Tuesday, October 6, 2015

7258. BELOW THE WATER LINE, pt. 34

BELOW THE WATER LINE
(pt. 34) 
It's hard for me think of Kenny dead  -  and not just him but others too  -  Jim Yacullo, Larry Walker, Frank Strohlein. These were all kids, my friends, chums, pals  -  we breathed the same air, did the same stuff together, saw things sometimes for the very first time, as a unit. Back in that day, I'd have no more thought of doing something neighborhood-local without one or more of them than I would have thought of eating a peanut butter sandwich without the jelly. It was just natural, like that. Over the years, we all grew differently, had different interests and ideas, yes, and endings. But as nascent beings, kids, new selves, we were as one  -  strong, and connected to each other. A sub-genre of our own little families, in a new place, all just learning. Now those guys are dead, and (I hope) I'm not. How do I serve and honor them some now, while still serving myself too? I think about it, and I guess it's by doing stuff like this, these writings.
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I moved  -  I guess, if you look at it rightly  -  I 'got moved' to Avenel as a kid, early. To a new place, ripped out of old farmlands and woods as if clobbered with a truncheon in some old South African apartheid veldt, banging heads against all that had been in place there before. In out way, we all were thieves, stealing lands and places from others  -  who didn't really 'need' us, nor probably even want us around. Yet, there we were, all of a sudden. America, growing teeth, in a wider and a bigger mouth. The idea of civic community  -  I don't know if my parents and others even thought about that or knew what it was. If they did, they'd have more probably moved to, like, New Hampshire or Vermont, for the town meetings, the town square, the little village atmosphere in a harsh, bold climate. Here, in 'Avenel' NJ, most of that wound up centering around the church  -  we were, after all, only  a few decades removed from the family Euro-roots that had placed us here : immigrants, old-worlders stumbling over new concepts of work and place and language and learning. In that respect, gravitating towards any of the local churches was fairly natural and quite traditional.
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When I first began to realize that something was slightly off or at least beginning to look funny to me, it must have been about 1956; I was six years old, wandering already, and noticed an intriguing adjunct to this new existence in Avenel  -  the new community of just-built homes. I never thought of them, by the way, as large, or small, not even as new versus old. I don't know how other kids took to any of this, but to me these were just houses, the homes we all lived in, as alike as they were different. Up and down Inman Avenue, Clark Place, Madison Avenue and Monica Court (what an odd and motley collection of place names, by the way) these hundred or so homes were built in a repeating pattern of small sameness; the 'dormers' altered in a repeated pattern of left or right or center, meaning nothing really different at all. I never could determine which I liked the best  -  they each had their certain quirks. We had a center dormer and so I was always partial to that, or told myself I was -  a centered symmetry perhaps, a finer balance. Nothing grand or architectural about it at all  -  just a silly builder's quirky choice. Politically, later on, I fantasized about the subconscious and psychological leanings of the parents back then who'd made these selections  -  rock-ribbed, stern republican affiliates claiming right dormers; middling centrists, of course, the center dormers; and, yes, the crazed, wailing lefties seeking their matching dormers. Never worked out as good for anything at all, but it was a fun theory. Everyone eventually did something different to their entryways or fronts or other parts of the houses  -  but that was more about economics and money-success and maybe 'taste' as much as anything  -  some sought 'grander' front entrances and doorways, little porch-y overhangs, fancier doors and windows, even 'Bay Windows' which came here in vogue about 1958 too  -  not that there was anywhere a view or a bay to be seen or worth seeing, and if there was it wood have been despoiled, ruined, cluttered or sealed off,  It was all some cerebral and conceptual telepathy. Attics got built into fancified rooms or extra bedrooms, sitting rooms, even dens and reading rooms and lounges and things. Walls were taken down, grander arches built, kitchens extended, back rooms added. All over time. In the beginning, my own real 'youth' times were still tough and starting out and no one really had any extra money; so everything mattered, and everything stayed closed up. I don't know exactly how they all did it, what jobs or incomes people had, except for ours. A pittance. I remember my father back then coming home each Friday with a brown, cash-payroll envelope with what was left in it of the one hundred and twenty-five dollars before taxes that he made. I know they 'budgeted' that money, had to make it last, itemized and recorded things, kept a cash 'kitty', they called it  -  I think like extra or emergency money. Spending twenty-five dollars a week on groceries was considered outlandish, though it happened. They kept one car, and had to worry about everything else. Why they ever had five kids is beyond me; well, you know what I mean anyway.
