My uncles told me about the ozark howler around the campfire on one of my first hunting trips about 15 years ago. At first I thought that they were just pulling my leg, like with all those stories about the escaped serial killer that people tell when they go camping. But, when we got back a couple days later, I talked to Mrs. Weston out at the Village Restaurant, and she told me the same information - with a lot of the same facts about the ozark howler, and there was no way that she could have talked to my uncles before I got there.

Basically, she told me that even her grandmother had told her stories about the howler, as she called it - and Mrs. Weston was not young even back then! It's a kind of big hairy creature with long hair and sort of horn like stubs on top of its head. I asked Mrs. Weston if the ozark howler was a bear, and she said no. I asked her if it was a wolf. She said no. I asked her if it was a cat. She said no. I asked her if the howler was like a big badger or a wolverine. She said no, it was too big for that - about four foot at the shoulder.

Well, I know a lot of people from outside don't pay attention to what goes on here in Oklahoma, so I don't expect people to give much mind to the ozark howler at all, but what I have seen from these outside experts - who haven't even seen the howler themselves - is just plain ridiculous.

I have read a couple articles on the world wide web about the ozark howler is supposed to be a bobcat or a cougar. These people say that they're experts in cryptozoology - which sounds to me like the study of dead animals, but they say it's mysterious and missing animals that they study. They say that the ozark howler is just a big pussy cat.

I don't trust those guys. I even had one of them try to tell me the ozark howler might be a bigfoot - and the howler walks on four legs!

Listen, I'm not an expert either, but I've spent enough time hunting to know that bobcats and cougars don't get four foot at the shoulder, okay?

You go ahead and take a look at this picture of the ozark howler from a few years back and tell me how its a bobcat or cougar, okay?

I don't have to tell you that there are some real idiots out there who just close their mind to the facts. One of them, I don't mind telling you, is my stupid atheist brother who voted for John Kerry. That's scary, as they say. But, for the rest of us, all I'm saying is that we ought to look at the facts on this one - and there are a lot of them, okay?