The celebration we held for the 40th Anniversary of the Patterson-Gimlin film was a splendid event! A small and determined group of like-minded individuals made the trek to Willow Creek, CA on Saturday, October 20th to attend the gathering.
We had a total of 56 people in attendance and converted the VFW hall into a cozy bigfoot convention. The walls were lined with displays and bigfoot items including a life-sized banner of "Patty", historical articles about Roger Patterson, copies of statues he and others made, photos, books, Bigfoot Times newsletters, my music CD and the amazing 40th Anniversary shirt.
The event began at 10 am with a song I wrote ...going back to the beginning of bigfoot at Bluff Creek...entitled "Jerry Crew (He Knew What to DO)"...
Daniel Perez spoke for an hour about his research into the film and why he has focused on that primarily...he demonstrated how Roger was able to take the film using a Kodak movie camera of the same model...he demonstrated how long the step was that the creature exhibited in the track-way and had a 6 foot 4 inch person attempt to match that - it took an exerted step to do so...then he proceeded through a series of slides...
After a short break, Cliff Barackman and Scott McClean delivered excellent presentations. Cliff reviewed the track discoveries that seem to match the tracks found that day at the film site...and he showed us examples of tracks found since 1959 in that area of the same sized foot. He noted that this track has not been found since the October 20, 1967 film event.
Scott displayed archival articles that seem to describe a creature very similar to the one Patterson and Gimlin filmed that day. He also had other articles that involved Roger Patterson and his dedication to this search.
We had lunch and reconvened for a song - "Roger and Bob (Rode Out That Day)"...
then Al Hodgson delivered a 30 minute address about current activity in the Willow Creek area...Al is still active in taking bigfoot reports from this area...
David Murphy spoke about the life of Roger Patterson and showed us photographs from his research trips to the Yakima, WA area. He had some amazing photos including the actual truck they drove down to California in 1967.
We then took a break for the group photo and got together to toast the film and the men who made it! THANK YOU to Terry Smith of Long Beach, CA for providing the bubbly...
Mary-Anne McTrowe of Alberta, Canada then took the stage to play two amazing original bigfoot songs accompanied by her ukulele. They were funny and witty - thanks for sharing them, Mary-Anne!
I then played two verses of Buddy Knox's bigfoot song...
We had Daniel Perez return for his Q&A segment...then James "Bobo" Fay told us about his friend Irwin Supple - a man he met in the late 1980s who had his first sighting in the Bluff Creek area back in 1947.
Well, getting a little long here...suffice it to say, the celebration was a
wonderful time! I want to thank Joyce Kearney for sponsoring the event and helping plan it...Scott Mclean for his presentation and running the computer and projector all day...Cliff Barackman for providing us with a PA system...Thom Powell for providing the projector (and Mark Stenberg for bringing a back-up projector)and to Doug Hajicek and Whitewolf Entertainment for allowing us to show the film from their DVD "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science" and for also sponsoring the event...
Everyone who helped with the event - thank you!
and to all who attended, thank you!
Bigfoot statues by David Murphy including copies of Roger Patterson's bigfoot bust.
Scott McClean and Bart Cutino
Cliff Barackman speaking about the P-G subject's tracks from 1958-1967
the Fays - Tom, Alice and James - aka Bobo
Special Guest Thom Powell (author of "the Locals") presented with bigfooter of the year by Ray Crowe's Int'l Bigfoot Society (thanks to Patti and Bob Reinhold for coming down to the event!)
