By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

Queens doesn’t have many folk legends. But the few we do call our own are beauts. The story of the creature of the ’64 World’s Fair is more than legend. It is a campfire story based on a real occurrence.

Authorities have tried to keep it quiet. But I know, I was there.

Those of you who remember those carefree days of Belgian Waffles and Corporate and International Pavilions recall the joy of youth shared some 36 years ago. But those who walked the grounds of Flushing Meadow Park (they added the Corona to its name years later) the last week in October 1964 may recall the most terrifying night ever in our fair borough.

The first season of the New York World’s Fair was coming to a close. It had been a rebirth of wonder for the people of Queens. Right there, our own backyard was the most exciting place on earth. For us kids, young enough not to worry about anything but old enough to go by ourselves, the ’64 World’s Fair was the highlight of our youth.

Food, rides, exhibits, girls, fun, knowledge but most of all freedom awaited us just off Lawrence Street (now College Point Boulevard). That was the closest entrance to Kew Gardens Hills where I lived. It was where my friends and I would walk, hitch a ride, borrow a car, take a bus and head on down to visit the future.

It was fun.

Except for one night.

It was Saturday, October 31, 1964 — Halloween.

It was also the closing day for the Fair’s first year. Twenty-seven-plus million people had visited and still the Fair was sparkling new to us. Sure, there were many pavilions in need of intensive work to get them ready for the April ’65 opening. Perhaps, the first season just took its toll. But things weren’t the same that night.

We were there with Linda Pryor. There were four of us and Linda. Linda was the star miler on the Queens College track team. She was the best bridge player on campus. Linda taught judo after school. She wrote for the Phoenix, the school paper. Linda was just about perfect. Linda had a body that was just about perfect, too. And Linda loved to show it off.

She was 20 and a senior. I was an 18-year-old junior. She was wild; I wasn’t. We all were perhaps a little out of our league with Linda. But, we loved being with her.

She picked me up in her father’s car. She came to my door wearing the tightest sweater — no bra. Back in ’64 people did that. At least uninhibited, free college girls. I was smitten. I had been since the first day of my freshman year when I met her in Symbolic Logic. She was beautiful and bright. She was out of control. Linda didn’t have limits.

I remember her being caught for topless sunbathing on the roof of Remsen Hall. She was the first person I knew busted with marijuana on campus. But she was quick and charming and a straight A student. She got away with it all.

Our plan for the evening was to head directly over to the GE Pavilion — we wanted to see the season’s final demonstration of "Fusion On Earth." In addition to their superb "Carousel of Progress," in the middle of their "Progressland" pavilion, GE presented the first demonstration of controlled thermonuclear fusion to be witnessed by a general audience. A magnetic field squeezed a plasma of deuterium gas for a few millionths of a second at a temperature of 20 million degrees Fahrenheit. There was a vivid flash and loud explosive sounds as atoms collided and created free energy. Instruments on the wall recorded the fusion and energy produced. It was like being part of the experiment.

It certainly was that night.

The last scheduled fusion didn’t go as planned. I had seen it before. This time, the crash was louder, the light was brighter, and the instruments maxed-out and broke and then a tiny beam of light energy pierced the steel wall of the huge atom accelerator and bounced off the nearby shiny stainless steel Unisphere.

At what seemed like the very same moment, it ricocheted to the right and blasted a small hole into the side of the Pavilion of Two Thousand Tribes.

I had been to this unusual pavilion, which was modeled on an aborigine hut and named for 2,000 tribal groups throughout the world which were still so primitive they had no written language. It was sponsored by the Wycliffe Bible Translators, an American society dedicated to carrying the Scriptures to primitive peoples. The Wycliffe folks would reduce the unwritten tongues to simple phonetic systems, and translate the Bible into a new, easily understood writing.

In the pavilion was a museum of artifacts from many tribes. On view were totem poles from the Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest, brightly colored feather capes, carved wooden ornaments, bowls and woven work from North and South America. An exhibit also showed how Amazon Indians made blowguns and mixed the poison they put on their darts — just one of the hazards WBT missionaries had encountered. Large photographs showed Wycliffe emissaries teaching basic hygiene and agriculture to primitive tribes, and providing medical care.

On the stage of the 100-seat theater were panels, 10 by 25 feet, depicting in dramatic scenes the conversion of an Amazon jungle headhunter who learned to read and write, then taught fellow tribesmen.

In the final room was a Tibetan homage to the Yeti — a mammoth hairy, man-like creature said to inhabit the snow covered Himalayas where the primitives live. Castings of footprints, photos showing a distant Yeti and recorded audios of stories and sounds of the creature surrounded a large glass freezer containing a block of ice which seemingly contained the frozen, preserved body of a Yeti.

But I knew better. At least I did until that night — Halloween 1964.

We left the Disney Carousel of Progress — the blast forced them to close down the GE Pavilion. We headed on over to the commotion outside of the Wycliffe Pavilion of Two Thousand Tribes.

