Creature in the woods

Due to the sweltering heat, I’ve gotten in the habit of doing my morning walks in the early, early part of the a.m. We’re talking pre-dawn, no other walkers or joggers out, only delivery trucks on the road early.

I kinda like it because my brain is basically a bag of silverware and steel pots, and the solitude allows me to quell the clanking and arrange my thoughts for the day. For the most part it’s quite peaceful, and I’ve grown so accustomed to my route I hardly even think about it anymore.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

Well, I think about it more now.

There’s one leg of my walk that takes me past some woods and it happens to be the most poorly lit part of the trek. It never bothered me until a couple of weeks ago when I was traipsing past the trees and heard a thrashing sound just a couple of feet away.

It was startling.

I can’t remember if I shrieked an obscenity or let out a Hank Hill-style “Bwaaaaaaah!” but it scared me – enough that I feared I was about to be mauled by a bloodthirsty Chupacabra.

And now, practically every day, I hear the same sound in the same place at the same time. Even though I know it’s coming I’m still taken aback, and part of me is waiting for it to finally reveal itself.

But what, exactly, is it?

These are Alabama woods, so part of me fears it could be a deranged Civil War reenactor who is just waiting for the perfect opportunity to capture a Yankee (I’m a Birmingham native but I often wear blue and vote blue, making me a target).

If not a feral human, perhaps it’s a feral hog. These beasts – which are legendary in the Deep South – can reach enormous size and have been known to attack people without provocation.

I tend to doubt they roam the woods I frequent, though.

I live in the city and am nowhere near a farm. If it is a hog, I doubt it’s feral. It might not be fully domesticated, but I’m guessing it at least has a GED.

And really – now that I’ve heard the noise for several days and had a chance to analyze it – whatever it is probably isn’t very large. This decreases my fear of a Civil War guy or wild, angry hog.

I confess, though, that while I was walking under a full moon earlier this month, I hoped it was a werewolf. That would’ve been so cool even though it would’ve had to have been a small werewolf – perhaps a youngster. Better yet, maybe it was a runt werewolf that had been cast aside by his family.

I imagined the runt and I becoming friends, much like Wilbur and Fern in “Charlotte’s Web,” and I’d take him home to live with us and name him Mozart.

But that’s a story for another time.

Realistically, I figure this noisy critter is either a beaver, raccoon or opossum.

There’s a stream near the woods, so that would make a beaver a likely candidate. They like to eat tree bark and grass, and there is plenty available in this particular area.

And with all the tree hollows and snacklets available, it’d be a good place for a raccoon to hang. Plus, it isn’t terribly far from garbage cans, and since their nickname is “trash pandas” they might find the location perfect for their needs.

If I was an opossum, I’d probably love this particular patch of the woods. It’s quiet, secluded, and conveniently located near schools. (I don’t know if possums care about schools but they might … I truly have no idea).

Whatever it is, I’m slowly getting used to the sound and I’m not quite as freaked out about it anymore. I like to think if it was going to attack me, it would’ve done so by now and the thrashing is simply a greeting.

Hopefully one day I’ll find out what this creature is and once we see each other, we’ll have a big laugh.

Unless it’s a Chupacabra.

From what I understand, they have no sense of humor.

The WFL in Canada

The Canadian Football League brought its brand of the gridiron game to the United States for a regular season contest in 1958. But did you know that 16 years later the World Football League returned the favor?

Yet just as Americans were cool to the historic Hamilton-Ottawa clash in Philadelphia, Canadians in London, Ontario, didn’t have much interest in what the WFL had to offer, either.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

The September 2, 1974, contest between the Detroit Wheels and Portland Storm was hardly a memorable one, especially considering it featured two struggling franchises playing in a struggling first-year league. But it is notable in that it was moved from Rynearson Stadium in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to J.W. Wilson Stadium in London on less than a week’s notice – and gave the upstart circuit its only international appearance.

WFL historians will note that Toronto was granted an inaugural franchise (the Toronto Northmen), but faced so much pushback from both the CFL and the Canadian government that team owner John Bassett opted to move the club to Memphis.

With the Toronto team out, the 12-team WFL consisted entirely of U.S.-based franchises (although The Hawaiians, based in Honolulu, did provide the circuit with an exotic locale).

However, there was still a desire to plant a seed north of the American border.

“The league is anxious to play there for two reasons,” Tim Grandi, executive assistant to WFL commissioner Gary Davidson, told the Detroit Free Press. “We want to establish the precedent of having played in Canada since their Parliament never passed the legislation that would’ve banned American football leagues. And we want the people in that area to see what the World Football League is all about.”

The Wheels (0-8) played 35 miles away from Detroit in Eastern Michigan University’s 22,000-seat stadium, and drew just over 12,000 fans per game. They were already on their last legs in the Motor City, having been denied the chance to play at Tiger Stadium since the NFL Lions had exclusive football rights there. There was a strong rumor ahead of the game that the team was headed to Charlotte in a relocation move, so at this point it probably didn’t matter where the game took place.

“We approved Charlotte as a location for a World Football League team a couple of weeks ago,” Grandi said. “It is an acceptable location for us, but we have not approved the transfer of any team, anywhere. And there is no transfer setup at this time.

