Maybe it's a painter thing; seeing a black leopard-like cat in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe my eyes played tricks on me, me and, a few months back, another painter. Did Dusty and I see the same black panther, or really dark cougar, or... hey, I don't know what it was; but I saw something very dark and large, leap out of the swampy area to the left of the portion of Oak Bay Road between Port Ludlow and the Beaver Valley Road. It made it across the asphalt, maybe eighty yards in front of me, and, even in the diminished light of dusk, the form, the body profile, big cat; and it bounded up a steep bank, into the trees. Vanished.

I swear I read an account of the painting contractor, who I've only met once (and we didn't seem to get along) in "The Leader." Maybe it was the cloud version of the paper paper, but I can't find it, and I wish I could remember the details. Was it in the same area; or Port Ludlow at all? Did Dusty say he saw glowing eyes? It seems like he did.

I know what I saw.

Really, I don't know what I saw. I've never seen Bigfoot, and loggers who've spent a lifetime in the woods haven't either. I've never seen mermaids or any mythological creatures in my years of surfing.

I'm thinking there's a logical explanation. For now I'm willing to theorize that some Ludlowite had a pet, possibly illegally, and it got too big to handle, and, like the absolutely wrong-minded people who turn old dogs and cats out to fend for themselves... well; whatever it is, it's surviving.

So, I know you probably can't help making some generalizations about painters and pink elephants and chemicals and fumes and altered states of mind. This is not me. Still, I will admit to having been on my way home from bleaching the exterior of a house, and this process always makes me feel as if I'd spent too much time at the pool, but... but, yes, I do wish the other person who claims to see what I claim to see was, perhaps, a tax accountant or hedge fund mogul, or even Port Ludlow's celebrity blogger, Ned Luce... you know, someone you believe without question.

Meanwhile, I'm putting myself on record as having seen some mysterious something in the wilderness (such as is left) of Port Ludlow.