Have You Seen Bigfoot?

Researchers will visit Michigan's Upper Peninsula this summer in search of "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch." The legendary creature most experts consider to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes has dated back centuries. But some authors and researchers do believe that some of the stories could be true.

The organization sponsoring the Bigfoot search is the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO). Do you suppose we know any card-carrying members of this group?

Matthew Moneymaker, a member of BFRO, said, "We'll be looking for evidence supporting a presence. . . .We hope to meet local people who might have seen a Sasquatch or heard of someone else who has had an encounter." Of course this is quite a ways from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but I knew some good ole boys from around Montpelier, Mississippi, who were coonhunting and swore that they saw something really, really big in the woods, and it had nothing to do with the moonshine whiskey they were drinking. Moneymaker might try and track one of them down.

BFRO investigators claim that in 30 expeditions in the United States and Canada, in but three of those, Bigfoot has been briefly seen or they have gotten close enough to hear the creature. They didn't mention it, but I have read that Bigfoot also carries a teriffic odor, and it ain't Evening in Paris either.

The late Dr. Grover Krantz, a scientist and Washington State University professor whose field was cryptozoology (did they have that major at State?), believed that Bigfoot is a "gigantopithecus." You've got to be big to carry a name like that. Krantz said the gignatopithecus is a branch of primitive man thought to have existed 3 million years ago. Cryptozoology is defined as the "study of creatures that have not been proven to exist." By definition then I suppose that Krantz and his fellow cryptozoologists also studied Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Toothfairy.

I think that I got a glimpse of Sasquatch in the Olive Branch WalMart the other day. In fact, speaking of Wallyworld, the OB WalMart has been renovated and benches placed thoughout the store, so I can now sit and watch examples of mankind's finest specimens, practice my Spanish, promise myself I will never get fat and maybe, just maybe see an occasional Bigfoot.