How Did Benny Get To Be Benny?

Scene of all of this action, the Skagit River and Mt. Baker.

            Benny’s mother never had an English name. Nor did she speak English. She was old school, speaking only Saslingua. This is the language she brought her son up in also.
            His original name was something guttural and soft. But then, Saslingua is a soft, guttural sounding language when used at home and among friends.
            He was born in a forest dwelling up north of Newhalem. The birth was attended by his mother’s mother and his father. His father was mostly a witness.
            There isn’t too much fuss and drama surrounding a Squatch birth. These mothers don’t seem to be prey to the fears and insecurities that sometimes haunt human births. Maybe it helps that most of these mothers have witnessed other’s births. Not so among us, for the most part.
            It had been a fine cool, misty day. His mother, let’s call her Lila, had been thoughtful and slow all day. Her own mother, who had been staying close to her daughter for the last couple of weeks, knew the signs. She figured that the new one would come during the night, and she was right. It was a quick arrival, and the whole family was very pleased to meet him.
            So, there he was, cast new upon the world. Some seem to be born with their personality already set. This one saw everything funny side up. Some infants laugh a lot. This child was one of those. If somebody dropped something and it broke, he cracked up. If someone suddenly popped into view from behind some branches or some such, it was hilarious to him.
            And so his life went, until he was old enough to go out on his own.
            He liked the area around Concrete. It’s a small town with almost nothing going on. He loved the river and spent much of his time in the park down there on its banks.
            He named himself Benny. Not because he had heard it anywhere, but just because he liked the sound of it. “Benny!” It sounded jolly to him.
            Benny really liked to make others of his tribe laugh and when he learned to speak English, the same way others did, by hanging around and listening to humans, he liked to pull pranks on the hairless also. Some of the hairless found this entertainment to be a charming part of visiting Rasar Park on the Skagit. Benny was a bit indulged and became a local celeb. Almost.
            Benny had expected the grandmother, Mary Smith, no kidding, to laugh at his prank of eating their lunch. But, she didn’t. In fact, she was irritated enough to call the Fish and Wildlife people and demand that something be done about Benny. Even though she lived right near the park in Concrete, she didn’t seem to know that he should be laughed at and indulged.
            Of course, this led to his meeting with Officer Mark Schwartz….