Did Sasquatch Really Exist in 1977?

Did Sasquatch Really Exist in 1977? by Jay

Of course he did!  At least to an eight year old kid who went to the cinema to see Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1977)...  For several Saturday mornings before its release in theaters, tantalizing previews were aired to promote the film.  As an impressionable eight year old, anything about mythical monsters and extraterrestrials purporting to be real was food for digestion.  One of the previews I distinctly remembered was a kneeling trapper named Jessup in a campground with his back turned to the camera.  As the camera panned in on him (obviously the eyes of Bigfoot), this ominous music was playing.  Jessup began to turn just as the camera (Bigfoot) cast a shadow over him, and I was left to wonder about the poor trapper's fate.  I had to see this movie!  Several weeks went by as I anticipated the premiere.

I don't know what I expected, but when I finally went to the theater to see it, I left feeling somewhat disappointed.  The basic plot was told in an obviously fictitious docu-drama format concerning an expedition to find the legendary, hairy beast.  Maybe it was the fact that Bigfoot didn't come thumping down the aisles during the showing?  Or perhaps it was because much of the climax was filmed in the dark, and all I could see was a bunch of paper mache rocks being hurled by a guy in a gorilla suit?  Whatever the reason, I left wanting more.  But what? 

Looking back, I think it was the historical mystery itself that gripped my imagination.  The stories of Sasquatch, or Bigfoot if you will, are ultimately something that can't be told successfully on screen.  These are legends that are meant to be told on a crisp, fall evening around a campfire or scribbled about in a collection of stories by a competent and colorful writer.  Myths and legends are meant to have gaps that only one's imaginative thoughts can fill.  Visually, however, Bigfoot is a major disappointment. At least, so it proved to me.  Legends are only meant to seen in the mind of each individual.  Anything else is setting up the creative imagination for failure. 

This afternoon, my brother and I, for lack of anything better to do, decided to watch the film for the first time in nearly thirty eight years.  Someone had downloaded it on YouTube.  Decades after first watching it, the old film was crackly and skipped in various spots, only to be expected from a low budget production made in the mid-1970's.  The flowery music that was played in the background sounded as if it were being piped from a psychedelic, multi-colored love van, and the actors' voices (including a wise old trapper named Josh and a wannabe Indian named Techka Blackhawk) were indistinct and muted, burping forth from shadowy or etiolated faces.  The rugged scenery, with virgin forest and snow capped peaks would have been visually appealing if it were not for the fact that the ancient, forty year old film almost appeared as if it were folding in on itself.  I almost got the impression that I were viewing ghostly glimpses of the dead stiffly moving through the woods on phantom horses in a dim, colorless world which had drifted away long ago.  Even the animals presented, including a mountain lion, seemed to have stepped right out of a taxidermist's workshop.  All seemed dead.  The film seemed to be groaning as if to say, "Please, stop...  no mystery here...  the past is in the past...  no more...  let me settle in upon time and close my eyes... forever..." 

Some of the last words spoken in the film were by the actor who played the pseudo Indian, Techkna Blackhawk.  After failing to capture the ever elusive Bigfoot, Techkna said, "It is done.  We can go home now."

And so it should be said to allow all great legends to continue to grow, and until all time should forever pass into that collective space of forgotten nothing.


   



        

A Brief Moment In Time: Washington D.C. 1975

By Craig: The other day I was going through some boxes in the attic when I happened to find one that contained numerous boxes of old slides and photographs. The slides were in their original boxes and I was intrigued as to what might be on them. A few of the boxes were labeled but most of them were unmarked. Turning on the bright overhead light in my library I held each of them up so that I could see what was on them. I was immediately taken back in time. The images on the slides were taken by my father from the mid 1960s up until the early 1980s. Some of the images were taken before I was born, but most of them were from my early childhood in the early to mid 70s. I was immediately captivated by a series from a trip that we took to Washington D.C. in April of 1975. I was 6 years old at the time but have fond memories of this trip which I previously wrote about in a post a few years back.