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All that being as it may, the particular item I wanted to get at here was something else entire  -  it was the 'Minstrel Show', as it was called, and then 'Minstrelsy' in particular. I'll try to sort all this out and put the particulars down in good order.
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This was about 1956, as I mentioned, and that was the initial period, for myself anyway, of both really 'coming' to a consciousness of my own and a sorting together and coming together of this new 'place' to which all these people had moved  -  new homes and streets, a general enlarging everywhere of the area and the lands and geography involved. Outside of the 'us' of us, there existed all of the things that had previously been there before us  -  slim as they may have been. The roadways and the highways, Route One (sometime back re-named as it grew, from Route 25, I think it was), the trailer parks with their vague and varied itinerants and fringe characters (a sort of opposite image entirely of what was being fruitfully presented to 'us' as the right way of things being). Up the highway a little bit was NYC, and Newark, and Jersey City and all of that; urban stuff  -  some of which the very people here around me had just moved from, or were. That conglomerated chunk of the 'old' world was surely breaking down and falling apart, and some of those chinks and chunks from it were ending up right here in Avenel too, good as well. I was still young, but in a few years every time I heard something of the talk of the times' tempo and temper, beatniks, crazy iconoclasts, over-educated and radical city-folks, I felt always as if it was just some noise filtering in from some place way down the end of the hallway I was in and where I wanted to be; out of sight, but just as prevalent, even though no one else was paying it any mind. I was always spooked, I was always haunted. Why else would a ten-year old, in  a few years be doing, thinking and reading the stuff I'd be.
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As these new people coalesced  -  basic strangers, folks thrown together by purchase alone, in the midst of each of their own story lines and formulations and family histories  -  they had to at some level find a means of coming together, recognizing each other and bonding  -  finding something within each of themselves common enough for the group-bond and the sharing. Think of it  -  this happens at the same level when a single, 'NEW' family moves into a neighborhood or onto a block, but here it had been compounded by a hundred and more  -  all new : place, home, lands, yards and cluttered tree clearances, streams and runoffs diverted, the loss of wildlife and natural growth and place, the railroad, the need for new school rooms and teachers, the suddenly outmoded layout of ships and stores enough to meet demand. New demand, people who wanted things. These were weird folk; strapping men a few years back from war memories and still-vivid experiences, with young and still attractive wives, sexuality, families, child-bearing, growing. It was all and everywhere alike, yet different, and all new. Just plain and simple new. It was a, for to be sure, psychological wonderland and  -  believe you me  -  amongst these people there had not ever been very much schooling. Things could be tough, rough, and tragic - soon and quick.
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I'm not here belittling anyone for lack of 'education' - 1950's college degrees (when they meant something), GI Bill educations and the rest. More to the point of what I meant and noticed was any lack of intellectual 'curiosity' among these people  -  heavy reading matter was the usual: National Geographic, Time and Life and Newsweek and Look. The local Perth Amboy newspaper, already undergoing changes of name and content, was meager at best. The Newark Star Ledger represented the rest of New Jersey back then, but I well-remember my father saying, 'I don't live in Newark, why would I want to know what's going on around there?' That very small and curious statement stayed with me always, as it seemed to willingly close out so, so many other things, and more to the point just seemed to represent an entire way of viewing things and the consciousness that went with that sort of approach. God forbid then, the New York Papers  -  of which at that time there were still quite a number. The Herald Tribune was still a big deal, but so daring. I don't recall ever really seeing a heavily-stocked bookcase or a referential 'library'section in anyone's homes  -  friends and locals. My friend Kenny, again, down the street startled me, as it were, once day when I realized, during a visit, that his family received the TVGuide by mail subscription! Up until then I'd always thought all that jumble of broadcast stuff  -  Bozo the Clown, The Three Stooges, cartoons, Superman, Roy Rodgers, all that stuff, was just a crazy-quilt bunch of shows mixed in with movies and talk shows and things for adults and parents, that it all got jammed out and put on air, come-what-may. This TVGuide thing disproved, and surprisingly  -  it was all ordered, run by schedules and programming people, and the rest, AND it was controlled too! By something called the FCC, which stood for the Federal Communications Commission. They actually called all this haphazard stuff 'Communications'. It surprised me how serious adults can be over stupid crap  -  the same stuff this Newton Minnow guy (the Commissioner OF the FCC) had just nervily called 'a vast wasteland.' Television, a vast wasteland. 'Who'd'a'thunk?' It was like having the boss call his company, and all its products,  'crap'.
