Our first campout of the year, and we’re meeting Amy, Neil, and Claire at Hatch Point Campground in Utah. It’s located about an hour’s drive south of Moab. This same group camped there once before, in 2019, except that Aiden was with us back then. At present Aiden is frittering away his life at college in Austin TX. God knows what they are putting in his head.
The campground contains only ten sites, and has no water or electricity, but there is a privy and trash service. That’s it. The surrounding desert countryside is striking, with beaucoup trails for hiking or biking . The weather promises to be in the middle 80s with nothing but sunshine in the forecast.
The map at left shows no roads, but there actually are some. It is at least that civilized.
It’s one of those times where making that all-important list of what you need and bringing it with you is crucial, because it’s an hour back to Moab for supplies if you forget something.
No matter how much you plan, the first campout of the year is when you find that you forgot something which every other person in the group now wants desperately. They give you glances for the rest of the event, glances that either say “I trusted you but never again,” or “If I get a hemorrhage it’s your fault!”.
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There’s a thoughtful article in the Times of New York on presidential overreach, making the point that Cluck may be the latest and most egregious example, but the groundwork had been laid for him over decades by others of both major parties. Title of the piece: We Have To Deal With Presidential Power. I almost didn’t read it, what with my short attention span and all, but I’m glad I did, because it provided some perspective. And perspective is a quality very short in supply right now with the available oxygen nearly completely taken up with constant awfulness on one side followed by alas and lack we are undone on the other.
Wouldn’t it be sweet to have a Congress where each member had a head, a spine, and a very low level of mendacity? What wonderful things we could do with such an instrument! We could fix this presidential thing and then get on to trying to repair the damage done everywhere you look on the planet.
One could almost despair every time we see a member of Congress being interviewed by media magpies trying to goad him/her into saying something impossibly inane or stupid and succeeding nearly always. I find myself way too often wondering either How did this doofus get elected? or Can this person even tie their own shoelaces?
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From The New Yorker
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Yesterday as I was scurrying about the grocery store rounding up things with which to feed us, I heard something really unusual on the radio. It was the song Be Bop A Lula, by Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps.
The tune was recorded in 1956 when every record label was looking for its own version of Elvis Presley.
It is awfully good rockabilly music, and no, the lyrics are never going to win a Nobel Prize. However, they are perfect early rock and roll. Dumb as a fencepost but easy to remember.
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Well, be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula
She’s my baby doll, my baby doll, my baby doll
Well she’s the girl in the red blue jeans
She’s the queen of all the teens
She’s the woman that I know
She’s the woman that loves me so
Be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula
She’s my baby doll, my baby doll, my baby doll
Let’s rock!
Well now she’s the one that’s got that beat
She’s the one with the flyin’ feet
She’s the one that bops around the store
She’s the one that gives more more more more
Be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula
She’s my baby doll, my baby doll, my baby doll
Let’s rock again now!
Well, be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula
She’s my baby doll, my baby doll, my baby doll
Even though it is a staple of rock and roll history, and is cited in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, you almost never hear it played on the radio. But here it was, right there in front of my ears and I could sing along lustily on every repetition of “she-he-he’s my baby doll, my baby doll, my baby doll” right along with Vincent. (Lustily was the only way to sing it, since it’s basically about lust in the first place.)
Remember that famous line from St. Paul who said: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things? Remember that? Well, Paul wasn’t talking about me. I never put them away. Don’t intend to. I have studied adulthood thoroughly and it looks like a poor fit for me.
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Hería small gallery from the Utah trip, posted from Hatch Point.
Little Home In The Valley 