I can see how my lol could be seen as disrespectful. I believe it was mostly added as a hint to how freaked out I was by my experience, as well as that I in some ways was skeptical that anything had even happened to me, like others have said, it could have been a bear or deer running down the trail.
I believe that many people feel that a time frame in means of years has to pass is a length in which new people have come into a topic that they can not directly relate to the story at hand. For instance Many years from now, if Inchworm is not found (we all pray that she is found) there will probably be ghost stories of her up in Maine and how if "you listen just close enough you can hear her singing in the wind" (I think these things are dumb) Mollies ridge has a story like this, Vandeventer, several places along many trails do.