Interesting. Thanks for sharing. It opens my eyes to what I guess I am closed-minded about.
Nope. I grew up in the woods. Every day running around either alone or with my brother, and the first time I heard of bigfoot was my father bringing home the Journal of Skeptical Inquiry article about it.
I didn't give it much thought, even my Dad bringing home that article hardly registered with me. It was the rising popularity that got me interested, for how ludicrous the idea was.
Something that really strikes me is how different it is with this kind of background. I always felt safe in the woods, especially at night. You don't fear the night stalker when you're the night stalker. These proponents are always framing the woods as this spooky, mysterious, unknown thing and bigfoot being so scary. There are so many riveting experiences you can have like kicking up a 2,000 lb Kodiak bear out of his bed and seeing that massive thing just feet away from you, locking eyes for a moment, and watching him mull over what he's going to do. Watching him think. Or sometimes they put on the big show of hissing loud. Hahahhaha like a little one that's really scared. You have to keep from laughing. Or the times I've had to shoot them.
The closest I've come to getting killed by an animal though was an enraged moose trying to stomp me when I was unarmed less than a hundred yards from the cabin. My dog saved my life for sure then, three times in rapid succession drawing the moose off me so I could escape. I've never been afraid. I had three charging bears on my tail once, thinking "you can't buy entertainment like this - I hope I live through it". They really just about got me. They did take my deer.
Even as a boy there was an adventure every day with real stuff so I didn't ever develop a romantic hope of an unknown thing. Even bunny rabbits, minnows, frogs, and crawdads were exciting things. Bigfoot never once struck me as even remotely interesting.
But I did see things like giant anacondas, alligators, jungle tigers and the like on different shows as a boy so when I grew up I organized my own expeditions to hunt them. And I have very clear pictures of the ones I shot or captured, unlike bigfoot "hunters" that pride themselves on 20 years of never finding them. So it is hard to hide my contempt for it all.