Lincoln Memorial 1975

     I had the slides converted with the help of my brother Jay's wife, Tina. As I was going through them one of them caught my attention. I don't know why, but I kept being drawn back to it. It is an image of the Lincoln Memorial. It sits there in all its marble glory, its stairs sprinkled with people dressed in a fashion that today's society would consider alien. It is a brief moment captured in time and hidden in a box for nearly two generations. There is something about the image that captivates my senses. It might have something to do with bright sky that illuminates the scene, almost hidden by the gargantuan monument, or the black recess of the inner chamber which looms menacingly in the center of the photograph. It is dark and mysterious, and the people climb the steps toward it as if they were about to enter into the unknown. And what of the people? Who are they? Where are they from? Where are they now?

Craig & Jay Washington 1975

    About halfway up the first flight of stairs ascends a solitary dreamer. He is wearing a white shirt and a white hat and has sloppily thrown his coat over his right shoulder. He takes it all in. There is something white in his back pocket...a tour guide perhaps? A lady dressed in yellow reminding me of a sunflower stands with her pocket book slung over her shoulder. Her arms are both up, and hidden as if she might be holding something up to her face. Is it a camera? Is there perhaps another image out there sitting in a dusty album, forgotten in a closet that captures the same instant in time from a different angle! In front of the sunflower lady is another woman dressed in sea blue who seems to be running in quick step as if she cannot wait to enter the black hole that awaits her in a few more steps. Why is she in such a hurry? Perhaps she is only in Washington for the day and wants to see more than just the Lincoln Memorial. Now gaze downward to the left and you can see a middle age couple locked arm in arm. The bald man with ear to ear carpet is helping his plump wife who seems to be struggling with the stairs. What might he be thinking as she clings on to him for dear life? Three lazy men sit at the base of one of the massive Doric columns. One of them has his hand up to his mouth as if he were smoking a Lucky Strike. Lucky Strike man seems to be in a heated conversation with a man wearing a red shirt. It is a long lost and forgotten, unimportant conversation that none of the parties involved would ever remember. It might have gone something like this:

Lucky Strike Man: "So you think the Oakland A's will win the World Series again this year?"

Red Shirt Man: "Naw, Hell no! I'd say Pete Rose and his boys will take it."

Lucky Strike Man: "You're crazy! Rose is washed up!"

Whatever the conversation was about along with the identity of the three men and anyone else in the image will never be known. The faces of the people are mere blurs. None of them exist anymore. At least in the form that they took when this image was captured. At least half of them have almost certainly given up their mortal cares and passed into oblivion. The ones who remain alive on this distant day in the future in no way resemble the human creatures that they once were. 40 Springs have now passed... At one point in their lives all of them converged at this singular place, and then quickly separated never to merge again. They lived their lives not knowing that they ever did merge together, or that 4 decades in the future someone would be writing about their dim and shadowy figures on the steps of a monument that will one day crumble to dust as did the Greek and Roman temples of yore.

    
       I take one last look at the image and notice 4 people standing in front of one of the marble columns. It is as if they are posing for a photograph from a distant photographer. A woman in a beige coloured leisure suit with three young boys. One of the boys is holding his mother's hand...I smile.

Elements of Time: The Broken Cuckoo Clock

By Craig: I sit in the dining room staring at the broken cuckoo clock on the wall. It had been a gift given to me and my wife a few years back. My mother bought it for us in Switzerland. Somehow, about a year ago, the windings got out of whack and I still haven't gotten around to fixing it. I sit at the table poking at my supper and staring at that clock that doesn't work. I am eating a Spanish rice dish that I have concocted with my own blend of seasonings and vegetables. Since I now live alone, when I cook, I make a big vat of food and eat from it for three or four days. It's cheap and it is healthy since I know what ingredients are going into it. I am tempted to get up and rip the cuckoo clock from the wall and tear into it with the intention of fixing it. The room is silent and my two dogs sit on my flanks on my great-grandfathers Persian rug which is under the dining room table and encompasses most of the room. They sit there in silence staring at me...hoping that I am generous with my supper. One of them is an old decrepit dog with a lame paw. He most certainly has some Golden Retriever in him, but the ravages of time have given him bloated look so that the sleekness of the Retriever is now hard to detect. The other dog is much younger. He is black and well formed  like a whippet. They peer at me with their black marble eyes and when I raise my fork to my mouth their hungry gaze follows the fork waiting for a morsel to come their way.

