Outdoors

Gather 'round the monitor for tales

By TERRY TOMALIN, Outdoors Editor
Published January 4, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - People often stop me in the grocery store to tell me that I have the best job in the world. After all, I get to fish, camp, hike, boat or, as I like to say, have as much fun as possible, and get paid for it.

In all honesty, folks, there is more to my job than meets the eye. A day doesn't go by when I am not faced with some moral or ethical dilemma. There is always a story behind the story.

Take for example, my recent trip to Dead River County Park. This park, located along the banks of the Hillsborough River, is wild and remote, and a possible refuge for several species, including the secretive black bear and the endangered Florida panther.

The foliage is thick, the ground wet, so wet some might call it a swamp - perfect habitat for Florida's most elusive creature, a hominid cryptid known by many names, including "Skunk Ape."

As an amateur cryptozoologist, I am dedicated to the study and scientific classification of previously unknown or presumed-to-be-extinct animals, such as Sasquatch, a.k.a. Bigfoot, the bipedal primate of the Pacific Northwest; or Chupacabra, a.k.a. Goat Sucker, a mammal/reptile that has terrorized many communities in Central and South America.

Some of you may laugh, mock my quest, and ask, how could a Swamp Ape live among 18-million people and remain a mystery to science? Two words: mountain gorilla. Gorilla beringei beringei was first spotted in 1860 by an explorer, whom people thought mad, and not officially classified as a new species until 1902 when a German captain shot a specimen and sent its skull back to Berlin.

But rest assured, if I ever do come across a previously unknown creature in the swamp, I would attempt to communicate with it, perhaps invite it back to camp for breakfast, and be content with awarding it a scientific name, Swampus apus tomalinius, leaving the rest to posterity.

Of course, I would need witnesses, men of sound mind and body. However, finding grown-ups willing to go on a full-moon Skunk Ape hunt in a swamp is not easy.

Undeterred, I handpicked my crew, 11 of the meanest hombres ever play a Game Boy. This rootbeer-guzzlin' gang of greenhorns knew what they were getting into. These boys, who ranged in age from 6 to 9 years old, had heard my campfire ghost stories before and knew to expect the unexpected.

This little adventure would be more than a scientific expedition. It would be a character-building life lesson.

As I explained to them on the trail: "You don't buy courage at the grocery store. You get it by doing what scares you."

If that meant sharing scrambled eggs with the Swamp Ape, so be it.

The only problem was, I wasn't sure I'd find a hominid cryptid so close to the holidays. So I abandoned my scientific mission and decided to focus on the boys' character development.

My friend Jack Coleman, the Harley-riding, hockey-playing park ranger at Dead River, had a dusty old gorilla suit somewhere in his storage shed.

"What do you think, Jack?" I asked. "Can I borrow it?"

Coleman urged caution. So I phoned my friends on the Sports desk, who unanimously agreed: bad idea.

Finally, I called my brother Tim, 11 years my senior and the role model who helped mold me into the man that I have become. It was Tim who chained me in the basement to cure my fear of the dark. It was Tim who held me to the sky during a thunderstorm to help me overcome my childhood fear of lighting.

"You might traumatize them," Tim said. "But then again, a little trauma seemed to work for you."

So as you see, there is more to my job as Outdoors Editor than meets the eye. These are the ethical and moral dilemmas that I must confront and conquer.

There is usually a story within the story, one you won't read on these pages. No, to find out what really happened on the trail at Dead River, and the answers to many other mysteries, visit my new blog, The Wild Side, which can be found at blogs.tampabay.com/outdoors.

Terry Tomalin can be reached at 727 893-8808.

[Last modified January 3, 2008, 21:26:17]