Sometimes it takes a deathbed confession to put a stake in the heart of long-cherished beliefs. When Ray L. Wallace died of heart failure at 84 last month, he took a sizable piece of American mythology with him.
On a hot August day in Humboldt County, Calif., in 1958, Wallace created an endearing myth and an enduring hoax. Using 16-inch-long feet a friend had carved out of wood for him, Wallace, owner of a construction company, lumbered into the annals of American myth.
Bigfoot was born when enormous "footprints" were found circling one of Wallace's bulldozers. The local newspapers turned out, took pictures and spread the word that America had a homegrown version of the Himalayan Abominable Snowman.
In the ensuing decades, other people with often competing agendas stepped in to flesh out the Bigfoot myth. Home movie footage, grainy photographs, hair samples complete with matted feces, even field recordings of Bigfoot's guttural growl have turned up. This evidence provides the raw material for symposiums in which true believers and debunkers engage one another in never-ending debates about the creature's existence.
Wallace's deathbed confession will resonate with the general public more than it will with those scientists who've already invested more time and resources than they should have in attempting to prove that a hairy, 7-foot hominid haunts the American wilderness.
Despite the lack of forensic evidence that an 800-pound creature would leave behind when it eventually died, the debate about the existence of Bigfoot, and its Third World cousins Yeti and Sasquatch, will probably haunt us for decades to come.
Still, the general public will forgive tomfoolery of the kind concocted by a lovable prankster like Ray Wallace. At best, Wallace's lies merely perpetuated a hoax among a class of people who should've known better.
Besides, we're inclined to believe, or at least tolerate, all sorts of lies as long as they don't require sacrifice on our part. When President Bush talks about cutting taxes and the necessity of funding a budget-busting war against terrorism in the same breath, it's an echo of rhetoric from more gullible times.
We've certainly heard variations of this nonsense before. It has the whiff of the familiar -- like Bigfoot or Reaganomics -- so we're inclined to smile indulgently. That's our nature. Life is so busy for average working people that lies end up getting processed and digested along with everything else.
Ray Wallace went to his grave with a clear conscience insofar as Bigfoot is concerned, but I think he has the potential to be a model for other merry pranksters who've managed to keep a straight face for years despite the odds. I can think of several people from whom we should demand deathbed confessions before they shuffle from this mortal coil. Here are a few I'd love to hear:
"Sitting here on my deathbed, I, Jesse Jackson, do solemnly apologize for saying that Dr. Martin Luther King died in my arms. Such a thing implied a passing of the mantle of leadership of the civil rights movement to me. I confess that wearing a bloody shirt for several days in the aftermath of that event was ludicrous and exploitative."
"I, Roger Ailes, have much to confess, dear Lord. As the CEO of the Fox News division, I'm responsible for having foisted a multitude of smirking, self-righteous gasbags on the American public. My tenure was about as Orwellian as it got, but ratings went through the roof, I'm happy to say. Fair and balanced? No spin zones? Don't make me laugh, Lord. If I could've, I would've put the devil himself on the payroll."
"I, Cardinal Bernard Law, underestimated the morality of every Catholic in the world. I still think I'd make a great pope."
"I, Henry Kissinger have a lot of blood on my hands. Enough said."
"I, Bill Clinton, lobbed missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan because I had sex with that woman. I also inhaled -- a lot."
"I, Winona Ryder, am a thief. I was not prepping for a movie role, contrary to what you might've heard on Entertainment Tonight. I have sticky fingers, that's all."
What a wonderful world it would be if all deathbed confessions were televised.
Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.
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