By Elisabeth Strillacci

SALISBURY — Drivers traveling down Webb Road, just past the flea market near Safrit Road, may find themselves doing a double take.

In fact, Ken Keller says he sees a number of drivers “slow down, turn around and come back to take photos.”

Because on the side of the road, just behind some Pampas grass, stands a figure more than six feet high with red eyes and fur, glaring at the roadway. Bigfoot has his eye on those driving through.

Keller says he has moved the figure about over the last year and every time, it catches people’s attention.

“I saw others who made cutouts of Bigfoot but just painted it black,” Keller said. “I thought I could make a more lifelike one that that.” And he has. The figure has all the pertinent details one would expect and Keller used reflective red material for the eyes, so at night, when the headlights hit, the eyes light up.

Keller, a retired Salisbury firefighter, has run his sign business, Aardvark Graphic, for 30 years, and he says he “likes to make things,” and this won’t be the last.

“I’m thinking about making a cutout of Hank Hill and putting him out,” Keller said. Hank Hill is the main character in the cartoon for adults called “King of the Hill” and Keller said he has thought about putting him out by a fence just like in the show, where he often meets for beer and conversation with neighbors by the fence on their back alley. “I’m thinking I need to make one of Boomhauer, too.” Jeffrey Dexter Boomhauer III is one of Hill’s neighbors, known for talking so fast most of what he says is incomprehensible.

So far, no one has stopped and come to knock on Keller’s door to ask about the figure, but it certainly gets attention.

Darrell Nichols, a neighbor of Keller’s said he’s been aware of Bigfoot’s presence for a while.

“Someone commented on Facebook that they saw a coyote cross the road, so I commented and told him I saw Bigfoot,” Nichols said with a laugh.

A woman who stopped to take a photo didn’t want to share her name, but did say that last week while out running errands, she told her children that if they didn’t stop arguing she would let him in the car.

“I didn’t really mean to scare them, but they did stop fighting,” she said. “So I came back to take a picture so I can remind them he’s out there if they forget to behave.”