Happy Trails To You

Alert reporter Kathleen Knight, who also keeps track of all the latest chicken news, has just advised us of important legislation in Tennessee regulating the lurking danger of Chemtrails.  Representative Monty (Moonbeam) Fritz and Senator Steve (Chicken Little) Southerland, two Republican whiz kids, have successfully sponsored a bill which would ban the practice of “intentionally dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere within the State of Tennessee.”  The bill passed in the House by a whopping 70-22 vote while the Senate adopted it 25-6.

An amendment to the bill was promptly put forth by Representative John Ray Clemmons, a Democrat from Nashville, recognizing the existence of Bigfoot. Representative William Lamberth, a Portland Republican, proceeded to ask Clemmons if he really believed in Bigfoot. “About as much as I believe in a conspiracy about contrails,” Clemmons replied.  Fritz said it bothered him to have to bring the legislation forward and even moreso that his fellow lawmakers would “make a laughing stock out of something as serious as clean air.  I would offer that everything that goes up must come down,” he said, “and those chemicals we knowingly and willingly inject into the atmosphere simply to control the weather or the climate are affecting our health.”

The Chemtrail conspiracy theory is that the federal government is secretly adding toxic chemicals similar to contrails to the atmosphere from aircraft.  Proponents of the theory argue that the Chemtrails could cause sterilization, reduction of lifespan, mind control, governance of weather and maybe yaws.  A research group from Harvard which focuses on climate science and technology recently stated, “The Chemtrail horror stories are ridiculous and their proponents are poo-poo heads.” According to Harvard, if there was truly a large-scale program which involved aircraft introducing hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere there would first need to be an operating system to manufacture, load and disperse materials.  Additionally, if such a system existed, it would require the work and cooperation of thousands of people, which would make it extremely difficult to keep it a secret. A single individual could reveal the existence of the program using leaked documents, photographs or hardware.  “The most common claim is simply that the aircraft contrails look ‘different’ without any comparative analysis,” claim the researchers.  “It’s like saying that aliens walk among us because some people behave strangely.”

The Believers

Tammi Reidl, who operates a small, organic farm in Placer County, California looks up and points to a stripe of white haze running across a cloudless sky. “See that?” she asks her visitor. “What do you think that is?”  To the casual observer it looks like a normal contrail from jet engine exhaust.  The 54-year-old beet and garlic farmer sees a toxic cocktail of aluminum, strontium and barium sprayed from planes in a plot to control the weather, the population and our food supply.  “See how it dissipates and becomes cloud cover? That’s not normal.”  Tammi and her boyfriend, Rob Neuhauser, are among the estimated 5% of Americans who believe that global powers, including the U.S, government, run clandestine and harmful chemical-spraying programs. Their philosophy goes something like this: to mitigate global warming, mysterious airplanes spray chemicals into the atmosphere to form sun-blocking artificial cloud cover. This is done in secret because these chemicals wreak havoc on environmental and human health, causing Alzheimer’s and all sorts of brain problems and various cancers. Most of their co-believers are decent folks like Tammi and Rob, not lunatics on the order of right-wing radio host Alex Jones, who foams at the mouth and roars “They are spraying POISONS on you!”

Tammi’s neighbor, Todd, who runs a dairy farm, is a quiet, low-key guy who never wears a colander on his head or raises his voice, but he’s a believer.  He thinks Donald Trump may be the answer to the problem.  “Trump has promised to end chemtrails,” he says. If you try to find any evidence of that, there is a very old news report of a Trump tweet saying “My very first executive order will END the chemtrailing across America.”  It’s questionable as to whether it actually came from DJT, but the believers think the tide briefly turned while Trump was in office.

Sabrina Lamont, a Lincoln Hills, California farmhand with a buzzcut and tattoos of her dogs’ names, says she became a conspiracist while working as a National Guard truck mechanic in Pennsylvania.  “To me, Chemtrails aren’t that farfetched,” she says.  She cites known examples of the military conducting secret human experiments such as the time in 1950 when the army sprayed bacteria into San Francisco’s fog in a simulated germ-warfare attack, leaving one man dead. Despite the protests of her wife, an ICU nurse with a Love Trumps Hate bumper sticker, Sabrina voted for The Donald.  “So he’s not a stellar guy,” she admits, “but I think he’s what America needs to wake up to the dangers around us.

Lisa Thomas, creator and moderator of Sierra Nevada Geoengineering Awareness, says “It’s difficult to find enough common ground among our members to make progress.”  The disharmony caused her to call off the group’s monthly meetings.  A homeschooling mother of two, Thomas exemplifies how concern about Chemtrails can become all-consuming.  For the past four years, she’s spent endless hours spreading the word with missionary zeal.  One afternoon, following what she calls “heavy spraying” leaving a metallic sheen on the surface of her ponds and allegedly depleting her honeybee population around her Spanish lavender, Lisa screeched into town and marched around the main square holding a sign which read “LOOK UP!”

“See how the sky is a steely color?” she asks a visitor to her home in Penn Valley.  To the average observer, the sky is a cloudless blue with no trails.  “It used to have more turquoise in it,” Thomas avers.  “I just never realized the government did the things they do.”  Lisa’s first experience with Chemtrails came on April of 2013 when she noticed several planes flying over her house, “whiting out the sky.”  Shortly afterward, her health began to deteriorate.  “My hair started falling out, my asthma was terrible.  I had sinus issues and headaches.  There was a complete garden die-off and anthracnose fungus on the oak trees.  I found a frog with a missing leg and an elongated tailbone.  I stayed inside for all of 2013.  I didn’t go outside without a mask.  You’ll never convince me the trails in the skies are harmless.”

What’s It All About, Tammi?

A reporter showed Tammi Reidl and Rob Neuhauser the first ever peer-reviewed study testing the Chemtrails theory, conducted by researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science in 2016.  When asked if they’d ever uncovered possible evidence of a government Chemtrail program, 76 of 77 leading atmospheric scientists said no.  When assessing photos of contrails, 100% of the experts indicated that the simplest explanation of the trails pictured was not a secret, large-scale spraying program.  One photo pictured a contrail broken by a gap, which some trail believers argue reflects that chemical spraying was turned off, then on again.  But experts explain that such gaps are caused by changes in air temperature and humidity, the same basic phenomenon behind why you can see your breath when it’s cold out but not when it’s warm.

“How does someone like me know what’s true and what’s not?” Reidl implores.  “I’m 54 years old, I don’t watch the news, I don’t listen to news on the radio.  Then, when I’m on the internet, I see something shocking and I’m like—WHOA!  Really?  I don’t have the information that a journalist has about how verifiable is the source.  When you’re just a standard person, you can really be led to believe anything.  Because of the internet, anybody can put anything out there.  How do I know if it’s the truth or not?  People chose a guy like Donald Trump because they thought he was gonna stop Chemtrails.  You know what I mean?”

Yes, we do, Tammi.  And you’re beginning to get it, too. 

