The Dam at Devil’s Den State Park: NAJ screen shot from Google

Tales From the MoJo Road –
By Glynn Wilson –

DEVIL’S DEN, Ark. – When the news came through loud and clear and all over the New York Times front page Wednesday morning that a majority of the American people are willing to roll the dice on another crazy term for a criminal and proven liar just because they don’t like the price of eggs, I figured it was time to run for the hills.

New York Times page one online on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024: NAJ screen shot

How far, which direction and for how long would be the main questions on my mind in considering what to do and which way to go.

After filing three stories from the Maumelle campground in Little Rock Wednesday morning – the new lead story for the NAJ on the election, a story on Election Night for the non-profit news site the Arkansas Advocate and a column for The Progressive Populist newspaper – I packed up quick and hightailed it up the road toward Missouri.

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The events of this election cycle and scenes of my journey from DC to Arkansas flashed before my mind’s eye as I drove, almost playing out like a movie on the windshield. The cruise control was set on 79 mph, cutting through the Ozarks on Highway 49. The speed limit is 75.

I honestly never allowed myself to truly believe that a majority of Americans would ever vote to put Trump back in office. I never called this election, as I did in 2016 and 2020, because I knew this time it really looked and felt close, like a sharp knife. Something you want to be very careful playing around with.

As we pushed the media camper van Glyn Ford to the limit of the big Detroit V8, she had no trouble leaving behind the truckers. But it became apparent with the shorter days of Daylight Savings Time that the sun would go down before we made it to the desired destination. Spotting a sign for Devil’s Den State Park, the wheels turned sharply to the right in time for the exit.

In spite of Siri’s warning to “go (back) to the route” – she had to be silenced – we wound our way down through the mountain cutbacks into a quiet valley by Lee Creek. The sun went from blinding in your eyes facing due west, to fading into the shadows of the trees, just as a park ranger was about to depart for the night.

He said there was no cell service, but WiFi by the office, as is the case in many Arkansas state parks I’m finding out. This is about the fourth one I’ve checked out, and none of them got my business because of being too remote for modern communications. This time it felt like no choice, and let’s face it, after the election results, a cold, dark night off the grid by a babbling brook with the barred owls might just be what the doctor ordered. It would give me time to think, without looking at everything going on all over the internet, especially social media.

Also the phone would not work, so no spam calls.

I regret to say that the journey the next day was so urgent and the landscape so brown, mostly bereft of fall color already in early November, that I did not take the time for photographs. I should find the time in the next place, also by water. Stay tuned.

But I spoke to the gods in the valley by the gently moving water, and now have a better idea about what to do next.

That was after enduring a shouting match between a man and a boy. One finally left in a huff. Thank goodness. I also had a camp chair and rug stolen by Arkansas redneck thieves in the Little Rock campground, a Corp of Engineers park with no gate code to keep out the riffraff. That’s one of the things I like about Maryland State Parks. Some national parks should get them too, like Greenbelt.

After things quieted down, the stars came out and you could see the night sky pretty well. I may have seen the space station, and I’m sure one of Elon Musk’s low-flying Starlink satellites was trying to scan for my location. That motherfucker just came into more power than he ever dreamed when he bought Twitter and made it black X. He’s now headed for Trump’s kitchen cabinet, if the Biden Justice Department does not file charges first, or it probably won’t even matter that he bribed voters with a million cash to vote for Trump. Trump would just pardon him.

Which reminds me to say, again, that Joe Biden’s choice of Merrick Garland for Attorney General is as responsible for this moment as anything Trump did to win this election, or anything Kamala Harris did not do to win it. If Trump had faced a speedy trial for his incitement of the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, he would be in prison now, not president elect. Liz Cheney called it. Garland didn’t listen.

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“A crook” may “always beat a fool,” Trump had taken to saying in his rambling stadium circus performance, a line he stole from the Nixon era. Kamala Harris is no fool, but she had to put together a national campaign for president against a total tyrant 100 days before the election, because the white men in the middle left her a confused electorate. Trump never really faced justice for the horror he caused that day. If Trump was so guilty, the MAGA hats told themselves over Budweisers and rare meat, then why didn’t the “corrupt Democrats” just “lock him up?”

Garland’s Justice Department let the cases dangle along, waiting on Trump judges to rule, because they were bending over backwards trying to be fair, not to politicize the justice system?

I knew that was a mistake all along. The MAGA hats already believed the system was rigged and corrupt. Would it not have been a good idea to show them it wasn’t by making it work like it should? By prosecuting the guilty? Not waiting around for the Supreme Court and the voters to decide?

So now what do we do?

I was considering three-quarters retirement and heading west. But that would be because circulation was going to drop after Harris won, as the country began to move on from Trump, so it would be a good time to live my dream of seeing some things out west.

Now the Not So Civil Information War is back on, on steroids. It’s going to be an impossible job to document all the damage that’s about to be done. But I will at least try to hit the high spots in the days ahead.

Travel Note: After conferring with the spirits, I’m made the guarded decision to delay my long-planned excursion into the American West.

I’ve edged up to the Lewis and Clark Trail and looked over to the other side. Only unlike their Journey of Discovery at Jefferson’s behest, I have the luxury of turning back and delaying the crossing of the Missouri River until a later date.

After arriving in Arkansas and considering Google maps, I discovered that my base here puts me within easy striking distance of New Orleans and Birmingham. I had been sort of fantasying about a victory lap in the South this winter before going west in the spring.

Google map of the current range of travel within a half-day’s drive: NAJ screen shot

Now I have no choice. There will be a screening of a documentary film about Wayne Perkins in the Birmingham Museum of Art’s Steiner Auditorium on Nov. 17 at 1 p.m. I will be there to cover it. After that, who knows.

Related: It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll But I Like It: Wayne Perkins and Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1973 to 1977

More about the election to come…

Should we prepare our “Sieg Heil” or “Hail Victory” salute and practice our worshipful loyalty speech to the new king, and get ready to kiss his ring or face beheading? Enquiring minds want to know. I have thoughts. Putting some of them down now. In a separate file.

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