Give It Back to the Indians?

Fat Chance of that happening anytime soon. I refer to Palm Springs, California from where I have just returned home to Tucson. I spent a few days vegetating by the pool at the vacation rental house my friend pays over $500 a week to stay in. While there, I leafed through a coffee table book entitled Palm Springs Confidential written by an Australian visitor, Howard Johns. Parts of it read like a watered down Hollywood Babylon while other sections easily cleared the Chamber of Commerce literary screening committee. Few of the current locals probably know much less care that an Indian tribe was there first, or that they scratched out a living on the eastern slopes of the Jacinto peak that rises like a science fiction earthquake monolith just west of the current city. Like most other Native Americans, the original dwellers were mostly displaced by white settlers. Though they continue to have a last laugh in the form of lease payments they collect from bargain hunting bottom feeders. It seems that desperate, shrewd and unscrupulous real estate agents (is there another variety?) still manage to convince some newcomers it is a smart move to buy Indian leased real estate even though it is not really real estate being purchased. As long as another sucker climbs off the stage coach or falls off the turnip truck, Palm Springs will keep flourishing. And for those who know the drill and how to prevent a wallet-ectomy from happening right under their own hip, the rewards are simple and base: Guiltless sun, fun and anonymity. While you are lowering your blood pressure in a hotel, resort or time share condo in the shadow of the mountain, flip through Mr Johns' tome and vicariously slip into something so comfortable you won't want to put your regular clothes back on at all. Ever.