Shhhh --- There he is!

Have you heard that Bigfoot is roaming the shores of Pat Mayse Lake in Lamar County? I kid you not, people are actually paying money to this guy named Tom Biscardi to go out and tramp around in the mud looking for this imaginary creature. Do I think Tom Biscardi is crazy? Heck, no! He's making big money off the real nuts!

Biscardi had one member of "his team" spend the night up a tree watching for Mr. Foot. If you're that gullible, you deserve to spend a chilly spring night up a tree!

Is there proof Bigfoot exists? Of course! Biscardi displayed three plaster casts of Bigfoot footprints they "found during the preliminary look at the area this time." Does anybody besides me find it odd that the news media weren't called to view the actual prints at the time they were found? And does anybody besides me find it odd that these "proofs" always seem to be found when nobody else is around?

Lest you think this is just a bunch of hicks, you should know that this is no low-tech operation. They're using "infrared technology, a heightened sound system, and a means to get the creature's DNA." But if all that fails, they'll go back to the old-fashioned way -- "We are going to use a woman as bait to lure out the Alpha male."

Mrs. Lance Bailey, who says she's had an encounter with a "creature," has volunteered her services. Mrs. Bailey says as she jogged recently on the roads near her home in the area, she realized something was paralleling her run just in the edge of the trees. I think it was probably a rabbit or her shadow, but then, I'm not an expert on Bigfoot. The experts, however, are convinced that by repeating Mrs. Bailey's run, this time lining the path with "Bigfoot scent," they'll see the huge, camera-shy fellow. Thinking I might call Mrs. Bailey and inquire about her experiences, I looked her up in the phone book. Now, there may very well be a Lance Bailey living in the area, but he's not listed in the phone book. So I tried a public record service we subscribe to. On a driver's license search, I found several Lance Baileys in Texas, but none in Lamar County. So I got to thinking . . . The Paris News runs this front page article including three photographs (two of them in color), but no picture of the all-important bait; the Baileys are not listed in the phone book; and the Baileys don't have drivers licenses on record. Kind of makes me wonder if Mrs. Bailey is as imaginary as Bigfoot.