I woke up happy. I was well rested and clear headed. I need to emphasize the important part of this post; I woke, well rested, in a city park that had been the scene of a music concert. Can you imagine the miracle such a thing implies?
I didn’t bother making coffee. I had morning plans that involved Wi-Fi which meant I’d go to a restaurant. You’d think I’d be spurred into fast motion but my night’s deep sleep had been almost a cathartic experience.
I think we don’t appreciate the miracles of life enough. Please join me while I explain why this was a big deal.
I’d camped in the middle of a music concert. The music was excellent and the band (whoever they were) played their heart out until the last encore. Nestled in my fluffy sleeping bag I heard every note (it’s not like a tent’s walls are soundproof) and I had a dreamy appreciation for their talent. Around midnight it was all over. That’s when I mentally prepared for the night.
A concert, right after the musicians leave, is the habitat of morons. Crowds, at night, perhaps lightly buzzed and coming down from a music high, are about the lowest collective form of idiocy you’ll ever meet. If you’re a fuckin’ idiot, the kind of walking disaster that frays the fabric of society by your every act, the place you’re most likely to be is wandering around a city park at 3am. In fact, nothing good happens in any town or city after 3 am.
I’d hunkered down in a place fitting for a good old scene of mob stupidity. Beer had been served to a crowd that found themselves suddenly idle at midnight. What would they do now that the music was done? Some portion of any crowd, be it 5% or 1% or 30%, are socially maladapted shitheads. After the good people are drawn off, they’d be the ones left. I’d camped in the natural habitat of mayhem!
I steeled myself for the underbelly of America’s post-Pax Romana social decline. Crowds (at least recently and perhaps regressing to the mean of most of history) are dangerous. Society is no longer self-policing. Idiots like to idiot and social pressure, law, and God no longer keep them in line. Society is so degenerate now that social pressure encourages, not discourages, mayhem. Ask the nearest purple haired otherkin about it. Law is a paper tiger. The cops (unwisely) took sides in politics and lost their mojo. Necessary protectors of the innocent have devolved into “tool of the ruling class”. Nobody anywhere takes the cops seriously as an unalloyed force for good. As for God, society has abandoned God. Thus, society acts Godless.
This is why I avoid crowds.
No crowd is as safe as the absence of people. I might live forever solo camping in the lonely desert only to get popped over $50 in a parking lot. Hank Williams Jr. warned of this. Can a country boy truly survive?
With the music over, the sane, responsible, music goers… the adults… drifted away. Many left on foot. I scarcely heard a car. I waited for the scum of the earth to become the majority. That’s when things get weird. Someone would get in a fight with someone else. Someone would puke loudly on the pavement. Someone would do donuts with a Honda Civic until they crashed into a street light. A handful of someones would rut like weasels in the dirt. Someone would overdose. Here, in relatively sane rural nowhere that would mean a noisy ambulance siren, in hollowed out urban hell holes it would mean a creepy discovery in the morning.
Most importantly, someone might mess with my bike. Granted, it’s the cheapest vehicle of all the vehicles parked there, but thugs are idiots and they’re attracted by anything that stands out from the crowd.
I intended to sleep lightly. The better to slip out of my tent, skirt the rutting weasels and overdosed junkies, approach from behind, and deliver whatever attitude adjustment necessary to protect my cheap little bike.
That’s how it is. People are animals.
Except none of that happened. Concert attendees dispersed like mist in the night. Campers turned lights low, climbed into tents and vans, and went silent. Every RV had it’s generator off. Every sound was muffled. No cars roamed about. No radios played. No crowds of lively jive talking hoodlums prowled the darkness. Nobody shouted. Nobody screamed. Nobody made a peep.
There, in a city park with free camping and a free concert, a couple hundred people went to bed quietly and peacefully; universally behaving like sane adult citizens!
Relieved and somewhat surprised, I passed out and slept like the dead.
I think God has a purpose in this. He wanted to remind me that all is not lost. All is never lost. Even as parts of Detroit and St. Louis and Seattle are demonstrably regressing. Even as I’ve personally had my vehicle in the hinterland robbed. Even as we learn that the law is no loner as written but as conveniently interpreted. Even then, there are pockets of good people. My cynical grizzled self had forgotten that there is still good out there, even among… people.
It was quiet because the people behaved like adults.
I needed to remember that. Lander Wyoming right now was as quiet and sane and pleasant as fictional Mayberry from 50 years ago. I couldn’t have been more pleased (or surprised) if Andy Griffith rolled up and asked me how I’d liked the park.
If the election season, which has expanded from months to years to eternal, has brought you down…
If social media has gotten under your skin…
If you feel like the whole world is turning into a zoo…
…go camping in the Lander city park.