This column originally ran on Oct. 24, 2013, but has new relevance with the announcement of Monster Fest in downtown Canton in 2023.
Lots of folks consider the end of the Congressional stalemate the biggest news story of last week, but I know better.
The really important news was the announcement that a British geneticist has matched alleged "Abominable Snowman" DNA to a polar-bear species that lived 40,000 years ago. Bryan Sykes of Oxford University is advancing a theory that modern Yeti sightings in the Himalayas may actually be unknown polar- and brown-bear hybrids.
This is where, if I had something worthwhile to add to Yeti/Bigfoot/Sasquatch lore, I'd say, "I don't know what it was I saw in the mountains that day back in 1987, but it sure as heck wasn't a polar bear."
Except that's never happened. I've never been to the Himalayas. Heck, I've barely been outside. I'm one of the lazy tourists that Edward Abbey wrote about in "Desert Solitaire" who experiences the outdoors from the air-conditioned comfort of a car. Any large, shaggy beasts would have to be visible from the road or the lodge, or they'd escape my notice.
Maybe that's because, as a child, I was traumatized by two books about Bigfoot. I still have "The Mysterious Monsters" by Robert and Frances Guenette, its orangish-yellow cover showing a drawing of a large hominid silhouetted in the light of a full moon. "Proof!" the cover intones. "There are giant creatures living at the edge of our civilization. Astounding new evidence and facts!"
The really important news was the announcement that a British geneticist has matched alleged "Abominable Snowman" DNA to a polar-bear species that lived 40,000 years ago. Bryan Sykes of Oxford University is advancing a theory that modern Yeti sightings in the Himalayas may actually be unknown polar- and brown-bear hybrids.
This is where, if I had something worthwhile to add to Yeti/Bigfoot/Sasquatch lore, I'd say, "I don't know what it was I saw in the mountains that day back in 1987, but it sure as heck wasn't a polar bear."
Except that's never happened. I've never been to the Himalayas. Heck, I've barely been outside. I'm one of the lazy tourists that Edward Abbey wrote about in "Desert Solitaire" who experiences the outdoors from the air-conditioned comfort of a car. Any large, shaggy beasts would have to be visible from the road or the lodge, or they'd escape my notice.
Maybe that's because, as a child, I was traumatized by two books about Bigfoot. I still have "The Mysterious Monsters" by Robert and Frances Guenette, its orangish-yellow cover showing a drawing of a large hominid silhouetted in the light of a full moon. "Proof!" the cover intones. "There are giant creatures living at the edge of our civilization. Astounding new evidence and facts!"
Lost to time, however, is "Sasquatch" by John Napier.
Its cover had been thoroughly gummed by my baby sister, depositing her own DNA into the argument. "STARTLING EVIDENCE OF ANOTHER FORM OF LIFE ON EARTH NOW" it offered, along with the promise of eight pages of "revealing" photographs. (My memory isn't that good, but Google's is.)
The mind of a third-grader being extremely gullible, I accepted Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Yeti as fact, ignoring how most of the cited "experts" were good old boys whose cryptozoological encounters were accompanied by liberal applications of alcohol. The books made it seem like all these creatures were part of a big, extended family, lurking in woods, lakes and snow-capped mountain ranges around the world, getting together once a year — maybe on Christmas or Hanukkah — to swap fruitcakes and stories.
Frighteningly, the swingset in our backyard was located about 50 yards away from an immense woods. In retrospect, it was no more than a few dozen trees that abutted against the neighbors' properties, but at the time, it felt vast. Whenever I went out to play, I kept an eye on that woods, lest some hairy creature lumber out, searching for little boys for a between-meal snack.
The best offense being a good defense (or something like that), I practiced swinging as high as I could and then jumping off in the direction of the house, figuring those few seconds of air time would provide the advantage I needed to outrun a Bigfoot if he chose to attack.
At night, I lay in bed, my copy of "The Mysterious Monsters" opened to the pertinent section ("Exhibit A: The Long History of Bigfoot in America," pages 51-62), listening for the creatures' distinctive cries, wondering if they were smart enough to stand on one another's shoulders and peek through my bedroom window. Or maybe they were in cahoots with the vampires and werewolves I was convinced lurked out there, too.
Growing older, I relegated Bigfoot and his ilk to the Urban -- or, in this case, Rural -- Myth file, thinking about it only when I went into the woods (seldom) or played on a swingset (also rare).
But I'm still curious about the creatures and will click on any link that promises new evidence, even though it's all the same half-baked, rum-soaked conjectures dressed up for a new year.
Sykes' theory sounds more plausible, however. If it does turn out that something really has been terrorizing Himalayan climbers all these years, that would cool. But if it ends up being just a bear, even one as significant as a previously unknown breed, that would be too bad.
Without a little mystery, all we'd have left in the daily news is Congress, and they're a far less interesting breed of Mysterious Monsters.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
cschillig at Twitter
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