Resources socked us with. Who knew you needed a fishing license to look for great white sharks?

Midnight
Well, my watch says its twelve o’clock and I think something’s going on in the brush. I can’t tell what it is but, something is grunting and, moaning and. circling our camp. At first I thought it was just my brother Mike going for a bathroom break but, he’s still snoring away in his sleeping bag. Well, neither of my brothers is sleeping now. Something big and black just attacked the car. We should have parked the car closer to the camp fire so we could watch the pig carcass better.

I’m not sure what this thing is but, it’s up on its hind legs chomping down on the pig parts. It can’t be a bear because they never stand on their hind legs like a human. It must be a big hairy human. We’ll know more tomorrow when it goes away and the sun is up.

Day 2
It’s 6 a.m. and something has not only eaten every last bit of pig but, it tore the heck out of Ted’s car. Ted is just sitting up in his sleeping bag not moving at all. He just stares over at his ride. I think he’s in some sort of coma or something. It’s a good thing he’s in a coma because all the windows were smashed and his back seat that held the rest of the pig parts well, I never liked the upholstery anyway. The outside of the car was in even worse condition. Two of the tires were chewed right down to the wire mesh inside of them. There are more claw marks than paint left on his old red Chevy. It’s a good thing I talked him into taking his car out on this trip. I’d be really upset if something ripped my car up like that.

We were very fortunate that the creature did leave some evidence behind for us to examine. At first I thought Mike had something to do with it but, he flatly denied knowing anything about the large brown pile of evidence. Yes, the creature took time last night to relieve itself near Ted’s Chevy. Of course, this was no bear that did this. It was a hairy giant manlike thing that stood up on its hind legs while it ate pig and destroyed the red Chevy. I have waited my entire life to find evidence of this creature. Yes, I saw the creature Native Americans call Sasquatch also, known as Big Foot.

Epilogue
As we walked out of the woods I was elated. Not only did I prove there were no bears in Michigan but, I proved the existence of Big Foot. The camera on my cell phone was not working again however, I had in a plastic baggy the evidence I needed to show the scientific world, the quality of the research I do here in Northern Michigan.

We walked about a half mile down the old two track lumber trail then; I thought we had some more luck. We spied a Department of Natural Resources officer walking our way. Unfortunately, the news he had for us was grim. It seems it is illegal to bait bears on state land so I got a whopping ticket for that. My brother Ted received a citation for abandoning a dilapidated vehicle on state land. The worst news was that removing Sasquatch droppings from their natural habitat is also illegal so, I had to put the pile back where I found it. The officer confiscated my empty bag in case I tried to snitch a little bit of illegal Sasquatch droppings.

Well, at least we proved that bears don’t exist here in the lower peninsula of Michigan. I do want to warn everybody that you should not leave any pork parts in your car overnight. My brother Ted found out the hard way that Sasquatch can be really persistent when it comes to pork. Next time, Ted is going to keep any extra pork we have in his sleeping bag where it is safe.

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THE NORTHEN MICHIGAN LIZARD MONSTER

By Ted Colin
Assistant Editor,
Humor News Nuts Blogazine

It has come to our attention that there is a strange creature lurking in North Western Michigan and his name is Lizard Boy. Many recent campers have cited this creature usually lying in the dirt slurping up worms and bugs. This would not be unusual for any creatures living in Northern Michigan including the people that live outside of town however, whenever Lizard Boy sees a person, he gets up on his hind legs, looks the person in the eye, they Lizard Boy runs away on his back legs with his long tail flapping behind him.

Besides his aforementioned flat tail, Lizard Boy is described as having a gray/brownish body with black and orange bands on his tail. He also has four toes and four fingers with little suction cups on the ends of his fingers. His eyes are round and his mouth is what many describe, as a round suction cup. Lizard Boy is about 6-15 inches long. Below you can see a rough sketch done by our forensic scientist/sketch type person. This sketch is based upon over 100 sittings of Lizard Boy although, no one really knows if Lizard Boy is a boy, a girl or an it. The sketch is posted below at the bottom of this page.

Upon showing our sketch to the local Department Of Resources (DNR) Agents, they just laughed and said they had "...never seen anything like that before!!!". We asked the DNR if Lizard boy might be from some other world? The DNR responded that "based upon the sketch and descriptions of this creature, it is just as likely it comes from outer space...".