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The group of people I grew amongst, me parents friends and new peers, I guess, all somehow had steered themselves to the local Catholic Church. Which was to be expected. I remember my parents taking me proudly to their local Bayonne catholic church, to show me where they'd been married, where I was baptized, etc. It was a point of honor to show that connection, then and there, as much as it was in this new place to get connected. St. Andrew's Church, the local history tells us, was once a 'mission' church-chapel outreach for St. James Church parish  -  larger and well-established in nearby Woodbridge. St. Andrews was a nice, small, brick church, when finally built, serving the small outlying farm (mostly) community of Avenel, its new name (named after someone's daughter) after 'Demorest-On-the-Hillside' was retired as a name. Until that church was replaced, about 1957, latest, by the much larger, modern, and far more nondescript church building, that was where everything took place. I remember entering, on Sundays that old church, up the stone stairs from Avenel Street. It was small, had wonderful exposed beams along its humbler ceiling, and the loft in the rear for singing or choir or whatever. It was nice, countrified, a bit of real presence. The new church, by contrast, once built, was a monstrosity  -  awkward on its spot, replacing a woods behind the previous church, large, light-toned brick, generically Catholic in its look  -  simple 'stained-glass' window treatments of large windows, a big altar area, clerestory lighting, high loft, large pews, all the usual big-church stuff. it was unremarkable. The old church, for a few years, until about 1964, was left in place as a 'rec' hall  -  basketball flooring and hoops were put in placer and bleachers replaced where the altar had been. Downstairs became a game room, stage for small music concerts ('garage' bands were just beginning to proliferate, with tunes like 'Telstar' and stuff like that, with guitars). There was a pool table, and at the other end, the snack room, stove, soda, refrigerator, all that.
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Once the new church got underway, and once all these newly arrived people began falling into place, coalescing, one of the parish priests had the idea of implementing, as a means of cohesion, a theater group, which produced small stage plays two or three times a year. I remember well how it brought people together, drew in the women who, still young, enjoyed singing, theater, and who most probably still were living on their fantasy and idea of talent  -  maybe once in high school they'd been stage stars. There were  -  two that I recollect  -  a version of 'Oklahoma' and a version of 'The Rainmaker'. Early on, my mother was involved with both and I recall well attending read-throughs, sing-throughs, rehearsals and various things  -  always enjoying the scene, the piano-played accompaniment, the ladies dancing and singing, as well as the funny bravado and bluster of the men. I didn't really know any of the adults  -  perhaps a few from the neighborhood  -  and it seemed everyone was enjoying themselves and getting along. My mother, in fact, showed an entire other side to herself from what I'd seen before  -  high-stepping and kicking in dances and such. She had bit parts, and I could see she enjoyed the costuming, the tights and the rest of the costuming which went with it all.
