Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Bigfoot

I'm working on my home computer that has so many problems that it is a waste of time to whine, but I will have to add a bunch of info tomorrow. However, I do want to get this started because it is such and interesting subject. I am surprised that I haven't done a post about Bigfoot before.

 As everybody knows, this blog has an element of "bullshistory" about it. So, the Bigfoot story fits perfectly upon these pages. Most of you also know that I don't believe in anything that I can't hit with a hammer. Those of you that REALLY know me, know that I will believe most anything that somebody tells me, so I have to fall back on my reality test, if I can't hit it with a hammer, it ain't real. As a romantic, I like to believe in fairy tales and legends, but the farther back that a person goes in history, the more fantastic the stories get, to the point where most everyone might say, "That probably didn't happen". One of my favorite legends is about "Bran the Giant" who was so large that he could wade the Irish Sea from England to Ireland. There is some lingering evidence that he really existed, how large he really was is open to speculation, but the birds in wales, called "Bran", are named after him, and the Bran in Branscomb is from the birds that live in a valley in England. So, to deny legend and fairy tales would be to deny my heritage. So, let's go from there and maybe you will all keep an open mind to the possibility of the existence of "Bigfoot".

Maybe the reason that I haven't posted about Bigfoot, is that it is rightfully the bailiwick of Ekovox, who was raised in Willow Creek and went to Hoopa High school. He used to have a blog called "299 Opine". It was an extremely interesting Blog, filled with local history and comment, but alas, he was ground down by the negativism that is rampant amongst blog sites and dumped the whole thing, much to my, and many others, consternation. But, Ekovox is the rightful expert on Bigfoot stories, so my natural instinct was to hope that someday he might relate his experiences.

I must warn you about Ekovox though.... In Indian legend, the Coyote is well known as "The Trickster". The coyote can be anything that he wants to be, he can be a man, a woman, a deer, a frog or a snake. He is very smart, but sometimes his intelligence gets him into trouble. He is very magical, but most of all, he is tricky and he has a great sense of humor. Ekovox? Well... he IS the Coyote.

Once, a while back, I found a 19th century hand-carved shaving horse, made from the trunk of a white oak tree. Not knowing what it was, I wisely put it on my blog, knowing full well that someone out there would surely know what it was. Ekovox wrote to me that it was a sluice box gate lock, used in mining the Trinity River. He told me something like, "that was the base that held the lever to the sluice gate, that when the sluice box filled with gravel and gold that they would open the lever that would let the gravel out and they could just pick the gold out of the bottom." He also suggested that I should donate it to a museum. Ekovox is steeped in Humboldt history. His father was a Willow Creek and Blocksburg historian of great renown, so I trusted him without question, and went about trying to secure my new found historic treasure for a museum. I was thinking that the Willow Creek museum would be an appropriate place.

Later Don Orazem told me what it really was. If you go outside and listen on a calm night, you can still hear the Coyote laughing at me.

I told you this story so you will know that not ALL things from Willow Creek, or in the case of Bigfoot, Bluff Creek, are true. Now that we are clear, I want to tell you that I know someone, that first hand, empirical evidence, saw Bigfoot. He was running across the road between Miranda and Myers Flat, about the area of Elk Creek. This is a man that I trust to be a "truth-teller". He explains it, "I saw what I saw. It was very tall, it walked upright like a man, and in ran down the bank like a man, not a bear. You explain what I saw if it wasn't a Bigfoot."

I was talking to a lady today who does some camping at Willow Creek, she said that someone out there told her that the kids get bored sometimes and they dress up like Bigfoot, then the run across the road to see if anybody will report it. They think that it's a big deal if it makes the paper.

I'll add more sometime tomorrow, I just wanted to get this started. The main point of this story is Robin wants to know if anybody knows anything about Jerry Crew and Ray Wallace from an incident in 1958?

Addendum 11-9-11:
Here is the link to the story that Robin was asking about: http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/true1959.htm

To anyone trying to make some sense out of this story, please read the comments in the post http://ernielb.blogspot.com/2011/11/nothing-holds-back-time-nor-tide-except.html



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35 comments:

Ernie Branscomb said...

Does anybody have any Bigfoot stories? or any information on the main players of the above link?

Ernie Branscomb said...

Ross???

Ross Sherburn said...

When my typing finger thaws out and my brain is in gear.........

Ernie Branscomb said...

A hot buttered rum will work for both maladies.

Ross Sherburn said...

That would be "Hair of the Dog" !!

Ross Sherburn said...