Dancing In The Moonlight

A group of conspiracy theorists hops on a train after a right-wing political rally and the conversation eventually turns to the moon landings.  The leader of the scoffers pipes up, “The moon landings were obviously faked and not very well.  I read this blog the other day that pointed out there aren’t even stars in any of the pictures.  And what about that fluttering flag when there’s no atmosphere on the moon.  And how did Neil Armstrong get filmed walking on the surface when nobody was there to hold the camera?”

A distinguished looking gentleman sitting nearby couldn’t resist.  “Actually, all that business can be explained quite easily.”  The gaggle turns his way in disbelief that a complete stranger would enter their atmosphere.  Nonetheless, he continues.

“The flag didn’t flutter in the wind, it just moved as Buzz Aldrin planted it.  Photos were taken during lunar daytime, and obviously you can’t see stars during the day.  The weird shadows are because of the wide-angle lenses they used, which distort photos.  And nobody took the footage of Neil descending the ladder.  There was a camera mounted on the outside of the lunar module which filmed him making his giant leap.  If that’s not enough, then the final clinching photo comes from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s photos of the landing made as they wandered around the surface.”

Pretty good, eh?  But facts and rational arguments quickly die in infertile soil.  The nitwit band turns on the man with renewed vigor, disputing the obvious.  The simple answer is that sane explanations really aren’t adequate at altering people’s beliefs.  Our rational brains are fitted with not-so-evolved evolutionary hard wiring.  One of the reasons conspiracy theories spring up with such regularity is due to our desire to impose structure on the world and our incredible inability to recognize patterns.  A recent study showed a correlation between an individual’s need for structure and his tendency to believe in a conspiracy theory.  The chances are that whatever the rationality of either side, a given person will largely dismiss the opposition arguments while applauding those who agree with him.  Confirmation bias also manifests as a tendency to select information from sources that already agree with our views.  As for those pitiful people who doubt the existence of Bigfoot, however….well, they’re just a bunch of incorrigible frumps.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

Brain Waves

Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, a recent study found that the human brain is actually getting bigger. You heard that right.  Research participants born in the 1970s had 6.6% larger brain volumes and nearly 15% larger brain surface areas compared to those born in the 1930s.  Sure, you say, but the only things those people in the thirties had to think about were the stock market crash, the dust Bowl, the demise of Al Capone and the onset of miniature golf.  No wonder they called it The Great Depression.  Now there’s much more stuff to ponder, like public sex in The Villages, why pantone (peach fuzz) is the color of the year and whether or not high school football players should be paid more than their parents (only if they’re quarterbacks and promise not to buy bitcoin).

Anyway, this has to be good news, right?  In a press release from study lead Charles DeCarli of the University of California at Davis, he claimed “larger brain structures like those observed in our study may reflect improved brain development and improved brain health.  A larger brain structure represents a larger brain reserve and may buffer the late-life effects of age-related brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and related dementias.”  The scientists collected their data from MRIs conducted on more than 3,200 people between 1999 and 2019.  Although current cases of Alzheimer’s are rising in number alongside America’s aging population, those cases are decreasing in terms of the incidence rate.

Some observers, of course, doubt the general population is gaining in average intelligence.  Dr. Ismael Ponder of Gupton-Jones College in Decatur, Georgia says “If we’re getting so much smarter, how do you explain rap music, putting salt in hot chocolate and the Coeur d’Alene militia?  If we were smarter, we’d have bigger heads, like those ETs you see in the movies, or Jay Leno.  We’d have flying cars, less Republicans and more bluegrass music in our elevators.  It’s ridiculous.” 

Okay, so maybe bigger is not necessarily better, but it beats the alternative.  Smaller brains?  Now that’s terrifying.

Anandamide

“Hiya folks!  Ya say ya lost your job today?  Ya say it’s 4 a.m. and your kids ain’t home from school yet?  Ya say your wife went out to get a corned beef sandwich last weekend.  The corned beef sandwich came back but she didn’t?   Well, lift your head up high and take a walk in the sun with dignity and stick-to-it-ness and show the world you’ll never give up, never give up that ship!”---Eddie Lawrence, the Old Philosopher

Richard Waggoner wants to make you happy, resurrect your bliss, send you directly to Cloud 9 without passing Go and collecting $200.  He claims it’s our essential nature to be happy and things like Marjorie Trailer Queen, the near extinction of the Javan rhino and widespread condom snorting shouldn’t take the shine off our day.  There is an ancient Sanskrit word for bliss, defined as the simultaneous experience of complete happiness, calmness, focus, clarity and presence and that word is ananda.  But where, oh where, do you get the stuff?  Richard Waggoner says he’ll sell you some.

Richard is the founder of a company called Immunocorp, a leading producer of immunity supplements for more than two decades.  He never thought of developing a happiness pill until he read an amazing article in 2015 about a molecule your body makes called anandamide.  Science has confirmed that anandamide can induce states of euphoria.  You can zip up your own amount with intense exercise and even chocolate, but the human body soon metabolizes the stuff and excretes it out.  And, of course, it’s another one of the million things your body produces less of as you age.  According to Waggoner, low levels of anandamide can devastate your sense of wellbeing.  We wondered what was doing that.

The first indications of lower levels of anandamide are usually experienced as moodiness or edginess, angry reactions to comments or situations which in the past might not have bothered you as much.  Negative thoughts.  Tiring easily.  You’re out of balance.  Life becomes a chore.  Like Mighty Mouse, Richard Waggoner is on his way to save the day with a product called anandatol, a harmless natural formulation that seriously raises anandamine levels.  Okay, so what’s in it?

The first ingredient, unsurprisingly, is high-quality hemp extract “in the right form and dosage, which works synergistically with 5 other plant extracts to help anandamide function optimally.”  Those other extracts are Organic Black Pepper, Organic Clove, Organic Rosemary, Organic Hops and, believe it or not, Organic Jujube.  Now that the Premier Theater is closed where else can you get Jujube?  We’re going to get some for those grouchy moments when someone mentions Kanye West or Lil Yatchy.  If you see us floating merrily over North Central Florida, you’ll know it works. 

Important Brain Facts

1. The human brain weighs three pounds, about the same as a half-gallon of milk.  Men tend to have larger brains than women, but size does not always imply intelligence, as in the cases of Matt (Bigbean) Gaetz and Angelina Jolie.

2. Sixty percent of the brain is made of fat, thus the perfectly logical taunt “Fathead!”  It’s the fattest organ in the human body and those fatty acids are crucial to your brain’s performance.

3. Your brain isn’t fully formed until age 25, the main reason you opt for teenage bungee-jumping, idolize muttonheads like Justin Bieber and hitchhike from Gainesville to Moline with only 2 dollars in your pocket.

4. It’s a myth you only use 10% of your brain unless you’re Donald Trump or Mike Pence.  Most of us use our entire brain even when we’re sleeping.  Our brains create dreams to help us deal with emotions, solve problems or manage hidden desires.  And to frustrate Bill, who’s always losing his car.

5. During the mummification process, Egyptians would usually remove the brain through the nose.  Jimmy Durante was easy.

6. Caffeine boosts brain function by blocking adenosine, an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain which makes you sleepy.  Some studies suggest that caffeine may have a significant effect on short-term and long-term memory.

7. You cannot tickle yourself because the brain anticipates your own touch, canceling out the pressure you supply.  So cut it out.