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Anyway, after that, curiously  -  for me  -  the next established performance, once or twice yearly, in fact, was what they called a 'Minstrel' Show. Now, as a means of bringing people together  -  and I guess especially in a Catholic Church milieu  -  this was curious. Almost as if done unconsciously UNLESS, I thought, unless it was chosen deliberately. Scapegoating, at its basic level, is actually a grand way of unifying and bringing a group to one form of thinking. These were, recall, otherwise disparate people, from all sorts of different places, come together only because of their presence in a new set of some hundred or so newly-constructed, budget homes  -  built for them in a location previously wild, wooded, natural and essentially untamed, or at least raw. (Remember the local  merchant-grocer, 'Metro' telling me how much he missed his best and favorite hunting grounds, related to you in an earlier chapter). Everything here was new  -  streets had just been cut in, roadways and small businesses expanded, the older part of town  -  which pre-existed all this  -  had to integrate these newcomers in and  -  voila!  -  what better way to do this than by engaging them in a version of old Minstrelsy which would have lost all its edge and sarcasm and secret references and meanings. Plain old whites in blackface, smooching and jumping, cracking and hooting, and making fun of others, especially as the others (real blacks) were nowhere to be found. There absence was their presence, and thus it allowed a wedge to be placed, just jarring open a strange 'other' door to a world that they could jab at, poke fun at, make fun of, and find a way then  -  by that means of ridicule and self-pleasure  -  to conjoin and come together as their own 'group'. It was (almost) miraculous. Yet, it wasn't.
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The history of Minstrelsy is so strange  -  and so out of place for the use it was given here in Avenel -  that I'll digress : In 1843 the Minstrel Show was a fairly new presentation (a full theatrical presentation, about two hours long, featuring ensemble, musical program, and comic skits) and was a national sensation. So to speak. (Yes, historically the word is 'Minstrelsy', not 'Minstrelry').
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The earliest Minstrelsy was put on by slaves, with coded and significant nods of symbolic protest and ridicule. The initiate would know. It carried with it a long and complicated pre-history : in America, playing with race was a well-established tradition, with many contradictory political uses, from droll to subversive to exploitative and deadly  -  from the slaves who donned their masters clothing and talked 'white' in the Carolinas in the years before the Revolution, to the revolutionaries themselves, those Boston Tea Partiers dressed up as Native Americans, to the urban 'Callithumpians'  -  gangs who sooted their faces, banged on pots, and invaded the homes of adulterers or old men who married young women. Belsnickel, a proto-Santa, visited children with 'face of black', carrying candy in one hand and a whip in the other, he scared them out of their minds.  Whites  in Philadelphia, preached 'blackface on Black violence,' blacking up to attack African-American churches and Christmas celebrants. Around 1830, a white New Yorker (from Five Points), named Thomas Dartmouth Rice, introduced onto American stages a song and dance called 'Jump Jim Crow', creating a sensation. Such loose energies cohering around the idea of a 'face of black' became utterly radicalized in song, dance and humor. A lexicon of characters, dances, theatrical forms, and songs emerged, with borrowings, thefts, and amalgams  -  sometimes mocking blacks viciously, sometime paying them homage. At first, Minstrelsy was elastic, dangerous; in mixed race crowds in New York dives and elsewhere, it signaled an alliance of the low that might rock the nation. Black charisma was 'invented' or, at least, named. Jim Crow, the figure himself, (not yet the name for the national apartheid that governed race relations from the 1870's to the 1960's), was played by a young white man in makeup and costume who lamented the 'misfortune' of whites who would 'spend every dollar' to become 'gentlemen of color.' [Or, as actually put, 'gentlemen ob color']. Liberation was contemplated from behind Jim Crow's mask : 'I am for freedom,' he sang in the 1830's, and 'de white is called my broder'. The amalgams herein themselves were indecipherable tributes to the richness and confusion of the American marketplace: the character of Jim Crow was of African origin, but the melody was distinctly Irish. The dance came from everywhere and nowhere : in different accounts, Louisville, Pittsburgh, New York, Baltimore, and elsewhere. The song was performed in parody by anti-Catholic crowds on their way to burn down convents, and it was even played for American diplomats by musicians in foreign countries who earnestly believed it was our national anthem. By the mid-1840's minstrelsy was a theatrical institution; troupes formed, plays were scripted. The politics of these rapidly grew more unilaterally racist but still maintained a certain anarchy and surprise  -  everything was sucked into this vortex  -  references to opera, music hall, each 'Nationalized' by being blacked up. Lines were quoted, things suggested, and a thousand other cues were uttered, now lost to time in their references. The racism was American, as was the promise of liberation  -  and the homage to the culture and labor of the disenfranchised. The appropriation became American. It had empathy; it had hate. Yet it didn't really 'ask' you which side you stood upon. On the other hand, black leader Frederick Douglas said "the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by Nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their fellow white citizens."

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