Sandra Rhodes

Era City Editor

“This is weird beyond weird.” No five words could be truer.

That was just the beginning of a 20-minute conversation from a
phone call I took the other day. I have had several since.

We sometimes get phone calls that we are just not sure what to
do with. That was the case other day when John-Erik Beckjord called
from the International Cryptozoological Society in Berkeley,
Calif.

I happened to answer the phone.

Let’s just say when I got off the phone, my boss said it sounded
like a “legitimate” interview.

He talked. I listened and took notes. And didn’t laugh.

When I started relaying to others in the newsroom what he had
said, the looks on their faces were comparable to, let’s say …
seeing a Bigfoot.

First off, he suggested I go to his Web site – www.beckjord.com/bigfoot – to
see how they had flipped one of the photos of Rick Jacobs’ upside
down to get a better look at what we were seeing.

Calling Jerry Feaser of the Pennsylvania Game Commission
“unfeasible,” Beckjord points out that the creature in question
does not have a tail. Bears have tails, he said.

“This is something far different,” he said, pointing to the
creature’s rounded head.

“He does not look like an ape at all. He has a very skinny
behind with callouses on it.”

Several other phone calls emphasize the opinion that this
creature has callouses on his butt.

Now, I begin thinking what the heck did I do to deserve
this?

He also points to a couple of people we can call that have
determined that this thing is a primate.

With it being the week of election, Kiwanis Kapers, everyday
local events, there just hasn’t been the time.

Then, it got a little strange.

Beckjord explained that Bigfoot disappears because it lives on a
different plane than the rest of us.

He said it’s one of the alternate parallel worlds Einstein was
talking about. “Albert Einstein,” he points out. Like I thought he
meant Jimmy Einstein.

There’s also a theory that it’s an out-of-body experience. The
mind wanders, needs a body to accompany it, and creates a Bigfoot.
“That’s just a theory,” he said, adding he’s had several Bigfeet,
Bigfoots vanish in front of him.

He also wanted to assure the general public to know that no one
has ever been harmed by a Bigfoot. They may knock on doors, but
they “don’t cause any damage to people.”

Is this Bigfoot we’re talking about or the Avon lady?

They also can read your mind, he said. I bet not, I think.

They know when people have guns. That’s why they don’t come
around if someone has a gun on an expedition.

They are attracted to women and children. They can watch women
washing dishes and even watch TV through a window.

On Indian reservations, where people are less likely to keep
their doors locked, they come in and raid the refrigerators and
walk out again.

AND sometimes, they leave firewood in exchange for fish or leave
fish in turn for tobacco.

Now I am thinking, Bigfoot is a smoking vegetarian couch
potato?

I guess the best statement came from my brother. When I relayed
to him my conversations, his response regarding Bigfoot being on a
different plane?

“So maybe that’s what has happened to Jimmy Hoffa.”