Best Evidence (via @JBDuRoneTB)

What is it about blogging that makes one come to confessional every once in a while? In one of my first blogs, I confessed to being an unabashed Eric fan. I’m still picking the tar and feathers out of my chest hair for that one; thanks BillsBabes! Today, I’m about to confess yet another thing that will probably make some of you want to yank out the rest of the tar and replace it with Sookie’s maenad scratch back goop.

But first, why the blogging confessionals? I’ve seen this in other blogs too. And on Facebook and Twitter, too. Has social media now become the modern vehicle for the Sacrament of Penance? It’s anonymous, just like the good old-fashioned booths were meant to be. The penance comes at the hands of those responding to your confession. No more “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers” – now it’s reTweets, Likes and Followbacks that mark forgiveness of our sins. That, well, and loss of followers. God, I hope that doesn’t happen with this blog. Any fewer followers and I’ll have to start recruiting homeless people to follow it. But I digress…

I am a reformed hunter. Yes, I used to don the camo clothes, trod stealthily into the foreboding forest and bring down the rabid beasts that lurk there. I had all of the requisite gear and tried all the “known” methods for hunting. Although, by the standards of my peers, I wasn’t a great hunter, I still ended the lives of many forest denizens.

Eventually, it dawned on me that it wasn’t the hunting that appealed to me; it was the time spent quietly enjoying nature. Watching the world wake up in pre-dawn hours. Observing the forest denizens (whose sentence had been commuted by yours truly) yawn and stretch and go through their morning routine. I just watched this and let them enjoy their day. Why should I mess up a perfectly good morning for them?

Eventually, my hunting buddies caught on. Trophy sized deer would walk past my stand, to either be shot or missed by the guy over the next hill. So, I was invited to not go hunting anymore. Fair enough – I now hike, backpack and do my communing from the seat of my kayak. And, I’m saving a lot of money! Hunting gear, licenses and the latest and greatest technology are premium purchases! After my initial investment in hiking and kayaking gear, I havent’ had to make any major purchases in years.

Hunters use the latest products in pursuit of their sport, just like any other endeavor. Whether it be a new camo pattern, scent suppression or scope optics, most hunters will spend small fortunes in pursuit of their sport. That doesn’t include membership dues to hunting clubs.

A piece of technology that came into use during my hunting days were trail cams. You’ve all seen them by now; digital cameras in hardened, waterproof cases that are left out in a prospective hunting area to capture what passes through. The idea is to later go back and shoot the fauna model you’ve just filmed. These cameras have night vision, as most game animals move at night. You can’t actually HUNT most at night, so I never saw the point in finding out where an animal was nocturnally. My fellow hunters may not have been too bright…

These game cameras have also been picked up by the cryptid hunting community to spot their even more elusive prey; bigfoot, chupacabra, Jersey Devil, etc. I’ve seen them on shows like Finding Bigfoot, MonsterQuest and other shows. I think they need to move on to another approach – they havent gotten the definitive proof of a cryptid yet using a trail cam. These critters are camera shy.

All of this brings me to this point; if Bon Temps were a real place in the rural south (or rural anywhere for that matter), there would be hunters all over the place using the latest and greatest technology, including a prodigious amount of trail cams. Shouldn’t some of these cameras pick up some of the unusual activity around Bon Temp? A beastly maenad stalking the back roads, packs of wolves and panthers where none belong, Sam going on nude jogs through the forest (it’s gone viral on YouTube), fairies flashing in and out or joy riding in their flying chandelier.

Someone would capture some of this on camera and it would eventually be picked up by the news, Department of Natural Resources or the cryptid community. Researchers, zoologists and TV news crews would descend on Renard Parrish to figure out what the hell was going on.

Frankly, I want the Finding Bigfoot peeps to come out. They would do a night investigation (again, with the night thing), hear something in the distance and exclaim “That’s a Squatch!”. Or they’d pick up a distant blur on a night vision camera and exclaim “That’s a Squatch!”. Bobo would emerge from behind a tree where he was taking a leak and the other three would exclaim “That’s a Squatch!” Actually, I think that Bobo IS the Squatch – he’s just an advance man they send out to get the locals worked up before the film crew gets there.

The cryptid hunters need to expand their horizons. While looking for Bigfoot, they should really be keeping an eye out for the Were, were-panthers, lusty fairies and dudes jogging naked through the forest. That’s where the real mystery lies.

And now, as we close this confession, I’d like to end with: http://youtu.be/e4q6eaLn2mY

via Best Evidence.

June 5, 2012 | Categories: Night 24 | Leave a comment