“Everyone knows the problems of the Detroit team, but they are still attempting to keep the team there and that is the way the situation stands now.”

A potential move wasn’t the reason for the venue change, though. Detroit and London might be separated by only 120 miles, but it was actually a Portland official who requested the game be played in Canada.

Bob Harris, a London businessman who was a major stockholder with the Storm, wanted to show off the league in his hometown. He had planned to put a CFL team in London for the 1974 season but couldn’t come up with the $2 million price tag. So, landing a WFL franchise in Ontario might be the next best thing, and a 2 p.m. game on Labor Day would be a chance to test the waters.

“We have a 180-acre site off Highway 401 where we hope to build a stadium one day,” Harris told the Associated Press.

Unfortunately for Harris – and anyone else who thought the WFL might find a home in Canada – there was little interest in the game.

Whether two winless teams and a sinking league were to blame no one knows, but only 5,101 tickets were sold (most for the equivalent of $2.50 in American money) and many news accounts suggest less than 3,000 fans were in the stands.

For the record, Portland won, 18-7. The Storm improved to 1-7-1 with their first victory and went on to finish the campaign 7-12-1.

The Wheels, on the other hand, didn’t move to Charlotte and didn’t finish the season at all.

They played one more game in Ypsilanti on September 6 and picked up their only victory on September 11 against the Florida Blazers in Orlando. Detroit contested its final four games on the road and folded following a week 14 loss to Shreveport. (Charlotte did get a team via relocation, but it was the New York Stars).

The 1974 WFL was buried in debt, and a reboot in 1975 only made it 12 weeks until the league went out of business.

In the end, the league that wanted to represent the world left American soil only once, playing a largely meaningless game in a small stadium in Ontario. Still, a few thousand Canadians got to see football history – even though it’s history that most fans have long since forgotten.

Waiting on the apes

Like many of my science fiction-obsessed brethren and sistren, I’m a huge fan of the Planet of the Apes universe.

As a kid I soaked up the original films, live action TV series, and Saturday morning animated Return to the Planet of the Apes (which, really, better represented Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel than the others).

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

I even watched Tim Burton’s version and didn’t hate it, which is as close to a compliment as I can give to his treatment of the subject matter.

But the modern trilogy (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes) is brilliant, and resonated with me more than all the rest.

Is it because the films serve as cautionary tales?

Nah.

As far as I’m concerned, they’re “feel-good” movies. And as we hurtle closer to mass extinction, I’m #TeamMonkey all the way.

Let’s face it … we (and by “we” I mean mankind) had our chance and man, have we ever screwed things up. So, when I watch a motion picture about evolved apes dominating the planet at the expense of humans who are sliding backward on the evolutionary scale, it warms my heart. In the grand scheme of things, I think of it more as tough love than a tough break.

For one thing, I enjoy hearing apes talk, especially when their voices sound like Andy Serkis and Steve Zahn. Serkis’ Caesar character is an all-business, no-nonsense type who gets things done and thinks of others before himself. He’s as likely to give you a pat on the back as a kick in your monkey butt.

An ape of few words, the words Caesar speaks are thoughtful and powerful.

Zahn’s Bad Ape reminds me a lot of myself – someone who eventually does what they’re supposed to do only after first considering all the easier options and ultimately feeling guilty.

Judy Greer also had a role in Dawn and War, playing Caesar’s wife, Cornelia. It was a largely non-verbal part but I think she’s magnificent, and would hope in a world of apes there would be many who are Judy Greeresque.

Know what else really impresses me about apes? Their respect for the environment. You probably noticed that in the recent trilogy, none of them drove cars – they rode horses.

A single automobile emits 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Horses break wind, of course, but they also produce more than nine million tons of manure annually, and that can be turned into renewable energy.

Plus, if you travel by horse, you don’t have to worry about high gas prices, getting its oil changed every three months, or receiving spam calls concerning the warranty on your steed.

Now, as apes further evolve, they’ll become more technologically advanced. This can be a blessing or curse, but – as Blue Oyster Cult eloquently states in the song Godzilla – “history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.”

It says nothing about the folly of apes.

I would trust Caesar, Bad Ape and Cornelia to learn from man’s follies and not repeat them. That means there would be no nuclear weapons, no Styrofoam cups and no Jerry Springer Show.

Take those three elements out of life and we all win.

OK … so let’s assume apes now run things. What are the downsides?

I can’t think of any, if I’m being honest.

Sure, there might be an increase in incidences of poo-flinging, but is that really so bad? I don’t do it and don’t want it done to me, but if consenting apes wish to engage in such activity, it’s really none of my business.

Fling and let fling, I often say.

Finally, if a true planet controlled by apes followed the movies’ storyline, humans would become extinct. Maybe we blow ourselves up (the original film) or perhaps we succumb to a simian flu (the modern reboot).

Either way, it’s a game we lose which ultimately results in the earth winning.

If, however, I happen to be one of the last human survivors, I vow to adapt to the customs of our monkey superiors and do everything I can to ensure a peaceful transfer of power.

Everything except fling poo.