8. Your brain hypothetically has enough memory to store the entire internet.  Then it explodes.

9. An orgasm activates roughly 30 systems in your brain, including the limbic system, hypothalamus and prefrontal cortex.  So let’s not make it all about sex, you Barbarians. 

LSD, The Brain’s Amusement Park

Opinions on Lysergic Acid Diethylamide are all over the map.  It’s a pleasant diversion.  It’s a dangerous nightmare.  It makes crazy people sane.  It makes sane people crazy.  There are as many opinions on LSD as there are pebbles on Pismo Beach, endless studies on the subject and better anecdotes from users than you get from UFO advocates.  A very good 2016 study from Current Biology that nobody seems to have noticed peeked into the brains of 15 people during an acid trip and found a treasure trove of information, including brain-scan backup for one of Acid’s most popular promises---the tripper feels at one with the universe.

The 15 healthy humans, all experienced users of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, went twice to a lab in London to engage in a special experiment.  The first time, they were injected with a small amount of LSD (75 micrograms), the other time they received a saline placebo.  After an hour to let the effects settle in, the subjects got into an fMRI brain scanner, which captured images of what went on in their brains.  The researchers asked the people to rate their mood changes and got answers like, “I’m tripping like crazy,” or “Nothing is happening,” etc., descriptions of visual distortions and their intensity of ego dissolution: a loss of self-identity and sense of connection to the environment outside of oneself which is a regular feature of LSD.  “You don’t recognize yourself as a separate being from the universe,” says study co-author Enzo Tagliazucchi, a neuroscientist at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam.  “It feels in a way like transferring the consciousness from within your body to the outside world; the focus is in the objects that surround you rather than inside.”  Tagliazucchi and the team wondered if they could find some changes in the brain related to this feeling of ego dissolution.

When they looked at the regions of the brain involved in introspection and sensory areas that perceive the outside world, they found that these networks were communicating more intensely than usual.  “When we measured the brains of subjects who were really blown away by LSD---who had a really strong feeling of ego dissolution---they were also the ones who had the strongest increase in communication between the network of regions in charge of introspection and the network of regions in charge of perceiving the external world.”

In a later study published in the journal PNAS, many of the same researchers, including Tagliazucchi, the scientists found that LSD changes visual information in the brain.  While people are on Acid, they start to see activity going on in the brain which is normally suppressed from perception.  The ability to see this internal activity is likely responsible for hallucinations and visual distortions on LSD, Tagliazucchi says.  “So it’s possible that psychedelics could provide a therapeutic approach for people with anxiety or depression.  Instead of taking a pill every day to change brain chemistry, it’s possible psychedelics could provide a few hours to break out from constricted thought patterns.  If you combine this with psychotherapy during that window, you have this chance to reflect on things that your depression normally wouldn’t allow you to focus on.”

Acid-assisted therapy is a long way from going mainstream.  Research of the type performed in London is only legal in a handful of places and the science is still in its early stages.  But it holds great promise, especially for subjects who can’t be reached by traditional means.  Of course, Timothy Leary knew all that sixty years ago.

“He’ll take you up, he’ll bring you down,
He'll plant your feet firmly on the ground;                    
He flies so high, he swoops so low,      
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go." 

---Timothy Leary/The Moody Blues             

Dr. Tim, of course, performed all his own studies.  With a little help from his friends.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

Tales Of Mexico, Chapter III---The Evil Eye & Selected Short Subjects

If a pilgrim was to travel to the lovely Mexican ciudad of Guadalajara in the brilliant 1970s, there were two requisite visits at the top of his list.  First, he must investigate the ancient and alluring village of artists, artisans and antiques called Tlaquepaque, where he might buy a magnificent piece right out of a sculptor’s home for a handful of magic beans, or perhaps an enormous 20-foot high wooden garden gate right off its hinges.  The 16-piece stone fountain which graced the parlor of Silver City came from there, assembled and duly shipped by a wizard named Juan Palacios Norman, who kept a treasure trove of wonders in his vast environs.  Don’t ask about the shipping cost, we’re trying to forget.

The second thing every Guadalajara tourist must do is visit the Plaza of the Mariachis in the early evening when the mariachi bands are in flower.  It’s a memorable spot to sample a local cerveza or three while roving bands of uniformed musicians play the music of the hour.  You could summon your very own contingent and have them sing a song, any song, for a mere dollar.  If the melody you chose always seemed to come out sounding a lot like Cielito Lindo, well, it’s just possible these Guadalajarans aren’t all that familiar with Who Let The Dogs Out, (woof woof!), so be kind.

Sometimes, the thrall of the mariachis causes a rapt visitor to sit a little too long and drink a little too much.  Seated at a table about twenty feet from that of Rick Nihlen, Harolyn and I was a quartet of Mexican college students, one of whom was particularly fixated on my wife.  Although this sort of thing was not unusual since Harolyn looked the way she did, this character was pushing the limits of acceptable gaping.  I started staring back, which made the fellow somewhat uneasy.  He looked away, obviously uncomfortable.  When he looked back, there I was still riveted on his gaze.  Finally, aided by the benefits of alcohol, he leaped up from the table and wobbled angrily toward us, stopping only when his three amigos jumped up and grabbed him.  By then he was yelling, waving his arms and spewing venom in my direction.  “Sorry, my friends, Eduardo has had too much to drink.  He says you are giving him the Evil Eye.”

What?  Who knew?  I wasn’t even trying.  I was unfamiliar with these strange ocular powers.  Oh, I knew that Superman could see through women’s clothing, but that was pretty much it.  I wondered how powerful I might be if I practiced, focused all my eyeball energy on a subject.  (If you see me comin’, better look aside---a lot of men didn’t and a lot of men died.)  If I was arrested, what would the charges be?  Assault with a deadly retina? 

Mal de Oro, it turns out, goes all the way back to Greek Classical Antiquity.  Plutarch stated that the eyes were the chief source of deadly rays that sprung up like poisoned darts from the recesses of a being possessing the Evil Eye.  He regarded the phenomenon as something inexplicable, a source of wonder and incredulity.  Pliny the Elder described the ability of certain African enchanters to have “the power of fascination with the eyes, which can even kill those on whom they fix their gaze.”  Wow!   Maybe I should look up a staring coach and get some practice in.  It might be possible to create rays which cause delayed destruction, thus being miles away when the victim turns to jelly.  Don’t mess with Bill.

Then again, I have always been a fan of John-Dalberg Acton, who advised us long ago that “Power tends to corrupt and great power corrupts absolutely.”  Like Superman, I should use my powers for good, with just the occasional exception.  Like anyone, however, I despise waiting in long lines, so the other day I thought I’d cast an eye on a Neanderthal who was holding up the works in an Ocala supermarket line.  After a couple of uncomfortable minutes, the brute turned and rudely asked, “What are YOU staring at, pal?”

I’m thinking of moving to Mexico.

Getting There Is Half The Fun.  Okay, Maybe One-Sixteenth.

