“It was in August 1958 in Humboldt County, Calif., that Jerry Crew, a bulldozer operator for Wallace Construction, saw prints of huge naked feet circling and walking away from his rig. The Humboldt Times in Eureka, Calif., ran a front-page story on the prints and coined the term ‘Bigfoot.’ According to family members, Mr. Wallace smirked. He had asked a friend to carve the 16-inch-long feet. Then he and his brother Wilbur had slipped them on…”

—Lovable Trickster Created a Monster with Bigfoot HoaxSeattle Times)

When my parents would pack the family into the red station wagon and drive us down to visit our grandparents in Florida, we would try to get up early enough to see the “skunk ape” eat oranges from the tree in the back yard. We never got up early enough.