A Conversation About Bigfoot

One of the best reasons for homeschooling your child is that they are ‘allowed’ to follow their interests.  By allow, I mean that there is plenty of time in the day for whatever passions are brewing at the moment because you’re not dealing with the drudgery of busywork, homework and such. 

Archie has a huge variety of interests.  Some of them have turned into passions at some point.  Most of them are palatable and encouraged and some are just plain annoying.  Some I have particularly enjoyed:  magic, baseball, Harry Potter books, Star Wars everything, and self-directed science experiments.

Some I enjoyed to begin with, but soon grew weary of due to the sheer saturation of them every dad-gum day or due to the lack of clean-up:  Mythbusters, duct tape creations, and self-directed science experiments.

They take up all Archie’s time and attention during whichever one he happens to be interested at the time.  Getting him to focus on other things like finding his own shoes, cleaning his own teeth or other schoolish-type things I have in mind for him to do is ineffective.   For the most part, I let him go and go with his interests and try to gear all schoolish-type work toward whatever it is.  An example:  when he was working on cursive writing, I had him copying quotes from famous magicians.  

But sometimes you just can’t work some subjects into whatever the interest is at the moment.  There have been tears (his as well as mine when I am absolutely done with his lack of focus) in trying to get things back on track. 

His latest all-consuming focus has been Bigfoot.  He has watched several documentaries about Bigfoot, checked out several books about Bigfoot from the library, and done lots of internet research about Bigfoot.  All of these things he has done without any guidance from me at all.  I love that he is learning how one goes about finding out more about a particular subject!  To a point.  This conversation took place two weeks ago.  He had gotten a 10-high stack of books from the library about Bigfoot maybe two or three days earlier.

----------------

Archie:  I am going outside and Lawrence is coming with me. 

Me:  Okay.  Make sure you watch Lawrence carefully and stay out back. 

Archie:  I will.  Lawrence is going to help me do something.

After about 15 minutes or so, I walked out on the back porch to check on them.  There they are down on the second level of our yard—Archie is digging a hole and Lawrence is helping place the dirt in the red wagon. 

Me:  What are you doing?

Archie:  Making a trap for Bigfoot.  I have to dig a hole that is 20 feet deep. 

Me:  *chuckling under my breath*  Allrighty then.  Why 20 feet?

Archie:  Because Bigfoot is very big.  The hole has to be bigger than he is.

Me:  Allrighty then.  Where are you going to put all the dirt from this hole that will be 20 feet deep?

Archie:  Don’t worry…I’ll find a place to put it that’s out of the way.

I went in and another 15 minutes goes by.  All of a sudden, Lawrence bursts into the back door crying.  I held him and asked him what was wrong.  He said that he was all done helping Archie and he didn’t like doing that stuff with the dirt anyway.  Since it was just about the time in which the kids are allowed to watch tv, I asked him if he’d like to watch something.  The tears cleared up immediately and he was happy again.   

Ten more minutes went by and Archie comes in the back door sobbing with frustration. 

Me:  What’s wrong?

Archie:  Lawrence just left me out there and I can’t get the dirt up the steps by myself!

Me:  Ya mean you were taking the dirt up the steps?  What are you going to do when you need to fill in the hole?

Archie:  I am not going to fill in the hole.  I’m not digging it all for nothing!  And the dirt keeps falling back into the hole so I have to move it! 

Me:  Well let’s think about this…Do you think a Bigfoot will wander into our back yard and just fall in a hole?

Archie:  No, of course not!  There is possibly a Bigfoot already living in the woods back there.  I hear things all the time!  Plus there have been about 5 sightings of Bigfoot in Ohio!  And the dogs next door bark at stuff that I can’t see at night.

Me:  Those idiot dogs bark at everything.  I wouldn’t use their barking as an indication of anything except for me being annoyed every time I step outside my own house.  Don’t you think that you or the dogs could be hearing a raccoon, woodchuck, deer or any of the other animals that we’ve seen before back there?