Remember at some logging site/landing,there was some full 55 gallon drums that had been moved around.They thought Bigfoot had done it? This may have been in Trinity County. Can anyone elaborate on this?

Ernie Branscomb said...

I suspect that "The Coyote" knows more about this story than any of us. However, he has been very busy lately making Rotary Videos.

Ross Sherburn said...

A person needs to watch "Harry and the Hendersons", to get the real jist of whats going on here!!!

Robin Shelley said...

Now I have another question but this one is about a tofu burger. A year or so ago, I asked on here for an acquaintance who was looking for a recipe about a tofu burger that she had some years back in G-ville. Ernie put me on to Bill Staples, whom my acquaintance contacted, but he didn't know what she was talking about.
Got a card from my friend with more info. She says the restaurant was "on an elevated road in the town area on the side of a hill. It was a lovely place & was posh! It seems it was on a street off the main drag. Someone told me that the building burned down." She also says that she remembers something about a puzzle contest taking place in a large older building on the main street when she was there. Does any of this ring a bell with anybody? Oh! She also says the burger was made with a solid piece of tofu & not served sloppy joe style. I wonder if the place was really in G-ville or if it was in a nearby town. I thank you in advance,
Robin

Ernie Branscomb said...

Okay Robin, this time it rings a bell for me. The ladies name was **** Devine. The name of her company was "Soy Devine" she had a route and delivered her soy products around Southern Humboldt and parts north.

Her business was at Maple Hills which is where the miranda exit crosses the South Fork. It was up on a little flat above the old maple hills store. You are right her stuff was delicious.
I know people who knew her. I can probably get any info that you want.

Robin Shelley said...

My acquaintance would really love to have the recipe for that tofu burger! Thinks it included soy sauce & garlic.

Ernie Branscomb said...

The next time that you are in Humboldt County stop at most any grocery store and pick up a bottle of "Soy-Vey" It is a local product made of teriaky, garlic, and sesame seeds. It would made an excellent marinade for tofu.

I use it on tri-tip myself. I'm told that eating tofu will turn a person into a girl...

Ernie Branscomb said...

Robin, click on the following link and read item number 3221 to bottom of page. Soy Devine Link




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Ben said...

From Bigfoot to soy burgers... A strange jump. Martha Devine was my tenant when she made her soy sloppy joes. They were quite good. She said she got the texture by freezing the tofu. She now lives up north and goes by the name "Granny Greenjeans". She crusades against Genetically Modified Food and generally raises hell about us wasteful and morally corrupt meat eaters. You hear her sometimes on Paul and Tom's Monday evening KMUD talk show.
Ernie... Do you know Jim Farris? I run into him in town sometimes and he has a great Bigfoot story about the brothers who scammed everyone on a construction job on 299 years ago. The Times Standard was in on the story. Jim was on the construction crew and told me the whole tale 40 years ago. Not that I don't believe in Bigfoot...

Robin Shelley said...

I remember Suzy B. told me about Granny Greenjeans. Will pass on the info again. Thank you all so much!
Bigfoot to soy burgers? What's strange about that, Ben? LOL!

Ross Sherburn said...

The incident I mentioned before would have happened in the early to mid sixties. I had a highschool teacher at Trinity High that knew something about it,but he never did elaborate about it???

Ross Sherburn said...

refer to Nov. 9th post at 6:41 pm

Ross Sherburn said...

Guess I'm from the "old school"?
Real or not? Bigfoot was a big "fun" topic years ago!
I hate to see the lack of interest here!
Maybe too many Yuppie new comers?

Ben said...

Jim Farris told me the brothers on the construction job made a wooden foot to make the tracks but they never made the other foot so all the Bigfoot tracks were the same foot...

Robin Shelley said...

Hey, Eko? Is there a cast of the (Big)footprints found/made by Jerry (&) Crew in the Willow Creek museum?

Ross Sherburn said...

Robin,There was a documentry about this on TV last week&showed some of the museum. Maybe you can Google it and watch it on the computer. Sorry,I don't remember the title!!!

Ross Sherburn said...

Is Jim Farris Dan Farris's Dad?
Jim was a Deputy Sheriff out at Trinity Center at one time?

Ernie Branscomb said...

Yes, Jim Farris is Dan Farris's dad.
I didn't know that any of the Farris were deputies. I've known them from back in the '60s when mom and dad owned the Briceland bar and restaurant

Now I know why all the toes are the same size and the went straight across the front. ONE FOOT. That's probably why they call him BigFOOT instead of BigFEET. (lol)

Ekovox said...

