Column: Baby Girl in pursuit of Bigfoot

A *juvenile Sasquatch* has been spotted in Lorain County this summer, right after Baby Girl got a ghillie suit for her birthday. If joy is the ultimate rebellion, Baby Girl is spitting in 2020's eye. Last week, she traveled four hours south into the heart of the Ohio woodlands to set up her own impromptu Bigfoot hunt. They borrowed a friend's cabin near Bur Oak State Park and along with clothes and snacks she packed her "Bigfoot bag," full of essential equipment like her trail cam, a compass, flashlights, jack knives, one fuzzy wristband (never found the match), a ghillie suit and wilderness survival guides. Along for the trip was her cousin, Matthew. Matthew is 8 and her partner in all things Sasquatch. To prepare for their adventure, the two watched YouTube videos of Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) "caught on tape," and researched their habitats, eating habits, and signature calls. They also had official "gear" printed up, matching "Bigfoot Research Team" and "Going Squatching" shirts and hats that read "Keep It Squatchy." The group spent three days in the wilderness -- well, the kind with air conditioning, plumbing and WiFi inside -- looking for final, convincing proof. "I've seen him twice, although that second time could have just been a guy in a ghillie suit," she told me while getting ready for her trip. The first time was when she was camping last year and baited the woods nearby with hot dogs. She caught a glimpse of the creature moving through the trees that very night. The second time was at Vacation Bible School last summer. Her uncle taught her class and every day she was captivated by discussions about "mythical" creatures. I don't remember how that fit in with the overall theme, but who could predict that at the very moment he led the kids out the side door on the last night it would be just in time to catch sight of a real-life Bigfoot walking along the railroad tracks out behind the church? All I have to say about that incident is that her dad had to lie out there in the grass in a full ghillie suit for so long that patrons of the bar next door called the police for a suspicious situation. Luckily he explained the plan sufficiently enough for officers to go away by the time he was "spotted." Since then Baby Girl has become an amateur expert on all things cryptozoological and she was more than ready for "Bigfoot camp." Bigfoot, on the other hand, was shy. They heard no eerie wailing knocking. They left offerings of strawberries and blueberries, but he didn't take the bait. But she did catch one night an odd partial silhouette on her trail cam, a dark outline of a possible head and shoulder that couldn't really be explained by another animal. And true to his reputation, they did find a set of very large footprints that they cast in plaster and brought home. Each one measures probably a foot and a half long and maybe 8 inches wide. I fully expected Aunt Shimmy to wink at me over Baby Girl's head when they were showing me the plastered foot. Instead she shook her head. "And those were totally real. We found those just like that," she said. Oh. But even with such unknown creatures possibly lurking around, one thing is for sure: Nothing is as scary as what lurks inside. The kids opted to sleep downstairs after finding a terrifying monster on the second floor: A small spider. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.