Waiting for Bigfoot

There are a certain minority of people in this country, a small but very vocal group, who continue to believe in something long after the rest of us have come around on the issue and see that, whatever our beliefs, times are changing. I'm speaking, of course, of the people who believe in Bigfoot (or Sasquatch, as the Native Americans never called him).

Last night, after a great HIMYM, I was bereft of tv-viewing options so I thought I'd check out Finding Bigfoot, which of course is all about not finding Bigfoot, no matter how hard you try. And these people that were trying were really putting their hearts into it. You have Matt Moneymaker (not sure if that's an alias), Bobo (pretty sure that is an alias), and a couple of other people who have devoted their lives to searching for an elusive creature whose proof of life has never been found. Let me say that again: they're looking for something that doesn't exist. Like unicorn enthusiasts or Obama-is-destroying-this-country conservatives, however, they persist in their way of belief.

I mock them, yes, but deep down I understand the appeal. As a young child weaned on Unsolved Mysteries and other "searching for stuff" TV shows, I have an enquiring mind, no matter how skeptical it can be when confronted with hard evidence. And there's nothing saying that, ten or twenty years from now, a Sasquatch or Loch Ness monster will be found alive (though the fact that we've never found fossils of either, and that the cited photographic evidence for both has been debunked). Stranger things have happened, and continue to happen. But somewhere beyond the border of believing and knowing, facts can get lost. And along with facts, your mind. These people left their minds behind some time ago.

But I have to admire their zeal, even if I question the pursuit to which they devote so much of their energy. It's the ultimate scientific find, if it ever comes to pass that Bigfoot does exist but just really, really values his privacy. It's like alien life being found on Mars, or a Republican who can win back Latino voters after all the anti-immigration talk of the past few election cycles. It will make news if it ever turns out that the Bigfoot hunters were right all along.

I envy people that love their jobs, that love what they do. I love to write, though I haven't gotten paid for it in a while (and even then, it wasn't much to live off of). So in that sense, I can't be too harsh on the Finding Bigfoot crew, no matter how much I snicker at the actions they undertake to find him, or the precise scientific jargon they employ to describe what is essentially a figment of their imagination. Sometimes the nuts are right...just probably not in this case.

So I guess, if this whole writing-for-a-living thing never quite pans out, I can set out for the areas of the country with the highest percentage of Sasquatch activity and track them down in the name of science. Though I do wonder if the cast of Finding Bigfoot aren't having a little fun at our expense...now there may be evidence of that, for sure. I mean, what grown man encourages people to refer to him as "Bobo"?

Whatever else, Finding Bigfoot is more plausible than any of those ghost-hunting shows. Granted, there could very well be supernatural things out there, I just don't think they'll respond to guys who dress like roadies for Justin Bieber...