You people are nuts! There is no Bigfoot, never has been a Bigfoot, Sasquatch is a bald-face lie made up by the local.......wait.....what's that hairy thing coming across that ridge? Is that.....Is that.....Jesus, he just threw a 55-gallon drum right over that D-9 Cat! Oh, nevermind, it's just one of them consarned Southern Humboldt newcomer longhairs communing with nature. Nothing to see here, people. Move along.

Hupa Indian legend, based upon fact. Bigfoot is living proof that Southern Humboldt newcomers mated with the buffalo.

Ross Rowley said...

Visit the China Flat Museum in Willow Creek. All Bigfoot evidence will be explained.

Oh, and the logging incident in 1958 up at Bluff Creek? Haa Haa Haaa Haaa HAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAA! It's time for ya'll to understand the wry humor of former Times-Standard reporter Scoop Beal.

The truth is out there. It is written.

Willow Creek Chamber of Commerce said...

Yes, there IS a Bigfoot.

Hoopa High Boosters Club said...

Hoopa Warriors 50 South Fork Cubs 14


Perhaps you boys should recruit a couple of Bigfoots to play for your team. We did! Buhahaahaaahaahhaahaaahaaaa!!!!!

Ross Sherburn said...

I wish Ekovox would tell more???

Ekovox (Ross Rowley) said...

Ross, honestly, what would you like to know about the Bigfoot legend in Willow Creek? I'll tell you what I know.

Ernie Branscomb said...

“Yes, there IS a Bigfoot.”

The Spirit of Bigfoot is alive and well. There are degrees of acceptance to the flesh and blood Bigfoot though. To the people that genuinely claim to have seen him, Bigfoot is very real. To people like myself, I’ll believe he is real when I can hit him with the hammer of reality. But, deep in my heart, I would like to believe that there is a possibility, however teeny-weeny, that he could be hiding in the willow creek brush.

Scoop Beale sold a lot of papers with the Bigfoot story, it went viral back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He was a very creative Journalist.

Eko, Have you ever, even remotely, seen anything that would make you think that Bigfoot is real??? (I haven’t, but I know people that claim they have)

Anonymous said...

This is a e-mail reply from one of my cousins that lives in Willow Creek.

Yes, I still work there and yes, we sell copies of the original cast (one of them) and have some of examples in the back Bigfoot room. We have a couple of neat books (we have lots of books) but one was researched and written, interviewing
people in Hoopa who told their stories of sightings and gave descriptions which were drawn by a police sketch artist. I
thought it was very interesting and we knew lots of the people too.

Oregon

Ekovox said...

Ernie, My Uncle Pooch lived up in Bluff Creek which is the claimed stomping grounds of Bigfoot. He worked in the woods for the piss-fir willy's since the 1950's. He left there in the late 1970's and didn't see hide nor hair of the mystery beast.

Me? I don't know, two madrone trunks rubbing together in the wind make an awful screech that could be misconstrued for the call of the Yeti, I guess. As for seeing Bigfoot? Only in statuary, Ernie, only in statuary.

Ernie Branscomb said...

“two madrone trunks rubbing together in the wind make an awful screech”

Funny, I have a madrone tree on the hill above my house that has a fir tree grown tightly into some of the limbs. When the wind blows it groans, pops and sounds alive. I’ve thought about oiling it, but I’ve grown to kina like it. Kinda like Mother Natures wind chimes. It’s funny the sounds that a person remembers. We had a house when I was a kid that had galvanized steel fly-screen over the windows. When the wind blew, they would moan mournfully. Another sound that most people will never hear now is the sound of the bare-strand telephone wires on a pole. With about forty wires to the pole, they would hum like forty harmonicas in harmony. It’s no wonder the old-timers believed in ghosts.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe in ghost's and used to live with the constant whistling of the wind blowing through the antenna and rigging on all the boats when I lived in Bar Harbor, AK..

One time when I was in the bottom of a canyon of the North fork of the North fork of the Eel River at a place called Coffee Pot (an old camp). I heard a howl the cut through me like a knife and it wasn't a ghost. I never heard or saw a thing in the mountains that scared me, except the few times I almost put my hand on or stepped on a rattle snake. However, once when I was in this before mentioned canyon in the Northern Yolly Bolly's I heard the howl of a lifetime and since have heard recordings that Bigfoot hunters had on the history channel I think. Same howl. Just so happened I learned a few years later a cousin-in-law told me he saw a Bigfoot at the Southern reaches of the Yolla Bolly and it was the same week. Circa 1983-84.

Oregon

P.S. I'm a believer.

Ross Sherburn said...

My Mom said guys with big feet............