"You've been fed." I state simply as if they understand my English.
Still, I throw them each a piece of buttered bread and they snap them up greedily, swallowing it whole.
"In the mouth, directly to the stomach!" I declare.




    
      The room is dimly lit. It is dark outside, and a little chilly. I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge sitting here all alone in the dark in my flannels and stocking cap. I look again at the broken cuckoo clock and a strange thought floats into my head.
"What if all the clocks in the world stopped?...Would time stop?"
It was a ridiculous question since I already knew the answer.
"Of course time wouldn't stop!"
Clocks are a human invention that are merely set to celestial positions. A clock on Mars would be different than a clock on Earth for its rotation is different as is its orbit around the sun. If I were to sit here in my dining room for the rest of the night the Earth would continue to spin on its imaginary axis inclined 23.5 degrees away from the plane of the ecliptic. The room would eventually lighten  with the morning sun and get brighter as the day progressed. If I found myself glued to the chair I would soon starve to death and the cosmic clock would continue to move with the synchronicity of the heavenly bodies. Everything is always in a constant state of motion and change whether or not it is organic or inorganic. The elements change at a microscopic level...Quantum mechanics looking for that elusive state of stability. Indeed! time is a relative concept!


    I finish my supper and cannot help but stare at that damn cuckoo clock. So much to do and so little time to do it. If only time would stop! It was a simple request aimed at the Gods of the universe who arbitrarily set the mechanism of time in relation to matter.

DC Comics The House of Secrets: # 141 September 1976

By Craig: I spend a good portion of my everyday life doing the same mundane tasks that most other people have a habit of doing. I get up in the morning and brush my teeth, wake up in the shower, and fill a travel mug full of piping hot coffee for the road. I am never late for work. In fact, I am always at least a half an hour early. I have never been late to work in the 30 or so years that I have been a card carrying, tax paying member of the work force. I cannot understand how someone can be late. Of course, I do not go out late at night and party, or even stay up watching television until after midnight like some folks that I know. I wake up at 0500 every morning when it is still dark and one can still see shadows, real or unreal, dancing along the street lit walls of city buildings... the ghosts and spirits of yore. It is still dark when I get to work. I usually sit around sipping my coffee and watch the eastern sky come to life and the stars and planets lose their brightness as daylight takes hold of this side of the Earth. It is during this time of the day that I am able to contemplate the realities of existence and attempt to solve the world's problems. It is in this short meditative time allotted to me before the grind of production that I become philosophical. Sometimes my thoughts are truly Earth shattering...at least they are to me in my reality. I think of ways that just might be able to solve world peace...or a means to prevent cancer by some radical dietary measures. Usually, however, these meaningful thoughts are pushed aside...or better put, are "trumped" by fleeting thoughts that lay on the periphery of my consciousness. The meaningful thoughts are bullshit anyway. There will never be "world peace" and "I" will never find the cure for cancer. That is why the intellectual part of the mind is soon pushed aside by the mindless bunk that sits there on the periphery always ready to invade. For instance, the other morning I was thinking of a way to contain the Ebola virus when suddenly my mind said fuck it and I started to think of a comic book that I read when I was 8 years old. First it was EBOLA and then suddenly it was "Matt! Look out! He's got a knife!"

      I think that a good portion of my being was influenced by the comic books that I read as a child. I have a warped sense of humor which adds to my warped sense of reality which of course is my distinctive reality. How Ebola evolved into a 38 year old comic book goes beyond the realm of linking two events together. Was it because I somehow associate a certain comic book that I was reading with "Legionnaire's disease" which just so happened to take place the summer that the comic book was published? I don't know...I can only conjecture. Not that it matters anyway. The comic book in question is the DC published issue of House of Secrets # 141 from September 1976. One of the stories in that issue (which I still own a copy) is called "Exit Laughing" It basically tells the tale of a nerdy college student who reluctantly agrees to a bet with some fraternity brothers to sleep in an old haunted house. The nerdy student, whose name is Ernie Cass is terrified by the experience after being confronted by a ghost, who was really just the leader of the fraternity named Matt Sawyer dressed up in a costume. Ernie ends up fleeing in terror from the house much to the amusement of Matt and his fraternity brothers. Years later at a class reunion Matt and his wife stumble upon the introverted Ernie and Matt recounts the events of that night long ago. Ernie, however is shocked by the revelation. He had always believed that he had really saw a ghost that night and as Matt laughs once again at Ernie's naivety Ernie gets angry and pulls out a knife and stabs Matt to death. The last caption shows the police walking off with a crazed looking Ernie. One of them mentions his escape from a lunatic asylum the day before.