The person who had the closest encounter with this "alien" was a Mrs. Paula Blinder from the town of Wild Imagination Michigan. Paula stated, "I got up out of my tent one morning and there was this lizard thing cooking bacon on my camp stove. The thing looked at me, scrunched up its sucker mouth a couple of times, slurped down my bacon and took off on his back legs, running into the woods. I never saw him again after that but, that picture you have looks just like him."

So, that's the story of Lizard Boy. We can only hope that this Lizard Boy is not just a baby. We can only hope that there is not some bigger Lizard Momma or Lizard Daddy out there waiting to eat even larger pieces of your bacon. Maybe this creature is just a part of an invasion force from another planet. Let us hope not or all of our bacon will be in jeopardy.

ODE TO LIZARD BOY
Mrs. Blinder, the poor lady that had the closest encounter with the lizard creature, has sent us a copy of a poem she wrote about the creature. Her encounter was so traumatic that she said that only through writing poetry can she deal with the nightmares she is still having after her confrontation with the strange creature.

LIZARD MONSTER
Lizard monster from the mist,
In my dreams your face persists,
You turn my mind from thoughts of good,
To your evil ways out in the wood,

Oh lizard boy or, is it man?
Will you grow bigger if you can?
Will your appetites increase?
Shall we campers have no peace?

After stealing my bacon,
Off into the woods you run,
Will you next eat pigs or sheep?
Will you devour me in my sleep?

Lizard boy where are you from,
No one knows from whence you come,
What are you, you little beast?
On what other worlds have you feast?

I have now said all I have to say,
I just wish you would go away,
You stole my bacon and my meal,
Now it's my sanity you steal.

I'm sure everyone wishes this poor lady a speedy recovery. Unfortunately, in regards to the creature, he appears to be getting much larger according to the most recent reports. He has also begun stealing other food from campers besides bacon. Hot dogs, bratwurst and even soda pop have been disappearing all over Northern Michigan. We can only hope that the lizard creature will be hunted down like the reptile he is and have the law serve him vengeance as cold as his reptilian blood.

41616

BIG BARRY’S BALLOONS: A SPACESHIP ODDITY

By Ted Colin
I recently received a call from a Big Barry who owns a toy factory over in Kalkaska County. He said that one night he threw an outdoor cookout party for his employees just behind the factory and according to Barry, several UFO‘s started to hover overhead. Barry said that all of his employees were so amazed at the hovering crafts that many of them dropped their plastic glasses of vodka laced fruit punch.

I was intrigued with what Barry had told me so I asked him if he still had any vodka laced fruit punch left. He said he had about ten gallons of it so I agreed to stake out his factory for an evening as long as I could have a gallon of fruit punch. Barry asked me “Are you going to use the fruit punch as bait to bring in the aliens?”

“Let’s just say that the fruit punch might make it easier for me to spot your UFO’s“, I replied.

Barry agreed to give me what I wanted so I showed up the next evening with my colleague Gerrard to see if we might just spot some UFO’s. Barry left a gallon of fruit punch on a picnic table just behind the main building. It was an old wood plank table set up evidently for the lunch breaks of the employees. Outdoor picnic table lunch facilities are common at Northern Michigan businesses. Barry not only left us the gallon of punch and some plastic cups to drink it with but, he also left us an old box full of various outdated snack packs that came from the vending machine. Barry had certainly gone all out to keep us happy. Gerrard and I each brought a sleeping bag since we were not intending to go anywhere especially if we had any fruit punch.

It was cloudy that evening so it got dark fairly early. Gerrard and I looked up at the gray darkening sky and saw several objects directly over the back parking lot of the factory. Gerrard and I squatted down behind the picnic table so as not to scare off the aliens. I started watching the aliens really close when I heard the constant crunching of corn chips by Gerrard. We had not been there more than twenty minutes and all the candy bars from the snack box were devoured by Gerrard. Now he was working on eating all the corn and potato chips. He was just smacking away while I was vigilantly watching the space ships hover over the yard. I figured it wouldn’t be long and all the snacks would be gone and I had not even eaten a bag of pretzels.

Finally, I had had enough of Gerrard. “Gerrard,” I said, “quit scarping down all the snack food and get your cell phone out. We need to get some pictures of these spaceships to prove that we didn’t just make this up.”

“I can’t take any pictures,” Gerrard replied.

“Why not?” I asked. “Didn’t you bring along your cell phone like I told you?”

“Oh I brought along my cell phone,” Gerrard assured me. “The only thing is the battery is dead so I can’t even tell people live what we’re doing on our Twitter account.”

