I have not yet reached that point in my life where I feel the need to look into my ancestry. I imagine someone before me has done the work on this already, but for now, to not know the origin of my last name is not a big deal. Perhaps many, many generations ago a patriarch of this family was a lawn mower, renowned for his ability to finely carve each lawn and garden. Or perhaps he was a lobbyist, a man who successfully pried favor from those in power, be it from kings or parliament. Then again, he may have been an importer, and when his finest mix of Indian spices were blended together just right, he was known by the spice name on the window of his shop. I don’t know which one of those scenarios is correct, nor do I know if any of them are. One thing I know, Matt Moneymaker likely didn’t derive his last name from such noble pursuits.
But I don’t really know that, and I don’t know Matt Moneymaker. You probably don’t either. He’s the hairy faced man behind the Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization, and while I can’t say that I know him, I do know a bit about him. I know that he’s pretty sure there’s always a squatch in those woods. What woods? Any woods. You can’t find a woods that doesn’t have a squatch in it, and this is what it’s like to be Matt Moneymaker. I admit a slight, juvenile fascination with Bigfoot. I admit, during a visit to Marco Island last month, to visiting the Official Skunk Ape Research Headquarters. While in that garage turned official headquarters, I asked the guy behind the counter if he was a believer. He said he wasn’t. I said I wasn’t either. It was his dad’s deal, he explained, and his dad is not only a believer, he is also the utmost authority on the skunk ape. He knows they exist. Just like Matt Moneymaker. They are likely friends.
My slight curiosity on the issue of Bigfoot stems from a general belief that humans, no matter where they live, base even exaggerated tales on some form of truth. While these Big Foot eyewitnesses might be seeing bears, or wolves, or other men in suits, it’s obvious that whatever they see scares the living tar out of them. The inherent problem with the existence of Bigfoot is the fact that no one has a dead one in a display case somewhere. There are no bones. Take the question of this to Google and you’ll learn that Bigfoots bury their dead, which explains absolutely nothing, unless you also believe that their bones are invisible, which is possible. Even so, if we are to believe in Bigfoot, as does the Moneymaker, we must agree that it wouldn’t be prudent to live near them. Bigfoots are a lot of things, but they are not great neighbors.
My curiosity led me to the BFRO website, and to their county specific map of reported sightings and Squatchy occurrences. First, I checked Walworth County, home of Geneva Lake and my personal eternal summer. No sightings. Not a one. Phew. If Matt Moneymaker believes there’s a squatch in these woods, he certainly wasn’t talking about the woods around Geneva Lake. The thought of faking a few sightings in order to get Matt to come here with his misfit crew did cross my mind, but only for the Bigfoot tourism it would bring to Lake Geneva.
Looking East, I thought to check Berrien County, home of the sad town of New Buffalo. Expecting nothing, I was pleased to learn that they have had sightings there. Two of them, in fact. And one of these sightings wasn’t your normal “there was a tall thing crossing the road in the dark while I drove home from the bar at 2 am”. This was a different sighting. It was a different sort of squatch. From the BFRO site:
I had sent my brothers all to bed an hour or so before and had been lying on the living room couch watching television around 11pm when I heard a noise outside the window the couch was situated under. It was quite loud and extremely close, just outside the window against the side of the house… close enough that I could hear an intake of breath from the source of the sound. I was horribly frightened by the sound, because I had never heard anything like it in my entire life. It was a howling scream that sounded like something dying and it gradually shifted to a gurgling chuckle or laugh-like sound that lasted maybe around 10 seconds. It did not repeat and no other sound were heard. I have heard many screams from human and animal sources including rabbits, deer, dogs, cats, raccoons and possums but this sounded nothing like any of them even remotely… What I heard did not sound human at all, it actually sounded “evil” to me,
Later in the account, the laugh was described as being “demonic”. And when he went outside to look for footprints later that next day, there were none. Not even big ones. According to Bobo, that’s classic squatch behavior. Now, I’m just a kid from Lake Geneva, but I can’t think of many things more terrifying than a demonic Bigfoot. While the above account was from a sighting in 1974, I think all this time between now and then would serve only to make that Bigfoot tougher, perhaps more jaded, and more demonic.
Lake Geneva, Sasquatch free since the beginning of time. Reason #18,843,229 that Lake Geneva is the place for you.