The Town Talk from Alexandria, Louisiana • Page 37

Advice, C-10 WeddingsEngagements, C-13 Sunday April 16, 1995 C-7 Sheila Taylor Wells Fort Worth Star-Telegram The hunt for Sightings of hairy human-like creature in Cenla it didn't fit him. Other people see him so much that they say, 'Oh, that's just old Bigfoot' and go on about their business. They don't even report it anymore. "Some cattlemen have reported the hindquarter of a steer cut off, but that doesn't happen often." Other people are startled to the point of shooting at the creatures, an act Bryant denounces. "If they kill one, they don't report it because when they get close to it, it looks to human," he says.

"They shouldn't be shot. They're part of nature, and I love nature so much, I think we should seek the truth about it." Though Bryant has never communicated with a Sasquatch, he also has never met anyone who has tried to talk to one. That doesn't mean he hasn't heard one. i "Listen to this," he says, holding a tape recorder to his telephone receiver. There is static, then what sounds like the cry of a bird.

"That's him," Bryant says, excitement in his voice again. "Yes, the bird sound was him. He's a deceptive creature, all right. 'm "A blind man in Bogue Chitto, recorded He's sharp, and his dogs always barked when this sound began around his house. He took his tape recorder out one night and recorded it.

He believes it's Bigfoot." Meanwhile, from his home in Carthage, Texas, W.G. Lawrence tells his story. Saw a figure walking He owns a camp on Saline Lake, just west of Winnfield. About 15 years ago, he and some family members were sitting on the porch when they saw a figure walking on its hind legs along an old fence line. "Sightings of Bigfoot in that area were numerous then, and my grandsons pointed out this animal," Lawrence says.

"It wasn't much taller than what a bear would have been, and it walked stooped over like a bear. I'm not a superstitious person, and I'm not saying it was Bigfoot. I don't know what it was." The moral of the story? Bryant knows. "The moral of the story is that we should preserve nature," he says. "Bigfoot is a part of that, and we've destroyed so much of our environment and what we lines out, and when they come back, their fish are gone," Bryant says.

"They say Bigfoot got their fish." Daniel Cohen, in his book Monsters, Giants and Little Men from Mars, says the Sasquatch phenomenon in the continental United States first became prominent in the 1920s and 1930s in the work of Canadian writer J.W. Burns. Burns described the Sasquatch as a giant Indian. His character became so popular that a Sasquatch Inn was built near the town of Harrison, British Columbia. Still, the earliest record of large mysterious footprints in North America dates back to 1811.

"An explorer named David Thompson was crossing the Rockies at the site of what is now Jasper, Alberta, when he came across a track 14 inches by 8 inches and showing four toes, a deep impression of the ball of the foot, short claw marks and an indistinct heel," Cohen writes. "They think it was the first record of a Bigfoot track. We shall never know." Found Bigfoot tracks Bryant has found his own Bigfoot tracks, hundreds of miles from the Rocky Mountains. "I found them in McComb, he says. "I made some plaster footprints from them." Bryant also found hair samples he says belonged to a Sasquatch in McComb as well as near Bunkie.

He had the samples analyzed by a laboratory and an expert in California, all determining that the hair does not belong to a human. "The hair samples I found near Bunkie matched those I found in McComb," Bryant says. "They have the same genetic make-up. It's not human hair because it doesn't absorb water like human hair. It's not round and straight like a human hair.

It's bigger, and it curls into the body when it gets wet, protecting the body." Bryant's personal glimpse of Bigfoot also came in McComb. He was standing in a field with a friend when he saw three of the creatures staring back him. The creatures appeared to be large stumps, but Bryant could discern heads and shoulders. "I wasn't close enough to see their faces, and they didn't move," he says. "They're so elusive and enigmatic that you have to be on your toes to understand what you're seeing.

They come out just before dark, and if they see you, they won't move. Oh, they're smart they're very smart." He laughs. By Robin Miller Staff reporter Shhhhhhh. Be very quiet. We're staking out Bigfoot.

That's right. Bigfoot. What? You don't believe in Bigfoot? Come on. Really? You really don't believe in the existence of Sasquatch? Well, sit here with us, anyway. And wait.

The scene is set dusk by a lakeside in an open field. No trees, no stumps, nothing. Creepy, huh? Wait a minute, look over there, in the distance. Three tall tree stumps that weren't there awhile ago. Or were they? Let's take a closer look.

What? You don't want to? I thought you didn't believe in Bigfoot. Well, then, let's sneak over and take a closer look. Hey! Did you see that? The tree stumps are moving. Could it be? It has to be. Bigfoot, three of them.

All right! They do exist! Stop that. I said quit tugging on my sleeve. What is your problem, anyway? Oh no! You're right. The Bigfoot family not only is walking, they're heading our way! Run! RUN! His offing name is Sasquatch, but people simply call him Bigfoot. Maybe it's easier to remember, the nickname that derives from the large footprints left behind by the creature.

Books, both fiction and nonfiction, have been written about him. Films have even been made. And people have reported seeing him throughout the United States. Which means, of course, there are more than one if you believe in that sort of thing. There are plenty, of people who do.

Attorney Bryant Conway of Baker is a true believer. So much that he's been investigating sightings of the creature for the past 30 years, many of them in central Louisiana. Being a central Louisiana native, hailing from Glenmora, makes the investigations all the more interesting for Bryant. "Oh, Bigfoot's been seen all over the central Louisiana area," Bryant says, voice racing excitedly over the telephone line from his office in Baker upon mention of the creature. "He's been seen in Oakdale, between Oakdale and Alexandria, on Highway 28 West, on Bayou Rapides and in the Camp Beauregard area.

