Of The Miter and Muskrat Love

Miter Basin

Sequoia National Park

08/23/06

Mt. McAdie (center) 13,799'

The Miter (to the right)

Bishop's Miter

Close-up of The Miter

Always interesting, I think, how Sierran peaks are named. Sometimes the names actually describe the appearance of the peak. It's a kind of visual onomonopoeia. The Miter, as pictured here, is a wonderful example. Half Dome is a good example as well. (Could you imagine how undescriptive it would be if Half Dome were named Mt. McKinley?).

Other good examples include Table Mountain (looks like a table), The Thumb and The Hermit and The Doodad and Fin Dome (all solitary monoliths), The Sawtooth Range in Northern Yosemite (serrated), The Sphinx (you get the idea) and El Capitan (looks like a big, broad-shouldered captain standing guard over Yosemite Valley).

Speaking of "The Captain," we used to own this album growing up. You remember The Captain and Tennille? Those were unusual times. I had a big crush on Tennille (or is it "The Tennille"?), so I was not a big fan of the The Captain. He was my competition. It was never clear to me if they were married or just dating, or if they had their own families and just liked hanging out and playing music together. Also, what type of captain was he? He did wear a captain's hat. Where was his ship? Or where was his army? It was all very suspicious. As a 12 year old, I wanted these issues clarified.

I really dug the song, "Love will keep us together." That was the first line of the song, and the only line I understood. The other verses all got muddied together because of our lousy record player. I used to pretend Tennille was singing that song to me. We could survive anything, The Tennille and I, because we had love keeping us together. They also sang a duet called Muskrat Love in which you could hear a little creature like a rat twittering in the background. That must have been a novel idea in the 70s: let's hook a microphone up to a rodent and record it and work it into our song! I have no idea what Muskrat Love is (or who it is), but hey, it must have been something pretty special.