Get that sum-bitch !!

Let’s go back to when I was a wee lad of thirteen. We lived on an Indian reservation between Pocatello and American Falls (yeah, that’s a WHOLE different story).
The entire area was farm land, with the exception of a few houses strewn here and there.  The area itself was farmland, but there was a bout a one mile stretch that belonged to our family. My great granny lived on the end of the lane (or beginning, depending on how you look at it), then my uncle, then our place, then my grandma.  This one mile dirt road is where I busted my driving cherry (and subsequently included driving through an entire fence and scratching the car from top to bottom trying to race like Knight Rider (but that’s a whole different story). I got to drive down to the end of the lane to get the mail from time to time. Yes, at the old age 13. Hell, it was the style at the time.

So the family gatherings at that place were legendary. Three houses within a couple hundred yards, one garage with a permanently tapped keg, games of pinochle that would last until the wee hours of the morning, little tiny cousins running around (you know who you are) and just a general sense of an Italian family bonding over beer, food and isolation. In the immortal words of Phil Hartman; good times, good times.

As a kid in this place, it was like Disneyland. I got to run to the garage and refill the beers from time to time (naturally, testing the beer to make sure it was fit for consumption), got the occasional lesson in pinochle and even handed over the shotgun so the grownups could shoot at the wild packs of dogs roaming the country side. Yes, wild packs of dogs. People from Pocatello would get dogs, realize they required food and pooper scoopers and then just dump them out on the reservation. Well, feral doggies do what feral doggies do; they get in packs and attack whatever looks like food. Many a time, I’d watch my dad and uncles blasting at those damn wild dogs. A true life shooting gallery fueled by alcohol and abandonment, but that’s a WHOLE different story.  Ok, did I say Disneyland? I probably meant something a little more like “awesome-land”, but I digress into a situation that became very serious, very quickly.. What could possibly derail that train of fun you ask? The dreaded half man, half ape known as bigfoot.

(keep in mind this is 1983’ish)

Now, I’m not entirely sure where the news story came from, but somehow, the topic of bigfoot came to light. There apparently was a reported sighting in the area. The discussion went on for a while at the house and after some much heated debate, the mission was clear; we’re gonna shoot that sum-bitch. Normally that topic, that language and that visual isn’t very serious, but there was one member of the family deathly afraid of said sasquatch. My uncle Jim. The man does not like bigfoot, doesn’t want to talk about it and absolutely, at the time, believed it was a real threat and true menace to the farmlands near Pocatello.  I can’t be certain that he still maintains that belief, but if I were a betting man, I’d say that bigfoot still haunts his dreams from time to time.

So, mullered up, armed with rifles and spotlights, the men in the family decided they’d go find bigfoot and take him out. With the power to rid the world of such a beast coursing through their veins, they were off. I don’t know if my subconscious has blocked it out or not, but I’m almost certain there were several of the wives less than enthused with the aforementioned safari, but once those guys get something in their mind, there isn’t much to say to convince them otherwise.

 I really wish I would have a more cognizant understanding of the whole event. Seen through the eyes of a 13 year old boy, half drunk from beer run taste tests, I’m sure it was quite substantially less exciting than I remember, but the tension was palpable, the bell bottoms were tucked in, the 80’s hair was flowing and the spotlights were shining bright. I fell asleep before they got back and there wasn’t much discussion about it the next day, other than the occasional sheepish apology and several pots of black coffee. To me, they were heroes, chasing the beast, ridding the world of the bad guy, slaying the proverbial dragon; one cold-on tap- Coors at a time.

In retrospect, I’m  curious if Bigfoot actually does exist. If he was in the area at the time and saw a beer’d up, gun wagon coming his way, I’m sure he’d had to of fled. But, on the other hand, the sheer spectacle must have been worth a closer look.

When it’s all said and done, I’m sure that the sheer volume of other drunk, gun toting, big foot hunting, family expeditions back in the 80’s was so commonplace, that if there was a bigfoot, he’d be hanging on someone’s wall by now. 

I mean, really, that’s probably a very similar story to what everyone else has to tell about dad’s and uncles, right? A very totally normal story. Now, UFO’s? Well, that’s a WHOLE different story.

Sláinte

Kjc