      Why I remember this story 38 years after first reading it I cannot say, but I can recall countless stories written in these comic books from that impressionable time of my life. I now sit in my bedroom and flip back the eerie cover of the comic which shows a ghost advancing on a man who is trying to get away. I am immediately brought back to the year of the American Bicentennial. There is an add for Hostess Snack Cakes. "3 Free Baseball Cards On Specially Marked Boxes Of Hostess Snack Cakes!!!" Three players capture the limelight in this add. The ladies man Steve Garvey lunges for a ground ball in one card, while Joe Morgan and Carlton Fisk stand with the bat at the ready getting set to smash one out of the park in the other two cards. All three players now senior citizens, and long retired from a sport that they once dominated. A few pages later and there is an advertisement for "Daisy BB guns". In this day and age would it still be legal to advertise a gun add in a comic book directed mainly at a youthful audience? I do not know, but I suspect that these days someone from DC comics would be sent to Guantanamo Bay as a terror threat. Then there is an add for "The Secret of Teaching yourself Music" which shows a Brady Bunch type mom sitting at a piano with a guy sporting a Shaun Cassidy hairdo who is strumming on a guitar.  On the back page of the comic there is an advertisement for Browning Bicycles featuring the True Story of the now forgotten John Rakowski who pedaled his way around the world in the mid 1970s. All of these advertisements bring me back to a time when it was Legionnaires disease that was making the headlines instead of the now dreaded Ebola virus. I toss the comic book on the nightstand and turn off the light. Tomorrow will be another day.
    
     
    

Faceless Sticks in the Surf

Faceless Sticks in the Surf by Jay

Miami, Florida:  August 28, 2014

By Jay: Two men who are now slightly beyond middle age are sitting in a hotel room.  They are twin brothers.  One of them is in excellent physical shape – small-boned, spry and wide-eyed, and from a distance appearing much younger than his years – a runner of marathons who has recently qualified for the prestigious Boston Marathon.  He is a good two and a half inches shorter than his counterpart – tall and white bearded who only a few short years before used to be in the same condition as his brother.  Now as he sits there he feels the sores in his mouth as well as the raw soles of his aching feet.  Even the tips of his fingers are red and hurt when bent.  He runs when he can, but lately he has been limping, and has recently purchased a cane to help him move around whenever his feet become too sore.  It is the chemotherapy drug that is keeping him alive at the moment, and as he squints at the old fading picture on his computer screen, he sees himself and his brother as they appeared three and half decades in the past at Wells Beach, Maine in August, 1979. 

The picture under inspection is an old slide that has recently been converted.  It shows a scene in late afternoon.  Two pale, stick-like, red haired boys are seen splashing around in the frigid surf.  They are turned away from each other, the one on the left rearing higher than the one on the right.  The faces are indistinguishable – pale and muted – white and featureless – as if they are phantoms emerging from the depths of a vast and ancient ocean.  Both ghosts are gazing skywards into the blueness of a 1970’s sky that has long since set and expired within the dust of infinity.  And the faded light and overall bleached and blurred image of the scene seems to be eroding into the distant realms of transient time.  Even the pale ocean itself, extending towards a limitless horizon appears to be of another world – one of dreams or even nightmares where giant monsters and serpents dwell under the dark depth.  The two boys appear to be lighter than themselves, as if they are spirits that belong to an incorporeal world.  They seem to be emerging from the surf as if intoxicated with the weightlessness of youth – the divinity of hydrogen and helium and the rise of unearthly space and thought and dreamlike matter that transcend the grim reality of the geologic touch and density that consumes the spirit. 