Archie:  No!  It’s a Bigfoot!  I heard it’s cry at night! 

Me:  I think it’s probably something else that you heard at night.  I haven’t heard anything, but I believe a coyote has been spotted in the neighbourhood, so perhaps you heard that.  And anyway, how do you plan to lure Bigfoot into a 20 foot hole?

Archie:  With peanut butter!  Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) just love peanut butter!  It says so in a book I read about them.  I will put about 20 (I don’t remember how many, really, but it was a lot) jars of peanut butter in the hole.

Me:  Are you crazy?  Do you know how much peanut butter has gone up in price?  You’ll never be able to afford that many jars of peanut butter to just stick in a hole!

Archie:  Plus, I know it’s a Bigfoot back there because I have evidence!

Now he proceeds to get the stuff he made a week before and set outside to feed the birds.  It is a peanut butter, birdseed and honey concoction, which you freeze, then set outside to attract the birds.  It is frozen into an old fruit cup, which was washed and re-used for this purpose.  The peanut butter stuff had been eaten somewhat, the middle completely gone with some stuff clinging to the sides of the plastic cup. 

Archie:  Look at this!  A Bigfoot ate this!

Me:  How do you know?  The cat could have licked that.  Or a raccoon!  (We already know first hand raccoons are smart enough to unscrew mayonnaise jars and tear the hinges off of coolers!)

Archie:  No, a cat or raccoon wouldn’t eat it like that!  They have paws.  Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) are smart!  They would have used their finger to dig the stuff out of the cup like this! Now he proceeds to show me how Bigfoot eats peanut butter out of a fruit cup with it’s index finger.

Me:  Okay, then…what do you plan to do with Bigfoot once you trap him? 

Archie:  Ummm…?

Me:  And what if he breaks his leg?  It is a 20 foot deep hole! 

Archie:  I could put leaves at the bottom of it to cushion his fall.

Me:  He could still break his leg!  And then what would we do?  We couldn’t just take him to the hospital or the vet!  Daddy will have to shoot him! And then we’ll have a big, dead Bigfoot on our hands.  And what are we going to do with him then? 

(Now before you think I’m all mean and heartless, you have to remember I come from a more rural type of place, where you shoot a wild animal to put it out of it’s misery if it’s hurt.  Except for deer.  You shoot it first, then plop it on the hood of your car and take it home and skin it out for venison!)

At this point he did crack a small smile, but I was clearly frustrating him. 

Archie:  I read this book on how to track and catch a Bigfoot, and these were the instructions! 

Me:  I’m happy you researched this, but I just feel like Bigfoot would probably steer clear of a city type place and stay where it’s woodsy everywhere.

----------------

He had enough and threw his arms up in frustration and walked away.  After a little while, I tried to explain that it wasn’t that I didn’t believe the words he was saying, but I felt that the evidence just didn’t point to a Bigfoot in our backyard.  Not saying that there couldn’t be, but I just didn’t think so.  And if he did, we would just have to agree to disagree. 

I went outside to see the hole and found the wagon precariously teetering on a couple of the steps, chock full of heavy dirt.  I don’t know how he had the strength to get it in the position he did.   I’m guessing it was at that point in the task that Lawrence decided that moving dirt just wasn’t for him. 

The hole Archie dug was about a foot deep (only nineteen more to go) and pretty small around to capture a large ape-like man-creature.  But it was a good start. 

Sometime a few days later, the hole was filled in and no large peanut butter purchases have been made.  I am glad Phillip didn’t have to shoot a Bigfoot.  At least the hole to bury him would have already been dug. 

A few days later we saw a back-hoe digging a hole in the sidewalk in front of our house for some utility work.  It might have been mentioned how that is a good way to get a hole 20 feet deep!  I will keep my eye out for back-hoe rental agreements laying around the house.