There was a distinct audible pop ... like a wine bottle being opened ... just a quick pop ... I started and woke up ... ah yes ..dreaming about a dreamer dreaming ... I was in Moab ... at the condo ... the dream was real in one sense .. there is a story .. a story that needs to be revealed slowly for fear of me being labeled an anarchist .. a trouble maker .. a raving lunatic ....
Let's start with the town of Moab and work backward and forward from there ... Moab as it stands today is unique ... unique in the sense that it draws a number of folks to it annually ... tourists, hikers, wall climbers, kayakers, mountain bikers, the movie industry, business, government, finance ... you name it .. they come here for business and/or pleasure ... and they mix with permanent residents who are ranchers, descendants of original Mormon settlers, itinerant youth and alternative life-stylers ... every segment of society is represented here ... at one time or another ...
Moab sits astride the Colorado River ... it is one of the very few natural crossings ... whoever controls it controls a vast amount of territory should times get rough .... Moab is also the 'Uranium Capital of the World' .. or so it was labeled in the 1950's ... no uranium from Moab ... no bomb .. no nuclear power industry ... potash, vanadium and manganese are also mined here ....a number of western style movies have been made here ...
So where better to hide in plain sight ... but more importantly ... where better to meet in plain sight ... because a lawyer, an accountant, a company president and a senator could be mountain biking together and no one would think anything of it ... just thrown together by the sheer serendipity of casual vacation ... didn't really know each other beforehand .. .just ended up on the same mountain bike afternoon excursion together .. .
The biblical Moab and present day Moab share startling similarities ... both are 4000 feet above sea level, both are bounded by a river, both are bounded by deep ravines and mountains, both towns are inhabited by an itinerant population, Bedouin in the case of the land of present day Jordan that used to be Moab, both towns are rejected by their neighbours as being licentious and wanton.
There is another interesting and more important convergence ... the biblical Moabites traced their lineage back to Abraham ... Moab was named by William Pierce, it's first postmaster ... Pierce's granddaughter maintained connections to the Moab area and vacationed here in October each year ... her husband was an avid photographer and videographer ... in fact the compete roll of film taken in October/November 1963 became world famous ... not for the footage of Newspaper Rock and Canyonlands ... but for his 2 minute segment taken in Texas in November .. on his Bell & Howell Zoomatic ... Pierce's granddaughter's husband was an Abraham as well .. Abraham Zapruder ... the 2 minutes Texas segment was of the assassination of JFK .. who had visited the Canyonlands area 2 weeks before ...
But it gets more interesting ...
More later ...
To quote from verse 1963 of the Krome Koan,
' ... don't make me get my banjo ...'
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