            The twins are still looking at the image on the screen of their faceless, ghostly selves – haunting and disturbingly true - stepping to the effortless rhythm of time, which in the final footsteps reveals the erosive face of us all.     

              

  

DC Comics Ghosts: Number 78, July 1979

By Craig: Ok, I am on a roll. There are times when I feel like writing, and there are other times when I do not feel like writing. Lately I have felt like writing. The other day I was having a discussion with my brother Jay and he told me that he was reading the works of Gaston Leroux. I had never read anything by Leroux, and was familiar with only one of his stories. Leroux was best known for his book The Phantom of the Opera which was made into a movie staring Lon Chaney back in the 1920s. In fact, I probably knew who Lon Chaney was before I had ever heard of Gaston Leroux...and it is probable that even today I would not associate Leroux with The Phantom of the Opera had it not been for a comic book that I read when I was 10 years old.

In the summer of 1979 my brother and I were full throttle in the comic book craze. We were 10 years old and would spend hours reading the same stories over and over again. Unlike most kids we were a little different. We were not really into the superhero comics as much as our friends were. For sure, we had issues of the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and Batman, but our preference was outside of the superhero genre. Even back in those days TIME and the HISTORICAL PAST were motifs that seemed to occupy a lot of my waking moments. They were abstract ideas that my youthful mind tried to process. I was fascinated by tales and legends of yore...events that occurred in the remote past...a time far removed from my own. At some point my brother and I became interested in ghosts. I don't recall the exact moment when or why but I can only surmise that it was the natural progression of my mind attempting to come to terms with the concept of DEATH. Death had only just recently become a companion to our  consciousness when our grandfather had passed away the winter before. What was Death? What were Ghosts? Eureka! There is an end! One day I will die! That is impossible...Death only happens to other people! One of our favorite comic book at this time was the DC Comics title GHOSTS.

 

The cover of issue # 78 was enough for you to want to turn the pages and read on! 3 GHASTLY GHOST TALES including "THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS PHANTOM" The story starts out like most classic ghostly tales. A weary traveler...At night....A nasty rain storm...An old abandoned church in the middle of nowhere! Young Gaston Leroux finds shelter and the unexpected hospitality of a strange organist who keeps his head covered with a red cloth. When the young gentleman's curiosity overtakes his reason he quickly removes the cloth from his hosts head and reveals a monstrous looking face. Leroux flees from the old church with his pissed off host in pursuit. When he finds his way back to the village he meets a few of the locals who explain to him that the man he met in the church was in actuality a phantom of a man that had been burned alive in the church centuries before. Supposedly, Leroux uses this encounter as the basis of his story The Phantom of the Opera.

I was not even sure that I still possessed the issue of GHOSTS # 78 until I started thumbing through some of our old comic books which are stored in a big plastic box. True comic book collectors would be appalled by the way that my brother and I treated our comic books. We wrote our names in them and took absolutely no precautions to preserve the condition. Most of them are in fair condition...well read, and well loved. After all, what are they meant for? Are they meant to be placed in sealed plastic sleeves with a cardboard back? When I found GHOSTS # 78 I noticed that it had stood the test of time surprisingly well. I gave it to my brother the other day for him to enjoy once again. In fact, it traveled with us 800 miles to Miami when I decided to accompany Jay for his most recent appointment with his oncologist who is treating him for his cancer. GHOSTS...the ghosts of time that are my constant companions. I have now accepted that there will be a finality to my existence...A time when I will no longer be... Eventually we will all be ghosts...phantoms of something that once was.

A Certain Encounter: Sin City

By Craig: It had been nearly a quarter of a century since I had last stepped foot in Sin City. With its dazzling lights and loose reputation, Las Vegas Nevada is the place where one goes when one wishes to be ones self. Street performers are ubiquitous and range from Elvis and Marilyn Monroe impersonators to painted human statues. They work for donations and a dollar or two might get you a photograph with them. The city comes to life at night just before dusk. Amid all of the glitz and glamour of the casinos and opulent hotels there is, of course, the people of the abyss which lurk within the shadows of all this luxury and wealth. I was in Las Vegas on business and one afternoon I decided that I needed to go for a run since I realized that it had been four days since my last run through the streets of Sedona Arizona. That had been a nice, pleasant, scenic morning run along the streets and trails of that resort town, but running through the streets of Sin City at 1400 hours in mid July was anything but pleasant. In fact, it was almost suicidal.

