Fairy Tales
By Rebecca Patt
In a post-'X-Files' world, fairies may be the next big--er, little--thing. Here in Santa Cruz, they even have a spokesperson ...
YOU BELIEVE IN fairies, right? It's OK, you can admit it. This is Santa Cruz. But wait, I'm not just talking about the fairies who wear lipstick and strut around the Dakota. I'm talking about ... well, Tinker Bell. Except for real. Supposedly.
Around here, testimonials of fairy sightings abound, and boy, do they come out of the woodwork when you're working on a story like this. Fairies are said to be of all shapes and sizes and in all different locations. One local said he glimpsed some wee folk fluttering around a field of wildflowers in Utah. Another said he's seen the Mothman, a Shaquille O'Neal-sized, brown-winged creature, while at a rest stop in Humboldt. Yet another claimed to have encountered one of the legendary Menehune--the swarthy, fierce little people of Hawaiian mythology--while on a camping trip in Kauai.
But if fairies exist, you know we're going to get stuck with them in Santa Cruz. We were practically asking for it with that whole Elfland thing. And indeed, if you had to pick a ground zero for the emerging fairy phenomenon--which from the looks of it may very well snowball into something like the angel craze a decade ago--this just might be the place...