“Mention my name in Patamban.  It’s the greatest little town in the world!”---Beatrice Kay

If a traveler spends much time wandering the museums of Mexico City, and what traveler doesn’t, he will soon run across an unlikely objet d’ art subject, the humble pineapple.  The tasty fruit is a symbol of welcome, hospitality, even friendship and it is ubiquitous in Mexican galleries, art palaces and gift stores.  Like everything else, of course, there are pineapples and there are pineapples.  The very best pieces in the country are crafted in the hidden hamlet of Patamban, in the municipality of Tangancicuaro in the state of Michoacan, and your GPS is not going to find it.

Of course, you can save yourself a lot of trouble and just buy one of the things right off the museum floor, but then your wallet would start making violent choking sounds and your hair would stand on end.  Only a connoisseur with an 800+ credit rating or a local drug cartel treasurer would spring for those.  “I will go to the source of the pineapples,” vowed Bill Killeen, setting forth into the hinterlands as have explorers before him.  “The golden pineapple will be mine!” 

But what if the road is steep, the journey long, the jungles dense and the pathways invisible?  That’s what intrepid fruit-fanciers Bill, Harolyn and Rick faced in their quest for the holy grail when they reached Paracho (meaning: “where nobody speaks English”), the nearest civilized town to the source of the pineapples.  The villagers rushed off to fetch the only local who spoke the foreign tongue.

Twenty minutes later, a small dust cloud arose on the horizon.  It was the search party surrounding Jorge the Wise, thrilled to be part of Something Big.  Jorge marched into town shoulders back, his stout belly leading the way, a wry smile of importance under his greying mustache.  The big man stuck out his hand in friendship and announced “I am Jorge De Los Santos and many years ago I work in the steel mills of Pittsburgh!”

“Ah yes,” we acknowledged, addressing the natives.  “The famous city of three rivers!”  Jorge beamed his enormous smile and translated liberally to the crowd, which was duly impressed.  Then we got down to business.  How the hell do we get to Patamban?  Jorge summoned the sole Paracho taxi driver, who frowned and tugged on his chin.

“How many hours do you have for this journey, my friends?” the cabbie asked.  Well, it’s only eight miles, how long could it take?  Turns out, plenty.  “Three and one-half hours, amigos.  The road is very bad with many holes.”  Jeez, we could walk there and back in seven hours, but probably not carrying giant pineapples.

“So how do the Patambans get their pineapples to the market?” we asked.  “Ah—many burros,” the driver said.  But we have no burros in  Paracho.”  Sadly, the milling crowd accepted the fact nothing big was going down this day.  Jorge’s information was all for naught, the cabbie would not be getting a big fare, we would not be spending the night at the local hotel or dining at any Paracho restaurants.  The sudden misery was too much to countenance, so we spread around some of our pineapple money on tips and ecstasy reigned once more.

Then, as the Lone Ranger likes to do, we took our leave while nobody noticed.  We like to think that some day Jorge and the gang will be sitting out under the trees of the zocalo regaling their children with tales of the day the famous Tres Gringos came to town and brought treasures.  The kids would all smile, jump up and down and applaud, then beg “Show it to us again, Papa!”  And Jorge will smile, reach into his pocket with tantalizing delay and raise the shining silver bullet into the sunlight.

Cue the music, Fred. 

So You Want To Buy An Island

“Down the way, where the nights are gay and the sun shines daily on the mountaintop….”---Harry Bellafonte

“Yeah, but then what?”---Bill Killeen

Judging by the general reaction to such an opportunity, one of the great coups of a lifetime must be to purchase an island.  It needn’t have amenities like a walled mansion or a long pier with a yacht moored to a gilded pole, a plain patch of land surrounded by water is enough.  Hopefully, there will be a beach, but if not we can always work it out.  If you own an island, people will follow in your wake, listen to your mad ravings, clean up after you and be grateful for the opportunity.  It’s a kind of madness, this island fetish, and for a sordid corps of non-believers a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.  I think it's Jimmy Buffett's fault.

If I am missing the boat about this island business, I blame it on my birthplace, Massachusetts, where the beaches are arctic outposts for seven months a year and the ocean is freezing in July.  Living on an island up there would be somewhat akin to being posted on a gulag in Siberia or being assigned lighthouse duty on the Kamchatka Peninsula.  My sister Alice and others of her ilk raved about going to the beach in those days but it was not so much the shoreline which offered alluring charms but the action attendant in neighboring arcades, saloons and amusement parks.  The first thing anyone did when they got to Salisbury Beach was rush over to Tripoli’s Pizza. 

Nonetheless, when visiting Puerto Vallarta, I was always regaled with tales of Yelapa, a native village across the waves accessible only by boat.  If Yelapa was not an island it was the next thing to it, surrounded by dense jungles and unincumbered by noisy motor vehicles.  If you went to Yelapa, you could sleep in a thatched hut on a silver beach and ride willing horses along a gurgling river to a sacred waterfall with not a soul in sight.  My wife was thrilled beyond comprehension to hear about this place so being a curious and dutiful husband I made arrangements to go.  Not completely oblivious to the possibilities of adversity involved in traveling with a beautiful woman, I pocketed a small two-shot Derringer, and took it along for the ride.

No need for concern, however, all went swimmingly on our trip down the river, the prepacked meal was delicious and romance bloomed in the fragrant night air.  There was that nasty business of flushing the toilet with pails of seawater, but a small price to pay for the glories of island life.  Then, around eight, as the sun set in the western sky, Harolyn looked over from her lounge chair and asked, “What do you want to do now?”

“I don’t know, Marty, what do YOU want to do?”  (I don’t think she saw the movie.)  I know, I know, you think I’m an ungrateful boor, a calloused and unappreciative lout not held in sway by the natural beauties of our simple Earth….guilty as charged.  I’d like my newspaper now, preferably containing its New York Times crossword puzzle, or at least a radio station with the ball scores.  How about a lousy jigsaw puzzle like my grandmother used to while away the hours?  Even a whipped bricklayer can’t sleep from nine til six.  I wondered about the possibility the morning pickup boat might forget us and we’d have to forage for berries and grubs the next day, that we might be doomed to eternal exile on the wretched island.

By morning, I was standing at the water’s edge, binoculars in hand, staring at the horizon, while Harolyn---overconfidently, in my book---got her things together for the return trip.  Then, there it was, headed steadily in our direction, the first vestiges of a rescue ship---salvation was at hand!  Despite the charms of the remaining evening stars, the soft lapping of the waves gently kissing the shore, a gentle morning breeze caressing our bodies, I was more than ready to cede our Eden to the next misguided customer.  I bowed once again to the wisdom of Aesop and his superior advice; “Be careful what you wish for---you just might get it.”

Tlaquepaque dreamin'

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

The Sunshine Man

As any entrepreneur will tell you, one of the most rewarding aspects to creating an entity is the humans who become involved in the project.  If it’s a store like the Subterranean Circus, that includes the customers, the people who supplied us with inventory and, most of all, our bizarre array of workers.  I loved them every one, even the six I fired.

Though the store was usually busy, the occasional lapses made a bored clerk appreciate counter-leaners like Big Tom Mizell, who came in daily to proselytize against the government, Rod the Biker with his hairy tales of Valdosta and Glinda the Crotch-Grabber, who…well, you know.  Over the course of a given day, we had drug dealers who stayed out of jail by helping the government smuggle arms to the Contras, we had exhibitionists who boldly tried on dresses without the aid of a changing room, we had teenyboppers on the lam from home in Opa-Locka, looking for love in all the wrong headshops.