A British evangelist, who had been to the Himalayas, stood outside. He was a tour guide and seemed to be concerned by the momentary shock that hit the pavilion. We stood outside with an ever-increasing crowd.

But not Linda Pryor. She never had limits or fears. Carefree and curious, she pushed past the concerned staff and descended the steps into the cavernous exhibition hall of Two Thousand Tribes. We followed sheepishly.

From the top of the stairs, we could see water and chips of ice all over the floor. Roughly half way across the room, one of the guides was pointing to a set of large manlike tracks in the crumbled ice.

"Yeti tracks" the guide said, "but there is nothing to fear." He assured us, "They are not dangerous."

"One thing you must know," he insisted: "Do not, under any circumstances, touch the Yeti."

Our fears slightly calmed, we heeded his warning and continued to enter the hall.

Linda was across the room by now, following the quiet thud, thud, thudding sound behind the stage. "Does anyone have a camera," she shouted before we saw it.

Linda tumbled backwards onto the stage looking up at an enormous eight-foot Yeti standing above her.

Even for Linda, fear took over at that moment. She jumped up and headed for the back exit banging into the Yeti in the process. The Yeti, after being touched by Linda, let out a deafening howl and began to chase her out of the Pavilion of Two Thousand Tribes and across the World’s Fair’s International area.

She was fast! Linda was an athlete, a track star, and ran away from the Yeti as quickly as her legs could carry her. After she passed the Greece Pavilion and entered the Garden of Meditation, she looked back to see the bounding form of the Yeti still chasing her.

So she continued to run, reaching the edge of the World’s Fair Marina. She jumped on the Bounty — the famous recreated British merchant ship — and slid down a rope on the other side of the boat into a small dingy. Above her, on the ship, she could hear the soft thud, thud, thud of Yeti feet.

She took the dingy to the Sunoco Fuel Pavilion (the beautiful large red and white dome now houses La Motta Restaurant in Port Washington) and scrambled onto the dock. She began running again. She dared not to look back.

Outside of the Chun King Inn — a pagoda style restaurant that provided take-out and delivery service to pavilions throughout the Fair, she jumped on a rickshaw-like delivery cycle and started peddling for all she was worth.

The journey throughout the fairgrounds seemed endless to Linda. She hit people, objects, and buildings. She crashed and fell several times. Each time she immediately lifted herself up, cut and bruised, back onto the rickshaw-bike and peddled with all of her strength.

She reached the Monorail station, with athletic precision, pounded up the stairs and looked down to see the Yeti still in pursuit.

The monorail train was in the station getting ready to leave. Linda hopped on board and collapsed into a corner seat. Hesitantly, she peered out the window and looked below. The Yeti was running and screeching loudly pointing to the monorail above.

The fifteen-minute ride to the Lawrence Street parking lot allowed Linda to regain some of her composure. We had parked near the Monorail exit and Linda was at her car in a flash. She started the engine and was home in fifteen minutes.

She showered, tended to her minor scrapes and collapsed into bed.

The next morning, Sunday, Linda awoke to what was by now a familiar thud, thud, thud. The Yeti had followed her home — by foot.

Quickly, she threw on some clothes, into the garage, into the car and into Forest Hills — not stopping for lights. She parked the car and took an E train to Manhattan. She called a high school friend who was attending NYU and had an apartment in the Village. She phoned home and told her folks where they could retrieve the car.

Linda skipped school on Monday and Tuesday. Queens College didn’t seem the same place. She remained in the city recovering, recuperating and thinking.

By Wednesday, she was feeling better. She got up early. Took the subway uptown and caught an E back to Continental. She took the Q65 to Jewel and Kissena and walked to the campus.

She slowly walked to her political science class in the dome (you might know it as part of Powdermaker Hall) where she knew she could relax while Professor Mary Dillon talked about government and other mundane stuff.

She slumped back into her seat and looked through the glass wall at a beautiful autumn day. The leaves were falling, the colors bright and the campus beautiful. She had run, Monorailed, fled by car, took the train and spent three days using any means she could trying to escape from the Yeti. Now she was there, in class, contemplating the meaning of it all.

An instant later, through the glass walls of the dome, the figure appeared.

The Yeti stood outside, howling and pointing to her.

Linda got up. She ran through the adjoining Social Science building out the back door. She dashed across the open space to Fitzgerald Gym. As she looked back, the creature was coming. Inside the back of the gym and out the front, across the parking lot to Colden Center, Linda fled in panic. The Yeti was gaining. Out of Colden, across the Quad, she could run no more.

With the Yeti less than 30 seconds behind her, Linda finally stopped and turned around to face the oncoming creature. She collapsed on the grass. With the last of her strength she lifted herself and stood up straight as the Yeti caught up with her.

The eight-foot-tall Yeti towered above Linda, who could only stare in terror.

The Yeti extended his hand and poked Linda Pryor squarely in the chest with one long finger – and with a low rumbling voice the Yeti began to speak:

"Tag! You’re it!"

Happy Halloween!