A Sasquatch in the Canyon?
Posted May 10, 2010Taken from Laity Connections, Spring 2010
Greetings from the Canyon to all friends of the Foundations for Laity Renewal. By way of introduction, my family and I live on the camp property near Leakey. My main responsibility is to direct the Free Camp Program, which was envisioned and created by the Butt family over fifty years ago and hosts over 21,000 campers annually. To many of those guests, I am known as “Camper John,” and one of my passions is to tell stories. As a full-time resident for nearly six years, I have many to tell. Some of my stories are meant for humor, some are inspirational, and some are just the warm and fuzzy type, but all are intended to share the flavor of life in the Canyon and to leave you with a grin or maybe even a chuckle.
By the time this issue of Connections gets into your hands, spring will have sprung. However, as I write these words, we are still in the clutches of Old Man Winter, and cabin fever threatens. On these cold and gray days, I often think how nice it would be to meet one of you at the coffee machine and participate in witty social banter; but alas, I’m stuck out here in the middle of nowhere arguing with Hugh over the correct species of ducks that we noticed in the river the other day. Hugh is the Foundation’s Assistant Director of Camp Operations, and he thinks the ducks are Common American Coots, but they aren’t. They’re White-Winged Scoters. My Illustrated Field Guide to Birds of Texas points out that Scoters have a white patch on their wings and that they are often mistaken as “coots”—so there! Sometimes Hugh mistakenly identifies me as “an old coot,” but I know it’s just his depressive winter state of mind. However, warmer days are right around the corner, and it won’t be long before the Cypress trees sprout new needles and the mountain laurels bloom with purple blossoms, making the Canyon smell like grape Kool-Aid. The season’s end means lots of changes to the Free Camp program as well. As the mercury slowly creeps up the temperature gauge, the number of guests coming for retreats also increases.
Speaking of retreats, I was on the way to Linnet’s Wings the other night to fix an electrical breaker. It was getting late, and I must have been a little sleepy. As I puttered up the road across the river from Black Bluff, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. All of a sudden, something dark (almost black) “walked” across the road in front of me. I only caught a glimpse of it since it was just beyond the reaches of my headlights, but it was definitely primate and not human! As I passed the spot where this “thing” had disappeared into the trees, I became acutely aware of a foul stench in the air. Was I dreaming or had I just witnessed a myth, a living, breathing missing link in the evolutionary chain? Let’s just come right out and say it. . . . Had I just seen a Sasquatch!!?
Now, I have always chuckled to myself at the gullibility of some folks. How could they be duped into actually falling for such a hoax? But by the time I had reached Linnet’s Wings, I was making a pretty good argument for the existence of the Sasquatch species.
It turns out, however, that the youth group camping at Linnet’s Wings was playing a nighttime version of “Mission: Impossible,” and what I had thought of as a legitimate sighting was simply their youth pastor taking the game way too seriously. When I got the breaker fixed and the lights on, I noticed a whole herd of Sasquatches running around in black attire complete with dark face paint! Even though I was a little shaken, I truly love to see this kind of creativity with our Free Camp groups. They are building memories that will last a lifetime. Through fun and laughter, they are creating opportunities for people to encounter God, and that is what this place is all about.
By the way, the foul stench turned out to be a bottle of fox urine cover scent in my truck that I use when hunting. I guess I had inadvertently knocked it over in my excitement during “the sighting.” Anybody have a bottle of Febreze?
