My wife just looks at me and rolls her eyes.
Now, this is something I get often. To be honest, I generally do deserve the eye roll. I tend to say dumb things, and being my wonderful wife, she never misses any of the dumb things I say.
I also love to try to get her to laugh. Sometimes, my jokes land perfectly and I get a great doubled-over laugh from her. Usually? Yep, I get the eye roll.
But the one topic that always gets a big eye roll is my love of all things Bigfoot.
Me: “Babe! There’s a new bigfoot hunting show on. Awesome!”
Her: “Gee, I wonder if they will find something this time?” Followed by a huge eye roll.
I have been fascinated by bigfoot, or sasquatch, for as long as I can remember – about as long as I have been about aliens. But for some reason, the bigfoot thing terrified me just enough to grab and maintain my attention.
I read books about bigfoot as a kid and saw the famous Patterson-Gimlin film that came out of northern California in 1967 in one of those cheesy 1970s bigfoot “documentaries.” It was a rare and scary treat to see that short snippet of film allegedly showing a female bigfoot deep in the California wilderness. Of course, now you can watch it on YouTube anytime you want.
When I was very young my parents took me and my older brothers on a camping trip to Yosemite National Park. One night bears got into our campsite and busted some things up while we slept. Well, my parents said it was bears, but I was convinced it was bigfoot.
My search for giant footprints was unsuccessful, but I remained sure it was the mythical large, hairy beast.
Yes, I watch bigfoot shows all the time. There are countless documentaries, hunting bigfoot shows (which never seem to find any real evidence) and bigfoot “found footage” horror movies.
I love them all. She rolls her eyes.
But there is something that really connect with me about the possibility of a large undiscovered biped strolling around the woods of America undetected. People report sightings all time and talk about having huge rocks thrown at them and hearing horrible screams from an unknown animal.
It all makes for great TV and great movies. And really, this is pretty much all about entertainment for me.
I will draw the line with going out and hunting for a bigfoot myself. Why? Well, first until I see some hard evidence, I think I would be wasting my time. I am not one to believe things without strong evidence – seeing it with my own eyes is best.
Second, just in case the big dude is real, I don’t want to run into him out there in the dark woods. No thanks.
I prefer to watch from the comfort of my own living room, as they re-create famous bigfoot encounters using the best computer animation available on basic cable. That means it isn’t very good. But it won’t kill me.
I will continue to watch these shows and movies guilt free, and my wife will continue to roll her eyes. And we will both live to tell the tale.