And then, there were the employees, our co-collaborators who pulled up each morning in the clown car and came in to see how much havoc they could wreak.  Dick North was the first, a co-resident of the fabled Charlatan house on Sixth Street.  Dick favored the Eastern religions and was disposed toward Buddha, exceptional marijuana and the body-painting of runaway girls in the blacklight room.  Fifteen-year-old girlies with rucksacks would poke their little heads in the door and ask, “Is this where Dick North teaches?”

Ricky Childs, a gay, black young man, was a Circus employee of 18 years.  He dutifully went to church with his mother on Sundays but raised merry Ned in the local bars the other six nights of the week with co-hellraisers Debbi Brandt and Michael (Jagger) Hatcherson.  Ricky was also a member of the famous Circus Posse, which tracked a bad-check writer to her apartment, climbed in through the transom and recovered the ill-gotten goods, not to mention a lid of grass she had resting in the refrigerator.  Cheaters tax, we’d call it.  I told Ricky we brought him into the clan to cover all our minority hiring requirements.  Mr. Childs was also responsible for our sponsorship of a candidate in the transvestite Miss Gainesville contest at one of the bigger bars in town.  Don’t think that wasn’t a barrel of laughs…those girls have no regard for the sizes clearly written on dress labels.  When “Patricia” won the local contest, Ricky came rushing up to tell me she was now eligible to compete for Miss Florida laurels.  I told him he was on his own, I’d done my time.  And then, of course, there was the star on top of the tree, Daniel Levine, the Pride of North Miami Beach.  Every store should have one.

Danny Boy 

My Circus partner in crime was Pamme Brewer, known coast to coast as The Nude Coed.  Pamme was an Art major, thus ran across a broad cross-section of lunatics on a daily basis, not the least of which was one Daniel Levine.  “You should hire Danny,” she advised one day, “he’s funny, he has a great personality and everybody likes him.  And he was a clothing salesman on the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables.”  Any side effects?  “Well, they locked him up in San Francisco for awhile because he was confusing himself with Jesus.”  Oh.  “But he’s better now.”  How much better?

Pamme brought Danny around and he turned out to be a very engaging fellow.  Moving directly to the elephant in the room, I asked him, “Danny, are you still crazy?”  Nope, he said, “that’s all done with.”  I hired him on the spot and his first day on the job he reorganized the clothing department, sold fifty (count ‘em—50) pair of bluejeans, made coffee, and got a cutie to try on the forbidden Red Dress, a fairly transparent creation she came back to try on five more times.  Everyone in the store was deeply chagrined when somebody else bought the thing and it disappeared forever down the blacklit corridors of Circus lore.  C’est la vie, as they say in Montreal.

I have had very few male roommates in this life.  The first was Gordon in East Bennett Hall at Oklahoma State during my freshman year.  Gordon was immediately homesick, constantly pining for his high school girlfriend back home again in Indiana.  The gleaming candlelight still burning bright through the sycamores finally drew him back.

The next guy, Buck, also at OSU, was more of a housemate since we shared several rooms but had our own sleeping quarters.  Buck was a rodeo rider and a drunk, who was always broke but told great stories.  One night, a large member of the Cowboy wrestling team tracked me down at home to pay me back for an ornery article I’d written in the campus newspaper.  Highly offended by this breach of etiquette, Buck picked him up and threw him through a window.  Best pane of glass I ever paid for.

There were a couple of months spent in Austin at Gilbert Shelton’s condemned apartment where I slept on his hair couch while Gilbert and his half-brother Steve occupied the bedrooms.  That was more like living in a war zone, with drunken wall-painting parties, phantasmagorical peyote extravaganzas and violent water-balloon fights with merciless antagonists.  Finally, also in Austin, there were a couple of months in Wally Stopher’s atrium located in the infamous Austin “Ghetto,” which featured numberless mattresses on the floor, the tangy odor of feline urine and madwomen grappling on the stairway.  Taking note of all this, I decided to cast my lot with females in the future, and I did.  Except for one formidable stint with the irrepressible Danny Levine.

Dick North, left, John Buckley and Danny Levine, right, work on Subterranean Circus booth at the Atlanta Pop Festival.

Glory Days

After I spent five days in Alachua General recovering from a massive plaster-dust-induced asthmatic attack in 1968, my doctor thought a change to a relatively dustless environment was in order.  I found a decent two-bedroom place at Summit House Apartments off Archer Road and Danny moved in with me.  He was a fine roommate, except for a nasty habit of leaving odiferous wine bottles in the sink, and we got along famously.  We might be roommates at Summit House today if Danny hadn’t fallen madly in love with a local highschool Lolita named Charlotte Yarbrough, who visited him at the crack of dawn most mornings before roaring off to classes on the back of his noisy Kawasaki.  Apartment dwellers like nothing better than being roused at sunrise by the revving up of motorcycles, thus we lost our lease, alas.  No hard feelings, though.  Shit happens when you’re having fun.

Opening the Subterranean Circus door each morning at ten was like going to a new musical comedy every day.  You never knew who was going to show up and in what condition, but whatever happened you knew Danny Levine could relate to the issues of the customer.  He was a combination of Class Psychologist, mentor of the young and innocent, loyal friend to the confused and depraved.  He was also a certified minister of the Universal, having sent in his 29 cents and two boxtops from Quaker Puffed Rice.  Now and then, he’d trek out to some woodsy glen and marry a starstruck couple of hippies while their friends released terrified doves into the sky.  He was a man for all seasons, a cheerful bon vivant, a lover of art history, a daring motorcycle racer, a sucker for any crazy new plan.  Once, in Manhattan, he took me to the Metropolitan Museum and I learned more about Art in a few hours than I’d assimilated in the rest of my life.  Danny was like Norm in Cheers; everybody perked up and smiled when he strode into the room.  All good things come to an end, of course, and so did Danny’s multi-year sentence at the Circus.  He was direly needed elsewhere, especially at Art’s Kawasaki Shop, so one day he picked up his rolling papers, love beads, Indian mandalas and got on his motorcycle for a final drive west.  “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places,” he promised, then sped off into the night.  But not before leaving us this gleaming silver bullet, a token of his reign.

The Latter Years

Like rambling Hank Snow, Danny Levine has been everywhere, man, traversing the world in search of merriment and mirth.  Exploring through Europe and Asia, he’s expressed an appreciation for the kindness of strangers, with a particular fondness for the Irish and the Thais.  His favorite place on Earth is Italy, which seems a natural for a professor of Art History, but it’s the food that won him over.  “Best in the world, not even close,” he swears.  He’s finally settled down in lovely Savannah, the genteel city of parks and greenery where he taught for 17 years at the Savannah College of Art & Design.