“Dog gone it Gerrard. I spent all last night trying to figure out how to set up a Twitter account to compliment our blog. I did it just so we could be high tech tonight. Twitter is where it’s at now. Bloging is just so 2010. I was hoping pictures from your cell phone would compliment our tweet tonight and we’d be world famous with our proof of alien visitation. Now since you’ve messed everything up I guess there’s only one thing left for us to do. We’re going to have to capture one of those spacecraft and hold it until morning.”

I was really mad and it was a hot night and the heat made me feel even more intensely upset. I was still determined to prove that we had seen aliens so I stood up and moved around the picnic table and motioned for Gerrard to follow me. The closer we moved toward the initial siting the space ships seemed to appear. There must have been a dozen of them hovering over the ground at different altitudes. Some hovered over the barn while others hovered just a few feet above the earth. All of the spaceships seemed really small so I imagined that either the aliens were little teeny guys or perhaps the spaceships were just drones. In either case capturing just one of them would prove the existence of extraterrestrials once and for all.

As I said before it was really hot that night but, just as Gerrard and I approached the aliens a cool breeze came up which felt really good. Suddenly, the spacecrafts moved and tossed around.

“I’m getting kind of scared,” Gerrard whispered to me. “I’ve got to get a look at those things before I just go up there and grab one.” Gerrard pulled out a flashlight and aimed it directly at one of the spacecrafts. The light hit the nearest craft which was shaped like a heart. I believed that it must have been some sort of stealth design so that conventional radar and even a tachyon beam would not be able to detect it.

The craft itself was blood red in color with a curious message at the heart of it so to speak. It said, “BE MY VALENTINE”. Since we were no where near Valentines Day on the calendar I interpreted the message as one of friendship. Maybe the aliens thought that their message was a way to say “hello”. This gave me confidence that if we grabbed one of them they would not put up much of a fight since they might be thinking that Gerrard and I had peaceful intentions.

Gerrard suddenly flashed his light on another square shaped balloon This balloon was a steel blue in color with purple letters on it that said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”. “Now how did they know that today is my birthday?” Gerrard gasped.

“I didn’t know it was your birthday Gerrard,” I said. “If I had known it was your birthday I wouldn’t have been so upset when you ate up all the free candy bars and didn’t leave any for me.”

“Well, the reason the battery on my cell phone is dead is because I took so many pictures at my birthday party earlier today. I took a picture of mom and then I took dozens of pictures of my new pet rat named Jimmy. He is really quite. I put a little paper birthday hat on him made out of the same construction paper as the hat that mom made for me. He was so adorable I couldn’t stop taking pictures of him even after he drew a lot of blood when he bit mom’s finger. She had to get some rabies and tetanus shots but she‘s o.k. now”.

Gerrard and I were almost up to one of the spaceships when suddenly a gust of wind came up and all the spaceships sailed off into the woods behind the factory and were gone from sight. We did not go after them because the forests in Michigan are so dangerous at night. Big Foots and other monsters are all skulking around in the forest and humans are a nice little bedtime snack for a Michigan forest monster.

Gerrard and I stayed up a while longer waiting to see if the spaceships might return but they never came back. Gerrard saved some pretzels for me so I had my dinner that night and between the two of us we polished off the gallon of fruit punch that Barry had left for our payment.

The next day I told Barry about what Gerrard and I had seen during the night. Barry was puzzled as to why space aliens were so interested in his factory. “After all,” he said “we just make balloons here for special occasions. We make massive amounts of balloons for birthdays or holidays like Valentines Day and then ship them off en-mass to retailers all around the country. Occasionally, we test blown up balloons out back to see how long they stay blown up. Sometimes they go way up height and out of sight but they always return to earth when the helium seeps out. I just don’t understand why aliens would take such and interest in our low tech business.”

Well, there you have it. This is a mystery definitely solved but, not proven. We know aliens hover over Barry’s balloon factory but no one knows why. Perhaps the next time Barry has some left over fruit punch we might go back and spend some more time investigating the UFO sittings at Big Barry’s balloon factory.

11224

THE SKEGEMOG LAKE MONSTER

HUNTING THE SKEGEMOG LAKE MONSTER
By Tim Collin

Skegemog Lake is located in Northern Michigan and is visible from highway U.S. 72. Much of the lake is surrounded by a protect protected natural habitat, hiking area which is famous for the abundance of Michigan rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes do not usually bother people but, they do not like to be stepped on. Someone once told me that the venom of the Michigan Rattlesnake is fifty times more powerful than most other rattlesnakes so, it must really hurt if you get bit.

