Editorial: 50 Years of Bigfoot

(NO, that does not read 50 Years WITH Bigfoot; this is not about the Janice Carter book).

October 1958. Northern California, in Del Norte and Humboldt Counties. A road building crew, contracted by the Wallace brothers (Ray, Roy and Wilbur) and owned by Thomas Sourwine, experiences unusual activity as they attempt to build roads through forest land. Strange and large footprints are found in and around road building sites, as well as camps, and occasionally sightings of large, hairy, manlike creatures are made as well. Catskinner (one who drives a bulldozer) Jerry Crew has seen tracks around his bulldozer for over a month and is very puzzled by these events, and decides to share this with the world, so his friend, taxidermist Bob Titmus encourages him to buy some Plaster of Paris and shows him how to cast with it, and Jerry casts one large 17 1/2-inch track, 7 1/2 inches across the ball of the foot and takes it to the local newspaper, the Humboldt Times, where editor Andrew Genzoli writes up an article about the strange footprint and also displays a photo of Crew holding the cast. The creature needed a name, however, and that name was provided by Rocky Bemis' Mom-Big Foot. The actual headline read "New Sasquatch Found-It's Called Big Foot," and it became a household word. Before this, the creature was known in the Pacific Northwest as Sasquatch, a phrase coined by former teacher J.W. Burns, and know variously as booger, wildman, gorilla, haints and a variety of other names nationwide. Before the name Big Foot came along, the most famous hominid was the Himalayan Mountains-dwelling Abominable Snowman, or Yeti. Of course, there were reports for thousands of years of giant hairy bipeds, including the Ape Canyon, Ostman and William Roe accounts which were all pre-1958, but finally in October of '58, there was a name, a marketable name, to go along with the creatures themselves. Sometime later (not sure when, possibly in the 1970's) the creature's nickname was shortened to Bigfoot, which is all one word and much more recognizable. Of course, the most famous sighting and recording of a Bigfoot is the Patterson/Gimlin Movie, but it is still today in dispute, over 40 years after it was taken. It is in dispute because of a certain Bob Heironimus who claims to have been in the suit. The original 1958 tracks are also in question because of the death of Ray Wallace in late-2002 in which his family "'fessed up" to Ray's hoaxing of tracks in the Bluff Creek area and the media ran with it and believed that Wallace's death destroyed Bigfoot once and for all. Well, maybe the one-two punch of the Wallace "confession" and the allegations from Bob Heironimus regarding the P/G Movie told the general public that Sasquatch is nothing but a myth, but it did NOT destroy the reports or the popularity of America's favorite hairy biped. Bigfoot is seen in many advertisements, such as the popular Jack Link's beef jerky franchise, as well as being used in various commercials such as Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream Parlor, Ask.com ads, a Canadian courier company and various other advertising campaigns. Bigfoot is seen practically all over TV and the Internet, sometimes in a humorous context, other times in serious scientific studies. Even if the creature itself does not exist (but I know differently, having seen one ten years ago today), it is still a great cultural phenomenon and a truly recognizable icon worldwide. Hail to Bigfoot-50 years and it still remains elusive.