"The most recent call I've gotten has been from Echo. They've seen him along the Red River. I've talked to a number of people in the area who have seen him." There's much speculation if, in fact, Bigfoot does exist, about the creature's origins. He is known to walk upright like humans, yet he is much taller and has more hair than the average person. Author Ruth Shannon Odor, in her book Bigfoot, writes that, through the ages, people have always told stories about monsters, giants and other strange creatures.

Tales of animals that act like humans are especially popular. They are found in ancient stories of the Norsemen, the Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and the Salish tribes, who gave the creature its official name, Sasquatch. Bigfoot is said to be between 7- and 12-feet-tall. The creature can weigh up to 500 pounds, and, except for face palms and soles of the feet, hair covers its entire body. Hair usually black or reddish brown The hair is usually described as either black or reddish brown.

The creature has a short neck and broad, powerful shoulders stretching more than a yard wide. Its arms are long, much like those of a gorilla, and the face is flat with a pug nose and sloping forehead. "He's fast on foot and scary, but he never hurts anyone," Bryant says. "There are a lot of people who have seen him up close. There are farmers who say that he used to come up and eat their dog food." Dog food? "Yeah, Purina Dog Food," Bryant continues.

"We take care of our animals by feeding them Purina. It has plenty of vitamins and minerals, many times a lot better than our food. So they're probably eating better than us." Other favorites on Sasquatch's Louisiana menu are fruit, fish and crawfish. "There are a lot of fishermen who set their have, we should try to save the rest. "They're called night humans, Bryant continues.

"That's an appropriate name for them, and they travel about 80 miles at a time. They're nomadic creatures. They could go from Alexandria to the Black River to Natchez to the Wildlife Management Center, where they know they're protected. "They have family units, so they stay together." Bryant has been featured on Baton Rouge television stations three times in conjunction with his ongoing investigation. "People don't always want to talk about things they know are out there but other people might not believe," Bryant says.

"I learned the hard way growing up in Glenmora. I learned to be a little tough. Equator is not a dotted line after all You're never going to believe this, but I just got back from seeing the equator, and it is not a clotted line. It isn't even a real line of any kind, except where there's a commemorative structure of some sort, and even then, there's just a plain old strip of concrete. "Look here," I said to my travel companions, or, "mis com-paneros de go-places." "Every globe and map I've looked at my whole life long shows as clear as anything that the equator is a dotted line.

How do they expect us to believe this is the real equator?" Why, in most places, you can't even see anything there at all to tell you what in the heck hemisphere you're standing in. What's needed is a little American ingenuity. I say we should belt the whole equator in a strip of bright green neon. Wouldn't that be fantastic? We could fund Christo, the sculptor who specializes in Grand Canyon-draping and umbrella-studding California to do it, as soon as he gets through wrapping Germany, which is his current endeavor. I'm still not sure we actually crossed that pesky equator, because I forgot to test the swirling water theory, which is that on one side of the equator, water spins down the drain clockwise and on the other, counter-clockwise.

I did notice, however, that for the entire time we were south of that concrete strip purporting to be the equator, my bangs curled up instead of down, and I was right-handed instead of left-handed, which is usually the case. Concrete strip So. Perhaps indeed, they've supplanted the dotted line with a concrete strip; ah, Whither goest? This all took place in Ecuador, land of intricately designed clouds, ethereally misty mountains, greens upon blues upon greens upon blues, cobbled streets threading colonial towns, ancient ruins and a really good potato soup. What they do is this: starting with chicken stock or a cream base either is tasty; I prefer the chicken stock they add potatoes, cheese, avocados, hard-boiled egg and nuts. Some versions contain bits of pork, some, chicken, some omit the egg, but all made for tasty, inexpensive meals with enough required-daily minimum fat grams for a whole week in one bowl, representing, obviously, a most efficient way of eating.

On our very first morning in beautiful, mostly modern Quito, we were set upon by a gang of vicious pickpockets. They tore at our bodies, grabbed at our clothes and bandied us about their whole pickpocketing team, right in the midst of the Saturday morning market mob. Held onto belongings We held fast to our belongings, however, even after one slashed open my backpack with a razor. Fortunately, I had by then converted the backpack to a front-pack, and I suggest you do the same, next time you're traveling in crowds. I think some of the natives were trying to help us, but we couldn't tell which.

Oh, the brazenness of it all, and we had even taken the precaution of traveling with the biggest man in all of Ecuador, Bill Benge. Towering above the crowd, he stood on a corner and watched It all. "You looked like you were being attacked by piranhas," he said. In Otavalo, a beautiful little town about two hours north of Quito, we met Tim Crowley, a Bostonian businessman who went to Ecuador to study Spanish a few months ago, fell in love with the place and opened up the Plaza Cafe. And there he sits, happy as a Charles River clam, even though the village has no electricity for several hours a day, and he had no restaurant experience whatsoever.

"Where do you get your recipes?" I asked. "E-mail," he said. Well, of course. Sheila Taylor Weill is a columnist for tfie Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I.

"I have a lot of fun and get a lot of pleasure talking to people who have seen Bigfoot. I'm fortunate to have time to investigate it." From Bryant's conversations with central Louisiana residents, the Bigfoot creatures in the area are not antagonistic. One woman living near Cocodrie Lake even told Bryant of an incident where one of the creatures crept up behind while she was hanging laundry on a clothesline. "He took a denim shirt off if ii the clothesline and tried to put it on," Bryant says, laughing again. "Of course, Av 6 ri- 1 a 1 ff I'll, hAi I.