BELOW THE WATER LINE
(pt. 44)
So it all went. Avenel was nothing to me except,
in its
manner, a big street-lamp. The nasty streets,
wide and torn or narrow and old,
were separated
all by light - an artificial, neighborhood light, to the
extent
that, even, the old or at least 'older' parts of
town had no contact with or
awareness of, any of
the newer parts of town. The situation was odd
and
hopeless - there were parts of older Avenel,
the 1920's parts, with
large-sized bungalows,
houses of somewhat older and traditional looks,
which
never seemed to come out of themselves
to join with or agree to the newer
parts - and
since it was all a jumble anyway none of it
mattered a bit. The streets there, as well, had
older, more traditional names, New York
oriented - there was Fifth Avenue, and Park
Avenue, and others. It bespoke, in its own little
ways, a deeper connection to something, the
past, a legacy, a traditional view. Nobody had
ever told us who this John Inman guy was that,
supposedly, our street was named after. The rest
of it, Clark Place and Monica Court, they might
as well have been Bob Street and Jimmy Avenue -
named for people's kids, or the developer's family.
No one knew; it just sounded weak, by comparison.
The
old parts, funny to see, had a real difference,
all older people in them - single elders, paired as
husbands and wives with their homes emptied
of the kids (there were, yes, some kids still
around too; I don't mean to say there weren't),
who may have once lived
within and grown up out
of these streets - onto other things - these were
the great elders of
the larger, tree'd quieter parts
of town. Or no town. It was quiet and older,
more
staid and solid. Nothing ever happened - the
old men died off and,
usually, what was left were
widows, single old women, living alone, living out
their post-husband lives without being able to take
out their garbage, rake
their leaves, burn their leaves
(it was still allowed), shovel their walks from
snow -
we'd do all that, knocking door to door, for a quarter
or a dollar,
some hot chocolate or candy, whatever.
One time I recall a few of us raking the
Autumn leaves
from some elderly couple's vast yard - bringing them
to the curb
to burn (controlled open fire), and the old
man coming out to us with a large
handful of potatoes,
wrapped, as I recall, perhaps, in foil. He proceeded to
show us how to put them into the fire and thereby
cook or roast them (whatever
it's called) in that fire
as the leaves burned. He said that, in his youth, that
was pretty much how they often ate. By God, by the
time we were done that chilly long-late afternoon,
those were the
very best roasted potatoes of any
sort I'd ever tasted, nay, feasted upon. (This
was
down towards the end of 'Fifth Avenue', a section
where there were yet a few
large houses which
then petered out again in size to the end, where
was located
'Avenel Park', back in the 1950's a
run-down, afterthought, leftover spectacle
of a
town park, adjacent to swamps and meadows
and bogs and, oddly enough, a
cinder block
'American Legion' building, which just never
seemed to get
finished. Old, wiry men, walking
around, entering and leaving, in their strange
old
cars). As I think back now, looking over the past,
of those days - which
was just as close to the
First World War era and before (1910, say) than
1960 is
to now, as I write - these old folks that
we knew, men in their late 70's and
entering their
80's, in 1960 - were born in something like 1885,
lived through
a time when everything we know of
now was inconceivable to them then, and
were
most probably veterans, if so, of
World War I. On
the whole of itself, perhaps that might not mean
much, but in
retrospect now it was, or I see as if
it was, me looking through a porthole at a
fading
past which was quickly getting smaller as the
contemporary ship I was
riding (not theirs) was
getting farther from the shore (theirs). It can be
said,
yes, to be confusing, but if you look at it
clearly, it wasn't. It was just
another time living
over into our time - these were people who
tendered yet
their reservations about the
automobile, had rickety, after-thought garages
put
up in the rear of their yards - utilized as
well as tool-sheds, in which they
kept a weird
assortment of manual things - large scissor-like
hedge trimmers,
saws (I can recall, in fact, my
father himself going on, in almost a reverie,
about
saws. He was a major Henry Disston saw fan -
a brand he swore by; all
about saws), metal tools,
manual things - no plastic anywhere - boxes of
nails (they each size and each use), one, old,
fabric-insulated extension cord
(again, nothing
plastic, not even the cord coatings), hand drills
and boxes of
drill bits, canvas bags, push mowers,
heavy potato sacks, steel garbage cans,
power-cords
with lights on the end - lights in protective cages.
