Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in wildly wonderful state of West Virginia and have appreciated being uniquely southern my entire life. From music to food West Virginia is rich with Southern culture we have made our own in Appalachia.
That Stupid Blue Camel with the Wrinkled Knees
Stop thinking about the blue camel with wrinkled knees.
Stop thinking about the blue camel with wrinkled knees. I thought to myself sitting in the waiting room of my therapist’s office.
The blue camel with wrinkled knees is a character from the Raggedy Anne and Andy Universe. I don’t know much about the origin of the camel or raggedy Anne for that matter. I know she’s a doll. I know there are books; which came first?
I learned about the camel from an old VHS tape we had as kids, and the memory of the camel’s hick and melancholy musical number fought its way into the present moment to play in my mind overtop the waiting room’s string music cover of popular songs.
How can you be happy?
How can you be smiling?
How can you be anything but low down saggy and blue?
I wondered what Wendy might say if I told her about the camel with the wrinkled knees. What would she think of his song?
Do you think you run to memories from your childhood to avoid what’s going on in your life right now?
Are you trying to mask your pain with humor?
Do you think you are low down saggy and rag tag baggy because you’ve allowed yourself to take blame?
Wendy didn’t ask me that; her questions would be much better.
Stop thinking about the camel with the wrinkled knees.
He is an interesting character though, at least in what I can remember. He is a large part of the plot to the VHS I remember, with two individual musical numbers. One, a trippy number with hordes of hallucinated camels calling for him to come home, and of course the song Blue.
I guess that camel with the wrinkled knees is an Eeyore-esk character:
Ann: What’s your story?
Camel: That’s my story. No one wanted me.
Ann: Why?
Camel: I have incurable fallen knees. Ugly, aren’t they?
What’s interesting to me is that I never forgot his song despite the fact that the Raggedy Anne movies wasn’t a favorite of mine, or one I watched that much. Comparatively I shouldn’t have remembered but there I was, thinking about the blue camel. Wondering, how long have I been sitting here?
I conceded that I wasn’t going to be able to get my mind off the camel, so I indulged myself by looking up the full lyrics to his song. I remembered almost everything right, but I didn’t remember the verse:
I’ve looked around and seen the sweet life everywhere
I’ve watched the cookie bushes shinning in the sun
The smell of sweet vanilla living blows in every breath of air
Doesn’t anybody want me?
Doesn’t anybody care?
Damn. That’s too deep for a blue camel with wrinkled knees, I thought. Am I the camel? Do I remember his song because that’s how I see myself? Should you tell Wendy??
I hear the door to the waiting room open.
“Sarah,” Wendy says, and I follow her thinking…
How can I be happy?
How can I be smiling?
