Sasquatch
by Carol Dunn
HUERFANO — About four years ago, Jaye Sudar wrote an article in the Huerfano Journal about sightings of Sasquatch in the Huerfano region. There have been six reported sightings of the seven-foot-tall, shaggy creature in the mountains in or near this area since the 1980s. At the time of the article, I really didn’t pay much mind to the stories, because I just figured (like most everybody else) that these people were drunk. However, recently I have changed my mind about that and decided that most likely it was the Sasquatch that was drunk. What self-respecting Sasquatch would allow these barely-hairy humans to glimpse it at all? The Sasquatch, which has been the subject of legends and even, of late, TV shows, is a highly elusive and shy creature. It knows how to stay out of the public eye – unless it is impaired.
Only a couple of grainy photographs even exist to suggest that a herd of Sasquatches inhabit the chilly, hilly regions of North America. They are not interested in getting to know the neighbors. You think you have problems getting your husband to stop and ask for directions when you’re going somewhere, try being married to a Sasquatch! Matter of fact, maybe that’s the only reason anyone has ever glimpsed a Sasquatch.
His wife sent him to the store for a loaf of bread or a jug of milk, and he got lost because he was drunk on fermented wild grapes, so he momentarily considered asking a human for directions, then decided against it and went home empty handed. That’s why the only photo we’ve ever seen of a supposed Sasquatch shows him to be carrying nothing and in a rather sour mood. He knows what his wife’s gonna say when he gets back to the lair without that box of salt she needed. On the TV show, they have recordings of Sasquatch screams. Something like “WaaRaaaagghh aaarrgghh” (translation: “What do you MEAN you didn’t get the eggs!).
Apparently Sasquatches do not cook their food, or someone around the Blanca Basin would have seen campfire smoke at some point between the 1940s and now. That’s a long time to be eating raw rabbits. They don’t dare send their kids to public school. One taste of pizza or hot dogs and the Sasq-kids would be impossible to live with – all the whining and complaining that they don’t want raw squirrel again for supper. And I would imagine, from the effect that even a raw mouse has on my dog, that the Sasquatch family also has a constant flatulence problem – it’s the fiber. And they probably smell really bad even without the flatulence, because there is not enough water in any Huerfano stream for something that big to bathe. However, if they did scrounge up enough water for an annual bath, it would explain the smell of spring runoff.
The thought of a Sasquatch on the loose isn’t something I care to think about. We already have enough stinky animals tromping through our front yard, rooting through our garbage and eating our grapes.
