Tales of found bones — and, oh yes, la chupacabra

Ray Crippen Worthington Daily Globe
Published Saturday, February 28, 2009

WORTHINGTON — What is this thing with bones?

Every time I pick up a newspaper lately, I find something about bones.

The Daily Globe was telling about the mystery skull at the Nobles County Historical Society. I figure this is another peanut butter victim. The U.S. never has enforced peanut product investigations.

The way I analyze it, some kid over-dipped on peanut butter in the old Central Elementary cafeteria. The youngster then lifted up and began stumbling ahead, blindly, staggering across the street and into the Historical Society storage area before he collapsed. Nothing remains but a skull. We have to watch it with peanut butter.

Next newspaper I pick up is telling about the skull of the great Apache chief Geronimo. (You’re going to think I am making up these things. I am not.)

The claim is in 1918 members of Yale’s elite Skull & Bones society were at Fort Sill, Okla., where they secretly lifted Geronimo’s skull from his grave and carried their trophy back to their Yalie club rooms. Geronimo’s family is now filing suit demanding the return of Grandpa’s head.

Then there is the report from Hancock Park in Los Angeles. Researchers are digging under a parking lot — you can do things in California you can’t do other places. The diggers came upon the fossil of a mammoth that is so huge they are calling it mammoth. (I’m sorry. They say this, not me.) The diggers named their mammoth mammoth Zed and the reporter says, “The paleontologists are downright giddy.” This may be another reaction to peanut butter. Or something.

On to another newspaper.

John Ackerman owns a furniture restoration business and 32 underground caves south of Rochester. (This is according to Dick Merryhew, who used to report for the Daily Globe. He’s good.)

Ackerman was poking around in one of his caves when he came upon the skull of a saber-tooth tiger with canine teeth seven inches long. It is thought the creature weighed 650 pounds. Even Jesse Ventura would not be able to deal with it.

The importance of this discovery — to someone — is that it proves saber-tooth creatures prowled within Minnesota’s boundaries.

I have been holding off telling the most gross of all these curious accounts.

In July 2007, Phylis Canion of Cuero, Texas — yes, Cuero, the Texas turkey town — Mrs. Canion found the body of a creature along Highway 183, near the turn-off to her ranch. This creature is tentatively labeled La Chupacabra, the legendary Goat Sucker. The story has been ballyhooed on television, of course, but it even is being printed in newspapers.

La Chupacabra (if so it be) is a hairless, dog-like creature about 40 inches long estimated to weigh about 30 pounds. This is another one of those things with long fangs. Big ears. The hind legs are slightly longer than the front legs. Color of the elephant-like skin is labeled “grayish-blue.”

Reports now are that in those mid-July days Mrs. Canion and her country neighbors found bodies of three such animals. The plucky Texas rancher cut the head off the body she found along the highway and put it in a freezer. With the head, she says, she hopes “to get to the bottom of its ancestry through DNA testing.” She plans to have the head mounted for display in her home.

The Texans speculate heavy rains in 2007 drove the animals out of dens to high ground. Following the rains, Mrs. Canion says she lost eight kittens and 26 chickens, all with their blood drained from them. Chupacabra is a kind of vampire.

Texas State University and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Service are on the case.

The thing that bothers me is that T-shirts have been put on sale: “2007, The Summer of the Chupacabra, Cuero, Texas.” Cuero is getting recognition as the Chupacabra Capital of America.

This is where I draw a line.

I never was wholly accepting of the Worthington/Cuero turkey link. I liked my Turkey Days without the Texas sauce.

But — if anyone thinks Worthington must now respond to the Cuero challenge by rearing a local pack of Chupacabras for a race along 10th Street on Chupacabra Day, I am saying, “Forget it!”

Don’t even think about it.

Ray Crippen is a former editor of the Daily Globe. His column appears on Saturdays.

http://www.dglobe.com/articles/index.cfm?id=19587§ion=Lifestyle