Not too many years ago, Mr. Levine was dutifully swimming laps, as some of us do in the interests of self-preservation, when he came upon an irritating problem---a temporary loss of ability to use one of his legs.  After traipsing down several blind alleys as often seems to happen in neurological cases, he finally got the correct diagnosis---Parkinson’s Disease---an ugly game-changer.  “I use to feel sorry for myself,” he says, “but one day I got some kind of unexplainable revelation.  Now I’m just happy to be here.”  Welcome to the club, Dan.

Danny made the drive to The Last Tango, but it’s a scary four hours each way on the road for a fellow who is never sure when the next body part will temporarily opt out.  Still, he perseveres.  A recent brain stimulation procedure at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville gave him a boost and last Winter he gave us a call.  “An old friend of mine wants me to go to Italy for a couple of weeks in December.  I think I’m going to go,” he said.  And he did.  Despite a few minor issues, the trip was such a great inspiration that this November he picks up his backpack and heads for the tulip fields of Amsterdam.  We’ve no doubt that he’ll make it.  He’s a Circus boy!  He’s a magic-maker!  And he’s  strong to the finish ‘cause he eats his spinach, he’s Danny the Sunshine Man!

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com       

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

I don’t like funerals, and I really don’t like wakes.  Too much weeping and rending of garments.  One day, however, the subject of music at funerals came up in a macabre discussion with a wilting friend.  “What song would you like played at your ritual,” he asked.”  I didn’t take five seconds to answer.  “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” I said.  Considering where I would be at the time, that seemed like a brilliant alternative.  He eyed me disapprovingly and indicated I should choose something more sacred and depressing.  “Nope,” I said, “that’s it.”  Aside from the inevitable Star Spangled Banner, “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” is the song I’ve heard most in my life.  It’s a cheerful little ditty, evoking memories of the good old days at bustling Fenway Park, where everybody puts down their beer and sings along no matter the pending fate of the home team.  Despite several changes to the game over the years, the song steadfastly hangs on, played by organists and sung by fans at every major and minor league park in the country and most college venues, usually before the home team bats in the bottom of the seventh.  Not everyone sings the national anthem, but to a man the crowd belts out “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”  Anyone who abstains would be shunned and in some cases have lighted matches thrown at them.

I mentioned my predilection for the song in a column one day.  My younger sister, Kathy, read it and said she’d remember when the time came.  A little presumptuous, I thought, but her heart was in the right place.  If you’re wondering, and I know you are, the lyrics to TMOTTBG were written by a guy named Jack Norworth in 1908.  Jack was riding the NYC subway and was inspired by a sign which screamed “BASEBALL TODAY---POLO GROUNDS!” which is where the old New York Giants used to play.  The words were put to music by Albert Von Tilzer.  Neither of the two songwriters had ever seen a major league game and wouldn’t for decades.  The song was first sung by Norworth’s then-wife Nora Bayes and popularized by many other vaudeville acts.  It was played at a ballpark for the first time in 1934 at a high school game in Los Angeles and later that same year during the fourth game of the World Series.  “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America as one of the 365 “Songs of the Century.”  The first recorded version was sung by Edward Meeker and his recording was selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”  So there.  And while were at it, the correct lyrics are “take me out with the crowd, not “to the park,” so get with the program, you Philistines.

Ex-Gator David Eckstein, all 5-6, 170 pounds of him played ten years in the Major Leagues and won a World Series title with the St. Louis Cardinals.

“Size Doesn’t Matter.  No, Really.”

“No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined.”---Paul Gallico

When we were kids, baseball was The Game.  There were no hoops in the neighborhood, not everyone could ice skate and football had yet to ascend to its later popularity.  Skinny white kids could play baseball just fine even if they couldn’t  run fast, jump or dribble between their legs.  You could be a four-foot shrimp like Joey Pappalardo and still play a mean shortstop.  You could be a blind fat kid like Paul Brooks and still roam unbothered in the mellow meadows of right field.    Well-padded Walter Babish couldn’t hit a beach ball with a canoe paddle but he knew how to walk into a change-of-pace pitch when the occasion required.  Eddie Ledwich was a lousy first basemen except for that one day a year he pulled off the hidden ball trick.  Can’t afford your own bat or glove?  Don’t worry, we got plenty.

You didn’t need a fancy venue or exotic equipment to play baseball.  We had the ratty old B&M field at the end of Boxford Street, where a ground ball to the shortstop occasionally traveled off course after bouncing into an errant rock and some undisciplined hitter might occasionally take out old Grandma Middleton’s bathroom window with a misplaced line drive.  But hey, everybody couldn’t fit into the four-team Little League, which was populated with the sons of doctors, lawyers and divorce attorneys.  We could beat them, though.

We had neighborhood teams back in the day.  We got on our bikes and traveled all over town to play kids from the other nabes.  Once, on the Fourth of July, we were called in to replace a uniformed Junior League team at the neighboring town of North Andover’s big holiday whoop-de-doo picnic.  As the old advertisements used to say, they laughed when we sat down to play the hometown heroes, we of no uniforms, half a dozen beat-up bats and a catcher with home made equipment.  They laughed some more when the homies jumped on our pitcher, nervous little Joey Trepanier, for three runs in the first inning.  That just pissed us off.  Next time up, I smoked one off the gazebo’s roof, routing the mayor’s party and we went on to win the game 7-3.  Nobody was laughing then.  Just to rub it in, most of us ran in the ensuing mini-marathon and finished near the front of the pack.  Just a bunch of average-sized, unmuscled ball-playing pack rats who didn’t need enhancements to play the game well.  All things are possible with baseball, where size doesn’t matter.  Ask Pee Wee Reese.

Of Fathers And Sons (reprinted from TFP, May 31, 2018 article, The Faithful)

“That’s one of the great gifts of this, the greatest of all games, baseball: it allows you still to lose yourself in a dream, to feel and remember a season of life when summer never seemed to die and the assault of cynicism hadn’t begun to batter optimism.”---Mike Barnicle.

My father promised me that when I was old enough to start grade school he would take me to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.  I thought about this all the time.  When you are a tiny child, iconic shrines like Fenway are like castles in the sky, fabled heavens where the gods live, where battles of incredible importance take place, where feverish radio announcers sit in rapt attention, delivering the blow-by-blow to the outside world.  Like everyone else, I had seen pictures of the Red Sox palace but it still seemed like a place beyond the bounds of Earth, to which acceptable guests received invitations written on gilt-edged stationery.

Nonetheless, the day came and Tom Killeen led me down Winthrop Avenue to the Boston & Maine railroad station.  The train ride was a little more than a half-hour, then on to the subway at the Boston Garden, one change at the Common and on to Kenmore Square.  The imposing light towers were visible almost immediately as we made the short walk to the park. I don’t know what I expected but my first view of Fenway was disturbing, a mix of confusion and disappointment.  I knew what baseball fields looked like and this red-brick facade wasn’t it.  My father smiled and cautioned, “Wait….”

We handed the gatekeeper our tickets and walked inside, now part of a huge, milling throng traveling in all directions in the half-light of Fenway’s bowels, eventually reaching our entrance ramp directly in back of first base.  I walked up the ramp until the entire field was visible and stopped dead in my tracks, paralyzed by the view.  There was the enormous left field wall, the iconic little scoreboard, the greenest grass in the universe…just like in the pictures.  The Red Sox uniforms were so impossibly white they must have been created in some alternate universe and delivered by mystical beings.  My Father, of course, had seen all this before and merely guided me to our seats.  “Wow!” I said.  “This place is great.”  My father looked back at me with the hint of a smile.  “Billy,” he guaranteed, “this is the best baseball park in America.”  Seventy two years later, just about everybody agrees with him.