A few days ago I read on the Internet that the rattlesnakes in Skegemog Lake have been hard to find lately. In addition, fishing has also been really poor there recently. When I talked about this at the bar yesterday a man from Midland Michigan said that the reason the fish and snakes are disappearing is because of the giant snapping turtles that live in the lake. One in particular is a monster over 20 feet long and is known by locals as “Old Skeggy”.I asked the man from Midland Michigan how he knew so much about the problem in Skegemog Lake. He said that he was a turtleolgist (someone who studies turtles). He introduced himself as Bugzy and said he’d be willing to mount an expedition to find Old Skeggy if I would put up the $15.00 to rent a canoe. I agreed to his terms and the next morning we were standing on the shore of Lake Skegemog with our aluminum canoe. I had my brother Mike accompany us because if we found Old Skeggy we were going to try to put a large fish net over it. I figured we could use an extra hand to haul in a giant snapping turtle.

As we neared the center of the lake we noticed lightning off in the distance. The clouds were really black and the storm seemed to be moving in our direction. My brother Mike was concerned that we might get hit because we were in an aluminum canoe. However, Bugzy said that the aluminum would conduct the lightning bolts away from our body and we were much safer than if we were in a fiberglass canoe. Besides, the fiberglass canoes were an extra $5.00 to rent for the day.

Mike also wondered why we did not have a more substantial boat to go after such a large monster. Bugzy pointed out that a canoe is more maneuverable than a large boar and we could get right up near shore if we had to. Besides, if a canoe is flipped over it is easy to flip it right side up. A larger boat would be nearly impossible to flip quickly and with rattlesnakes and giant turtles in the water, you want to get back in the boat as fast as possible if it flips. Bugzy further stated that he knew what he was doing because he was a scientist with a background in turtleology. With such credentials how could anyone argue with Bugzy?

Just as the black thunderheads started to roll in and rain began to sprinkle down, some large, massive saucer shaped object soared past us at no more than three feet away. The thing must have been 15 feet long. When the object got about twenty feet away, a head popped up and turned an eye back at us then, the head went back under the waves. The waves were getting bigger as the wind increased. The sky had turned totally black and the rain was wiping down on us as we sat in the middle Skegmog Lake.

Lightning bolts came down like spider legs all along the shore. My Brother Mikes’ hair became really kinky like he just had one of grandma’s permanents. Then, suddenly, the entire canoe was raised out of the water and we found ourselves traveling on top of the giant snapping turtle. He swam toward the shoreline at the speed of a motor boat. Mike and I just sat still hoping the thing was not going to eat us once we were closer to shore. Bugzy was busy pulling up the fish net we had laying in the canoe. I figured our turtleologist must have a plan to save us from certain death.

When our canoe was just about 50 feet from shore Old Skeggy sank down like a submarine and our canoe went riding off into shallow water. Mike and I jumped out of the canoe and ran for our lives until we reached shore. We turned around to see Bugzy with his net, trying to ensnare Old Skeggy. Bugzy managed to get the net over Old Skeggy but the turtle used his beak to slice through the net and swam off to deeper water. Bugzy walked slowly up to the shore with his head held low. He was so dejected that Old Skeggy had gotten away when we were so close to capturing him. Just as Bugzy stepped on shore the canoe was hit by several bolts of lightning at once and exploded. The orange glowing metal pieces feel back into the lake and sizzled as they sank to the bottom.

Mike was the first to speak and said that he thought Old Skeggy had saved our lives. Bugzy did not say another word until we had a couple of beers at the bar. Then he told us that he was going to give up turtleology and become a truck driver. Bugzy said that he had been a truck driver until Tuesday. That was the day he decided he would try being a turtleologist.

The only thing good about this adventure for me is that I did not end up paying a fine or having to do community service which, seems to be my usual reward for being curious about the out of doors and life in general. I did have to pay $300 to the canoe rental business for failing to take better care of the canoe.

We did not get bit by any rattlesnakes but, there is a giant snapping turtle in Skegemog Lake. I do not think he was trying to hurt us and in fact, he may have saved us. I also learned that turtleologist don’t know anything about lightning strikes. I leaned that just because someone is a genius in one scientific field it does not mean they know anything about any of the other sciences.

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