I could list
more, for it all just went on, and went back
as well into the recesses, truly,
of another world right
then ceasing slowly to exist. Everything was changing
focus, speeding up or being sped up into a more
accelerated time and all the
accelerated meanings
and definitions of things which went with it : they did
not
take part in that change, though they were not,
at the same time, cognizant of
resisting it. It just
never entered their thoughts; it was how things
were. That
guy who showed us the potato-bake
thing used wooden-strike-anywhere matches,
and
just talked right through everything. He'd
not know anything about a discourse
on safety
matches, or even the reverse-positioning of the
strike-panel on
regular matchbooks that took
place in the late 60's - it used to be on the other
side, the same side as the flipped-up open
match top, exposing the matches, all,
to the
danger of flaring up when the strike panel was
struck and perhaps
produced a spark (sometimes
happened, the spark, but I'd never seen matches
flare up in anyone's hand). Yet, that was perhaps
the first or one of the first
of those endless
alleviate-for-safety things which began happening
around that
time; it soon got much worse. I'm sure
those folks must have just scratched
their heads.
I think what it is that is so different, between these
times now
and theirs, is the idea of 'efficiency.'
It's a new and more modern concept -
the idea
of streamlining for cost and efficiency, perhaps
once used for
industrial purposes initially. Over
time, and as it was 'professionalized' into
some
form of business acumen, efficiency spread its
ugly glove and began seeping
into the national
fabric. More and more was 'Modernism' praised
for its
efficiency. These people, on the other hand,
were leftovers from an era when
none of that really
mattered - what mattered more was the presence
of being,
the location of the experience, the slow,
plodding work of developing a
Life. My boyhood
friends, Al Zinze and Robert Stewart, they both
lived down there, right at the edge of the park and
that every-slowly-going-up, or not, American Legion
hall, which was, essentially then, just a grey pile of
cemented cinder-blocks, a wall or two connected to
nothing at all, and it stayed that way for many years.
Robert Stewart had a nose that was constantly running,
even in school, sniffles and liquid nose drip, and just
a general what-must-have-been-really-annoying nasal
situation for him. Nice guy though. Al Zinze, his neighbor
close by, was a more-sensitive type, a bit deeper and
darker, with whom I could feel a little more close,
friendlier. I didn't know anything about their families,
there may have been sisters or whatever - they were
just the kind of crossings you get from being mixed at
school. It was always a funny feeling - knowing kids
and not knowing them at the same time. One of the
secrets of Avenel was that - no matter what you
knew - everyone also had another side of family
and home that you probably didn't know at all -
everyone from somewhere else - the complete
opposite of all that 'traditional' greeting card bogus
American home and hearth stuff. We were kids, pliable,
courageous, and partially stupid too. We just accepted
what was forced down our throats. I always felt that
growing up entailed reaching the point when you
knew that it all had to stop. That was my view - for
most others, as it turned out - their view was that
reaching adulthood just meant continuing and carrying
on with all that crud - with the additional benefit of
having a job, a bit of money, and 'vacations.'
-
Looking back at things now, like a hundred million
other things, there are changes and there are none.
The left side yard of that potato guy at 39 Park Ave., it
seems way diminished now, maybe built upon, can't
remember that little neighboring house, but who knows.
Houses never change as much as we do - or they get
taken down, rebuilt, added to, and all that. I had my
own ways of getting to the park - which is, I think,
the Avenel secret of having named it Park Avenue -
pure efficiency and utility - sounds like NYC, but
really just gets you to the park, that's all. The Legion
Hall now is always all a hubbub - karaoke night,
rib-fests, polka dances, poker nights - even biker
runs. You name it now, the fancy will always turn
their tricks for love. Real love. Like the love I have
for all the things that once passed through my heart.
for all the things that once passed through my heart.
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