Wood Boogers

Got basically nothing done a couple of weekends ago, but ...  had a lot of fun with my son texting back and forth and talking on the phone. It was an off and on communication fest. Topic?  Cryptids. He taught me a lot, and I plan to do more research on my own.  My favorite name of a cryptid category so far is the Wood Boogers. Thus the title of this week's blog. 

The whole Wood Booger thing is Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and West Virginia's take on Big Foot or Yeti or whatever you want to call this particular creature. The term Wood Boogers was coined by European settlers in that area in the 18th century who found them to be much like Boogeymen. As far as my section of the US goes... mythologically ... the Pennsylvania Appalachian area is full of different sorts of mythical and perhaps not so mythical cryptids -- creatures like Big Foot, Moth Man, etc. Actually there are legends, mythology and folk lore of indigenous peoples across the entire planet  ... have been for a very long time as far as I can tell. 

Anyway - this whole "conversation" started with a post online by a former colleague of mine who posted a trail cam photo taken by a cam owned by a former student of mine.  I uploaded this creepy and mysterious photo to Chat GPT for identification and it was no help because AI saw a bushy tail that I could find no where in the photo -- so  -- I shifted to research through a TikTok link that my son sent me on cryptids.  I/we now like to think the trail cam caught a shape shifter and it is all very creepy. I find it interesting in all of this that I had never heard the word cryptid before.  I sort of like it. I definitely like learning new things.

Thus began my research on cryptids -- flying, reptilian ... even those cute cryptids like the Jackalope of the Great American West. This creature is a bunny with antlers -- a mix of a rabbit and an antelope or deer perhaps.  For those of you who live in this corner of Northwest Pennsylvania, you may remember the "stuffed" jackalope that sat behind the bar at the Deer Head Inn in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania years ago. Of course I also ran across many stories of the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the Pennsylvania Squonk of Lumberjack lore.  There is a lot of information out there. I still need to check out the myths and folklore of the Carpathian Mountain region -- apparently there is a lot there of interest as well -- of the super creepy variety.

All I need now it to have an encounter with one -- just one.  I have seen one UFO -- years ago nearby on the road between Canadohta Lake and Union City -- probably in the late 1960's. It was impressive. I am ready for the next step.  A  small Wood Booger a safe distance away would be ideal. I'll readily pass on the shape shifter variety and all the other scary ones.