I took the challenge. The self challenge. The kind that really matters.
Oh, I talk the talk like most people here at DU. I have no fear when I start to spout my theories on LIHOP and such. Conviction and theorizing go hand in hand and I am never afraid to proffer up my newest speculation or edit my last.
However, I was given the opportunity several months back to….walk the walk.
Oh yes! I saw the challenge, I rose to meet it, I am a better man as a result, and as with most personal challenges, it has made all the difference. Allow me to indulge myself.
My friend Dan invited me to attend a seminar this past winter. At first he was a bit hazy about the details; UFOs, conspiracies, JFK assassination, whatever. He had run across a group that had local mtgs. and this was a larger seminar located 100 miles south of here (Cleveland, OH).
Twenty minutes before he was to pick me up he phoned to inform me that it was an annual conference on........Sasquatch!
Boy, did I howl with delight. With only minutes to spare I grabbed my favorite maroon-colored wool beret. You know, the kind that when you wear one it has everyone asking, "Are you an artist or something?”
Into the kitchen I tore off two large sheets of aluminum foil and proceeded to crudely wrap the hat and mould it to my dome.
Dan asks what the hat is all about when he picks me up. Of course I have already forgotten that it is wrapped in foil and I am amazed at how easy it is to wear a tin foil hat and go about my business as though I am not sticking out like a sore thumb.
A stop for fuel and a soda at one of the highway exits along the way and I catch a glimpse of flash and shiny glint along with my reflection in the plate glass window of the convenience store. Again, I am astonished at how silly I look and how easy it is to become unaware of this silliness that others around me are 100% certain to notice.
The six hour conference consisted of 4 speakers giving presentations on their "investigations” and "scientific investigative procedures" but mostly on Q and A and trying to sell their books and video tapes and Sasquatch kitsch. There was also an auction of Sasquatch paraphernalia and a vendor selling soda and chips and candy bars.
I intended to act and appear as benign as possible, save the hat, which I wore throughout the entire proceedings.
The intended result of my wearing my simple tinfoil hat at the conference, which was held in a large hall with long rows of tables and chairs, was that whenever I would look up from the speaker to gaze about the room I would invariably meet the gaze of one or two people in the crowd starring at me. At times my eyes would meet another and then the individual would quickly avert their gaze.
This happened time and time again, happened at least 50 times that I was aware of through the course of the day, people starring at me, and I realized that I was making an impact of sorts upon these "true believers". One woman never looked away she, just kept starring.
I was sure that I was having an impact on every person in that room (200+ attendees), I just wasn’t sure what kind of impact. Little did I know that the greatest impact I was having was that upon myself.
Over the course of the afternoon and evening I was approached by only one man, one lone curious fellow. During an intermission I had collected some "literature" on this abominable creature that we had all assembled to learn more about and was quietly reading. The man approached and stood over me and bluntly asked” What’s with the hat?”
I looked up at the man and sort of fumbled about, with my eyes doing all the talking, as I wished to refrain from having to offer up a verbal response.
After a moment or two of feigned sheepish embarrassment on my part he then said, "oh, ya can't say, huh?" as though his intuition had proved him right, that I was a bonafide wack-job a day or two off my medication schedule.
At this point I managed to mumble "It ain't nothing" and the gentleman turned and walked away.
Stifling an outburst of truly insane hilarity that was building inside of me, I bit down onto my bottom lip as hard as I could and lowered my head and eyes as if returning to my literature, letting out the biggest private grin of my life.
The next day back at home I shared with my wife and two teenage boys what I had done and what had transpired. They sort of got it as I explained to them about The Tinfoil Hatters Club and the Grassy Knoll Society that I’d read about in DU but it wasn't until a month or two later when a two-page article appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the annual Sasquatch conference that the impact of that day finally hit home..
The article reviewed the activities of the weekend and the experiences of some of the presenters and such. What caught my eye in the article follows:
“Unlike some of the other, older researchers who glumly predict the Bigfoot mystery might never be resolved, DeWerth is confident its existence will be proven soon.
"Someone is going to find one dead, or someone is going to shoot one, or one is going to get hit by a logging truck. And that is going to blow the roof off it," he says.
DeWerth is everywhere Sat urday, shushing attend ees who talk too loud, greeting regular guests and auctioning off donated books and clothing.
He's even unfazed by the presence of a man in an aluminum-foil hat. Whether the hat is to block government thought-control waves or tune into Bigfoot's presence, his is the only one. Everyone else is pretty normal looking.”
Every one else is pretty normal looking?
Ever since that day my children have looked upon me with a new found awareness that I am a bigger knucklehead than they had ever imagined. I gotta say it feels pretty darn good considering who all the other role models are in this country.
And my wife? She knew all along. I talk the talk. I walk the walk.
Oh yes! I saw the challenge, I rose to meet it, I am a better man as a result, And it is documented here.
http://www.angelfire.com/oh/ohiobigfoot/042703pd.html
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