Green River Canoe Trip

Table of Contents for the Earth Lore Blogsite: www.PorOgle.blogspot.com
EARTH LORE Magazine- a missive of mirth, madness, and Mayhem

Weekly Renditions are made by the following Contributors:

Penny Scholten, geologist and outdoorswoman;
Dr. Chris Oravec, English at heart;
Harold L. Overton- earth critic and scientist; andCol.
Glenn Wasson, a Robert Service devotee’

Webmaster: Bob Pielage.
Entries are chronologically made (latest submission is at top of Blog), but the number system shows smaller numbers at the bottom. Offerings are protected by Copyright rules, but may be duplicated, provided the authorship is clearly shown, as originally portrayed (usually at the bottom of the entry). In case of doubt, E-mail overtonharold@yahoo.com
GEOLOGY OF THE WEST, which pertains to the basis for the stimulation which prompted the writings, for Arizona, Utah and Washington states, may be found at: www.geocities.com/overtonharold/

1. A true tale of suffering on the trail to the Little Colorado;
2. The Golden Gastrolith- an event from the Mother Lode;
3. Collections of plaintive flute tunes and petroglyphs, from Anasazi Land, followed by a photo of a Fishhook (barrel) cactus;
4. Death Valley Introduction;
5. Salt Dome Lore;
6. Rock Lobsters;
7. The Centuries Past- a Poem with Poe’s Iambic Octameter;
8. The Green: poems developed for the Green River, Utah, including a hard-fought bout with the local BLOODSUCKERS
9. The Right and the Left- a Primer for Left-handed Folk

The Green (visibly noted as the Brown)

There was an old man from AZ,
Who thought he would just take a spree;
So he cleaned out his flat,
And lost all his fat- just to make ready, you see.

With copious enthusiasm he planned;
All superfluous motions he banned-
He filled out his beard,
E’en his toenails he sheared (all for a spree on the sand).

‘Twould be in the year ninety-seven,
That the fling would be made to his heaven;
He would drive to the Green
And hope to be seen, with a crew of 3 plus eleven.

He would throw all his cares to the winds,
Would abandon all his graces for sins;
He would have a great time-
Even fashion a rhyme, and much later do all his amends.

The first evil omen he found
Was that raindrops were coating the ground,
And the crystal clear stream-
Being the heart of his dream- had turned up a chocolate brown.

The mosquitoes which relished the mud
Persisted e’en during a flood
They gnawed on his vitals,
Even relinquished all titles, so they could draft on his commoner’s blood.

The sand which was central to Grace,
Was nowhere to be found in that place;
But not to be daunted
All the elements he taunted- his ashes now reside in a vase.

The boat promptly sub-marined down
Causing all the mosquitoes to drown;
But it took our ol’ man
With his expression dead-pan, to Davy Jones’ locker in Brown.

It was never quite clear, how his spirit so dear
Remained ever so strong in that realm;
But a smile on his face, remained TRANSFIXED in all space-
When his corpse was found strapped to the Helm!

Harold L. Overton





9. The Right (Oct 8, 04)

I moved imperceptibly to the right, as I performed my daily routine, since Coriolis dictated that all in the northern hemisphere, not on the equator, would do so.
But was it right that I would do so?
I was sure that I was right about this “right” tendency, since I had seen that the very Air Mass about me do the same. My thinking was right- I had the right to believe it.
I put my thoughts to paper, rightly, writing with my right hand, since I had inherited this as a birthright. It seemed right, and I ignored the right of others to do otherwise.
Even the thoughts of the non-intelligentsia seemed to veer right; though they had this right, did they have it right? It was right early in the day, when I rightened my attitude, to reassess this basic “right”. I have a right-thinking friend and colleague- Jack Cass- who rightly maintains that he has the right to move right-ward, even without Coriolis; he has made a rite of all this.
I am right in stating that my maternal grandfather was a wainright, but then he was trained in the craft- did he realize that all of his rightly-built wagons would veer unevenly (and wear similarly) while laboring in the right hemisphere?
It doesn’t seem right and I shall record this Right Now!
(I entreated my right good acquaintance- the right honorable Judge Will B. Wright- as to the correct-ness of this about which I write, of being right about the “right” and he stated with emphasis: “this writing sounds jus’trite” HLO



The Left (Jan 20, 2007)

Do you feel “Left out”?
You shouldn’t be Left in the Lurch, regardless whether you are Left-handed or not. Not that you swerve to the left, or have a hip larger on one side when you are Left Behind, but you are definitely in the minority (as with those who have a cLeft Palate).
Nowadays, one is on the Left, whenever he moves liberally away from the center, politically. You then may find that you have Left the urgings of the Group- even though they are in a minority. Be consoled by the fact that there are other arrangements, such as those who ingest Leftsa, who may feel discriminated against also.
Fortunately, in the southern hemisphere, all movement has a tendency to move to the Left, under the influence of the Coriolis Force- which makes moving objects swing away from the equator in the direction of lesser velocity of the earth’s surface as it spins about the polar axis, along further south latitude lines (at the south pole, the velocity is zero, at the equator it is maximum).
The standard answer to the perspicacious hotel clerk’s question of “Have you left anything?” is: Have I anything Left? So, that the Left hemisphere types can take heart (which used to be on the Left side) that not all that is Left is abject. Even I have friends who are Left-leaning. I try not to let them hike with me on the wrong side of the hill, however.
The person who is left-handed is said to be sinistral, another choice where we are left with the thought that we have left something out- the person exhibits sinister qualities, but is really sinistral (the right-handed individual is said to be dextral, a positive terminology along with dexterous, dexterity, and sunning Decks). He, as is the object moving in the Southern Hemisphere, is levorotatory- but not to be confused with spinning around the Laboratory.
After having Left you with the thought that my better faculties have departed (Left) me, I assure you that I have left out a lot which I still have Left in my files- I am merely taking time out to attend to some Leftovers.
Harold L. Overton