SASQUATCH ENCOUNTER

The other day in the mail came the DVD, "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," a companion to the book I'm reading of the same name, and we had fun watching it. Among all sorts of other things, it shows the whole Patterson film, which has yet to be proven fake, and analyzes it.

What rekindled my interest in the bigfoot again was a recent newspaper article about a scientist who's being shunned by his peers because he really thinks sasquatch exist. Jeff Meldrum, Ph.D., is an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University and a research associate of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, with all sorts of credentials, and he's been convinced by the evidence that this creature is real. And so I thought I would help support him by buying his book, published this year.

Mount Higgins, near Oso, Washington

Of course I believe the sasquatch exists because I want it to; but also because even I had an "encounter" that I can only attribute to this creature. After returning home from attending school in Kansas in the early '70's, I hiked up Mount Higgins, near Oso, Washington, with my scruffy dog Omega. Halfway up the mountain, thanks to the labors of the old CCC organization, there was the "halfway shelter" beside the rugged trail. Not too many people hike up Higgens at a time. Usually I would see no one the whole way, and it's always taken me more than a day to reach the peak. Anyway, the halfway shelter had (it's not there anymore) three walls and a roof, with one open side facing the trail. And inside there were two wooden beds. It was dark, and I think I was using a candle lantern at the time for light. Both Omega and I were lying on one of beds. Suddenly I heard hard and very heavy foot-falls thumping down the hill behind the shelter. It was something two-footed. It ran right down to the back of the shelter and stopped. Omega hurried off the bed and ran underneath it. I was terrified! Whatever it was, it was right on the other side of the wall behind me, and I was trapped in a three-walled shelter with one very open side. Any minute, an eight-foot-tall, hairy, man-like creature would likely be creeping around to the open side and peering in. I lay there for at least a half-hour, waiting for the shock of my possibly-short life. It was so quiet. Omega stayed beneath the bed. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore, and I ever-so-slowly-and-quietly went out of the shelter and crept around to see what it was. I never heard it leave, so I assumed it was still there. But there was nothing. I searched around for a log or boulder or anything else that could have rolled and bounced down the hill to the shelter without hitting it. There was absolutely nothing around that could have made that noise. And the sound had been heavy "thump, thump, thumps," very obviously a two-footed creature if it was a living creature. Now I keep asking myself if I ever looked up and into a tree during my search. I must have, but I don't remember. Wouldn't that have been a kick, having some huge sasquatch smiling down at me from above. But, my thinking is that when it realized there was a human occupying the shelter, it quietly and adeptly stepped away. Maybe it had intended on using the shelter otherwise. Nevertheless, it made me now thoroughly enjoy this new book and DVD.

For the complete contents of the Butter Rum Cartoon, click here.