The game with the Cleveland Indians was a mess.  The Red Sox fell behind 12-1 and Tom Killeen developed a dour expression.  “Looks like I picked the wrong time for your first game,” he lamented.  “It’s only the fifth inning,” I told him.  “We could catch up.”  Tom’s resigned smile signaled otherwise, but he was wrong for once.  Boston battled back and won 15-14 in a game for the ages, a contest in which the Indians used pitchers Bob Feller, Gene Bearden, Mike Garcia and Bob Lemon to stem the tide, all to no avail.  Every so often, baseball offers up an unexplainable souffle, a completely illogical combination of ingredients and winds up with the perfect meal.  “Don’t expect this to happen all the time,” my father warned me.  “It’s one in a million.”  I nodded my head, but I knew better.

On the way into the park, my father told me I could pick out one pennant to buy.  I chose a white one with Red Sox scrawled in large red letters.  He said we’d get it on the way out, avoiding the nuisance of carrying it around all afternoon.  Alas and alack, on the way out there were no more.  There were a million alternate choices but I sulkily turned all of them down.  Tom Killeen was probably irritated but he was also a man of his word and come hell or high water he was going to find that damn pennant.  When we got home, we trooped over a Merrimack River bridge, the opposite direction from going home, and all the way over to a novelty store on Broadway, a good two miles.  The shop didn’t have pennant, but the proprietor promised to find it somewhere.  Two weeks later, my father came marching home from work, evasive pennant in hand.  You’d think it was the Hope Diamond by the reaction of my mother and me.  We proudly hung the thing immediately in my small bedroom and it was still there 15 years later when I returned home from college.  I wish I had it now.

Little more than ten years later my father was gone, but the memories lingered on, recollections of sitting on the floor by my dad’s chair listening to Red Sox-Yankee games, arguing the relative merits of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, complaining about the shortcomings of various Sox managers, wondering if we’d ever win the pennant.  We didn’t have much in common, me and my father, agreeing rarely, battling often.  He was a difficult man to fathom, a hard one to please, cast in the ways of an earlier time.  There are no stories of roughhousing in the clubhouse, frolicking on the lea, not a lot of hugging or pats on the back.  But there was baseball.  I could see the game through his eyes and he through mine.  We had one common cause and that would have to do.  I never wept at his funeral at the age of sixteen, merely went through the motions, comforted my mother, stiff upper lip.  But when we got home, I went up to my room, sat on the bed and looked up at the fading white pennant with the team name emblazoned in red.  Thanks, Dad, I said to myself.  And finally, I cried.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com 

 

Sasquatch Mania

Why now?  Sure, everybody likes mysterious eight-foot-tall creatures who live in the woods and smell bad, but usually they’re bears.  Suddenly, you can’t even go to a garden show without seeing metal cutout silhouettes of Bigfoot littering the landscape.  Even my wife---a sensible woman by all measures except for a pact with the Devil concerning chocolate---is on board.  She asked for and got her very own giant Sasquatch for Christmas and now it stands menacingly outside our little guest house, scaring off uninvited guests and property appraisers.  People tell me I’ll learn to love him.  “Not Yeti,” I reply.

You can get information from the horse's mouth at the Harrison Hot Springs Sasquatch Museum

Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go?  What Are You Thinking, Steely-eyed Joe?

Wild tales of hairy, forest-dwelling, bi-pedal primates have persisted for centuries in coastal Canada and the northwestern United States, but the evidence is feeble.  Somewhat akin to UFO photographs, rare pictures of the creatures are fuzzy and amateurish, even with the explosion of Apple cell phone cameras to aid in the hunt.

North of the border, from a lookout above the Harrison River Valley in southwestern British Columbia, dense forest stretches all the way to the snow-capped Coast Mountains on the Pacific shore.  Thick with towering western red cedars, hemlock and Sitka spruce trees, the wilderness continues almost uninterrupted all the way north to Alaska.  Beyond the roads and hiking trails, the terrain soon becomes impossible, punctuated by steep mountains that plunge into glacier-carved lakes.  This remote valley 81 miles east of Vancouver conjures up an ancient land filled with mystery and possibility and many call it the home of the world’s most famous cryptid---Sasquatch.

Bhima Gauthier, who leads tours to spots in the region where sightings have been reported, is on the fence.  “I can’t say for sure that they are real, but I have a gut feeling that there has to be some truth behind it.  There are too many testimonies to ignore…especially around here, where we have a very rich mythology.” 

There have been 37 notable Sasquatch sightings near the town of Harrison Hot Springs since 1990.  Most often called Bigfoot in the U.S. and Yeti or metoh kandmi (wild man of the snows) in the Himalayas, Sasquatch is always described as very tall, extremely hairy and inevitably reluctant to be approached.  The creature is considered sacred to West Coast First Nations, particularly the Sts’ailes (sta-hay-lis) who have lived in the Harrison River Valley for at least 10,000 years.  The word “Sasquatch” is the anglicized version of sasq’ets, which means “hairy man” in Halq’emeylem, the Sts’ailes upriver dialect.  “The word comes from a mountain called Sasq’ets Tel, the place where Sasquatch gather,” according to local official Kelsey Charlie.

To sate a growing curiosity and perhaps make a buck from tourists, Harrison Hot Springs opened a Sasquatch Museum inside its visitor center in 2017 and worked with Sts’ailes member Boyd Peters, who provided input on the original tribe acquisitions, including a drum and replica wood mask of Sasquatch.  One museum display explains the Sts’ailes belief in Sasquatch as a caretaker of the land and totem for their nation (he’s even on their flag if you’d like to buy one).  The exhibits are juxtaposed with casts of Sasquatch footprints, news clippings about sightings that date to 1884 and a logbook of reported local encounters.  Since the museum opened, tourist numbers to the visitor center have doubled to 20,000 annually and the resort community received a CAD $1 million government grant to build a greatly expanded  museum and visitor center.  So who says Sasquatch doesn’t exist?

In addition to visiting the museum, visitors can take a tour with Gauthier’s Harrison Lake Nature Adventures or walk the Sasquatch Trail or even show up for Sasquatch Days, which have been held in town since 1938.  The area has become, perhaps, the world’s primary magnet for those seeking answers, including the 26% of all Canadians who believe cryptids are real.  “I realize I have a financial bias,” says Bhima Gauthier, “but if you heard some of the compelling stories I have, you would certainly reassess your thinking.  These people are not crazy fools, they’re just ordinary folks with nothing to gain by making stuff up.  And they’re positive they’ve seen a Sasquatch.  So who am I to argue?”

Kelsey Charlie personally witnessed two Sasquatch drinking water from Harrison Lake in 2002.  “It made my hair stand on end,” he swears.  “My grandpa used to say the slollicum is a shapeshifter and can walk in the two realms, the spiritual and the physical.  And that’s why you’ll never catch him---when you get too close, he disappears.”