There was a light breeze blowing, but it gave very little comfort when the temperature was hovering at about 110 degrees. I decided that I really could have done without the breeze, because it was like having an oven blowing in your face. I had big ambitions before I started to run...7 miles...I would do 7 miles...slow of course, because of the heat, but I was in awesome shape. After all, I had just qualified for the Boston Marathon. Or so I thought....

Me: Hey body? What's up?

Body: What are you trying to do kill me?

Me: No. Absolutely not! I'm trying to help you become physically fit?

Body: Well hey...I have a bright idea you moron...Try finding a cool place and a cold drink and quit thinking for a while!!!

Me: I was just trying to help?

Body: You can help by going into that store and getting me a nice tall Gatorade...I mean...what kind of an idiot would go for a run in the desert when it is 110 degrees?

Me: Are you calling me an idiot?

Body: Hey! Idiot! The Gatorade please! Now!!

I ducked inside of a convenience store and looked at my GPS watch. 3.14 miles...Ok...that was good...I ran pi! I always run with a few dollars tucked into my shorts pocket and I'm glad that I did on this day for I bought the largest bottle of ice cold glacier Gatorade that they had. Enough of the manly heroics. I was done running on this day! I left the store and hobbled back out into the oppressive heat. I could see the hotel a few blocks away and was heading in that direction when I stumbled into Methuselah.

He at first appeared to be quite ancient...hence the nickname...but after speaking with him, and observing him a little bit more carefully I concluded that the man was probably not that much older than my nearly 46 years. His rough years of hard alcohol soaked living and probable drug use, along with his grey matted beard, and leathery sun beaten skin had muddled my initial perception of him. He was extremely thin with attenuated limbs and a cadaverous looking face with a red bulbous nose common to people afflicted with alcohol abuse. If he kept on this path...I guessed...it wouldn't be long before he passed into the eternal abyss. He peered at me suspiciously through a set of beady eyes. He had been laying down on the sidewalk and when I rounded the corner I had almost stepped on him. At first I thought that he might have been dead, but he had sat up on his elbows when I stopped to ask if he was ok. He told me that he was tired. I, in turn, told him that this was no time of the day to be outside sweltering in the hot desert sun. Although, he had found a shady spot under a buildings overhang. We talked for quite some time and I found out that this wreck of a man was no ignoramus. He talked with a keen sense of intelligence and possessed a vocabulary that had to have come from a man of some education. I wondered what had brought him to his present condition, but it was none of my business so I did not ask. He, however, seemed surprised that I was sitting on the sidewalk talking to him. I asked him where he was from originally, because nobody it seems is a native of Las Vegas. He then told me that he was Canadian and had come to the United States when he was in his early teens with his parents who had since passed away. He had worked as a consultant of some kind for a number of years and had married, but his wife had died of cancer a few years ago. Ironically, he claimed that he too, now had cancer, and that his health insurance quit paying for his treatments. He had lost his house, his job, and now "here I am!" He said.  He had no children...and now, no family. Every now and then he would laugh...a laugh that seemed to mock his very existence. So I was wrong about him! He was no depraved alcoholic...At least he wasn't if he was being truthful. His condition was the result of an unfortunate and unlucky set of circumstances. He had simply drawn a bad lot...The short straw...The Joker in the deck!

I asked him why he didn't go back to Canada where he was a citizen because they had a national health care plan that took care of its citizens. He told me that he was no longer a Canadian citizen...that he had applied for Medicaid but that he did not qualify because his household income was too high. He had explained to them that he had lost his job, but they had turned a blind eye.
"Good God Fearing Christians!" He had said with some drama. "I came here to Vegas, because Vegas has the friendliest people on the planet" He told me.
I was skeptical of his claims, but who was I to question him? I had only been in Vegas for three or four days. He had been here close to a year.
"God Fearing Christians!!" he muttered again. I wished him luck and gave him the remainder of the money I had in my pocket (which wasn't much) and as I took my leave of him I could still hear his mocking laugh. Ah HEE...HEE...HEE...HEE!!!