Good one, Kelsey’s father.  That cleverly negates any requirement for evidence.  “No, officer, that was definitely not me.  I was walking in the spiritual realm when the crime occurred.”

Canadian author/researcher Thomas Steenberg with his trophy

Whoomp!  There It Is!

The FBI has had a file on Sasquatch since 1976.  Director Peter Byrne of the Bigfoot Information Center and Exhibition in The Dalles, Oregon, sent the FBI “about 15 hairs attached to a tiny piece of skin” that year, hoping the Feds might analyze it.  Byrne was one of the more prominent Bigfoot researchers at the time, according to Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.  “In the 1970s, Bigfoot was extremely popular,” claims Radford.  “That was when the Six Million Dollar Man ran a cameo of Bigfoot.”

That was also after Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin released their famous 1967 video footage of a Bigfoot in Northern California, which launched the craze.  Many observers thought the creature in the Patterson-Gimlin film was a costumed prankster but Byrne was certain the footage was real.

Jay Cochrane, Jr., assistant director of the FBI’s scientific and technical services division, sent the hair sample back to Byrne in 1977, telling him “The hairs are of deer family origin.”  The mere fact that the FBI was analyzing possible Bigfoot DNA was enough for believers, however.  Radford says “The Bigfoot contingent loves the idea that there’s a smoking gun in FBI files.  ‘See, look, Bigfoot must be real, otherwise the FBI wouldn’t have taken it seriously.’  No, the FBI didn’t send out a team of investigators to look for Bigfoot, they merely agreed to analyze 15 hairs.”

Nonetheless, thousands of people claim to have seen the hairy hominoid, including a small but vociferous number of scientists.  “Given the scientific evidence I have examined,” says one of them, professor of anatomy and anthropology Jeff Meldrum of Idaho State University in Pocatello, “I’m convinced there’s a creature out there that is yet to be identified.” 

Investigator Jimmy Chilcutt of the Conroe Police Department in Texas specializes in fingerprints and footprints.  He has analyzed the more than 150 casts of bigfoot prints that Meldrum keeps in a laboratory.  Chilcutt says that one particular footprint found in 1987 in Walla Walla, Washington has convinced him that Bigfoot is real.  “The ridge flow pattern and the texture was completely different from anything I’ve ever seen.  It certainly wasn’t human and of no known primate that I’ve examined.  The print ridges flowed lengthwise along the foot, unlike human prints which flow across.  The texture of the ridges was about twice the thickness of a human, which indicated that this animal has a real thick skin.”

Meanwhile, Meldrum says a 400-pound block of plaster known as the Skookum Cast provides further evidence of Bigfoot’s existence.  The cast was made in September of 2000 from an impression of a large animal that had apparently laid on its side to retrieve some fruit next to a mudhole in the Gifford Pinchon National Forest in Washington State.  Meldrum contends that the cast contains recognizable impressions of a forearm, a thigh, buttocks, an Achilles tendon and heel.  “It’s 40 to 50% bigger than a normal human,” he says, “and the anatomy doesn’t jibe with any known animal.”

There are a surprising number of academics and certifiably sane observers who believe Meldrum is right.  Prominent among them is renowned chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall, who last year surprised an interviewer from National Public Radio when she said she was sure that large, undiscovered primates such as the Yeti or Sasquatch do exist.  Oh.  Well, then. 

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull that mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don’t mess around with Jane.”

Close Encounters 

Matt Moneymaker, a lawyer who runs his own marketing agency in Dana Point, California, once came eye-to-eye with a Sasquatch.  “It was 2 o’clock in the morning and the moon was a quarter full,” he recalled.  “Suddenly, there he was, an eight-foot-tall creature standing fifteen feet away, growling at me.  He wanted to let me know I was in the wrong place.”

There are a surprising number of academics and educated observers who allege they’ve been up close and personal with Sasquatch.  Teacher Steve Pavlik got a double-shot of his Bigfoot love.  The first incident took place on September 23, 2009 in Bellingham, Washington as he was loading his truck for an early morning trip out of Seatac International Airport.  “It was pitch dark outside, a cold, crisp, beautiful and almost cloudless morning.  I was carrying my travel bags when I heard it, a sudden piercing cry that was so loud and clear it literally shattered the stillness of the morning.  It came from the woods behind my house, maybe 50 yards away.  It was one long, flowing sound that lasted about five seconds, paused for two or three seconds and repeated itself a second time.  It woke up every dog in the neighborhood, and they all began barking like crazy.  I waited to see if there would be another howl, but whatever made that sound was now quiet.  Instinctively, I new it was a primate but I didn’t think of Bigfoot right away.”

On the following Saturday, September 27, Pavlik went hunting at nearby Lake Terrell.  He returned with some birds he’d shot and set about to cleaning them between his house and the woods.  “Then, all hell broke loose in the woods less than 20 feet in front of me.  A large tree began to swing violently from side to side.  I would estimate the trunk of the tree was about ten inches in diameter and something was shaking it like it was a sapling.  Branches and leaves began falling from the tree and others around it.  I could hear a loud cracking of wood, as if someone was breaking branches over their knee or beating the ground with them.  I grabbed my knife, not knowing what the hell to expect next, and ran back to the house.  I have no doubt at all this was a Bigfoot encounter.  There’s no alternative.  Most animals shy from humans, but whatever I encountered that evening was definitely not fleeing.  I think it was a clear intent to scare me off and it worked.”

One of the most famous Bigfoot sightings occurred on Mica Mountain in British Columbia in 1955 when William Roe claimed he saw “a partly human and partly animal” creature while hiking.  He swore an affidavit in 1957 that the critter was about six feet tall and covered in brown, silver-tipped hair, with thick arms reaching down to its knees, broad feet and breasts.  “As I watched the creature, I wondered if some movie company was making a film at this place,” Roe wrote in his affidavit.  “However, as I continued to watch, it became obvious that it was real.  It would be impossible to fake such a specimen.”

The Ape Canyon Incident of 1924 was more of a battle than a sighting.  A group of gold prospectors testified they defended their cabin against a number of “gorilla men” in a gorge on the side of Mt. St. Helens in Washington.  One of the miners, Fred Beck, shot at a solitary Sasquatch during the skirmish and his target returned the same evening with a few of his hairy brethren for a little payback.  The Sasquatch invaders pelted the cabin with rocks and boulders and one of them got close enough to reach an arm inside.  The miners survived and the attackers retreated at sunrise, possibly after Beck shot one.  This incident was exceptional in Bigfoot lore as most of the other sightings called the creatures “non-confrontational.”  If you go to Mt. St. Helens today, you can visit the impressive Ape Caves on the caved-in side of the mountain.  If a Sasquatch shows up, exhibit a big smile and hand him a sack containing several small mammals, a couple dozen mushrooms and some needles from coniferous trees, then try to get a selfie for the Harrison Hot Springs Sasquatch Museum.  You’ll earn great fame, enjoy the eternal gratitude of Bigfoot fans everywhere and get free admission for life.  Just throw away those letters written in crayon.

Now they're moving in next door

That’s all, folks….

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