RUDIMENTS, pt. 69
Making Cars
It may surprise the reader to learn or
be told, in any case, that I am a quite
ordinary person. In most all aspects I
could be seen to be representative of
some sort of Everyman, perhaps a tad
more nervous or self-conscious about
myself, but an everyman no matter.
I've spent legions of my years in
embodying many of the stations of
Mankind - skipping of course, the
obvious unattainables : wealth, riches,
station, wisdom, authority, and all that.
I've considered the sports angle, the
fun-only angle, the wise-guy, the
Biker-sloth, the young-student, the
activist, the know-it-all striver, the
whiner, the feel-for-others bleeding-
heart sort - most of the workaday
stations of other people have at some
point been taken up by me. What it is
is nothing much, or nothing of the sort
you'd think each embodiment would
have made me. All it's given me is the
perspective, perhaps unique, of sometimes
seeing things as others would see them,
through the 'eyes' of those in these other
stations I've experienced. It's kind of a
curious and unique thing. I'd guess most
people, by contrast, are what they are,
and stay there, seeing their own single
perspective and view-station. Maybe
that's better; consistency and all.
-
What brought this to mind? I walked
outside this evening and smelled someone's
wood fire. I guess to 'take the chill out' or
something in their house. The fireplace
chimney did its job, and I was transported
back: in Pennsylvania we had fires going
at almost all times outside of Summer.
Trash was burned (lawn fires). I can think
of a few - instead of the usual 'suburban'
crankery about being fixated on a lawn, etc.,
many of these really rural folk, (myself
included - see, one of my guises), kept
a sort of fire pit with 50-gallon drum
(holes and gashes poked in the barrel
sides) conveniently on the front 'lawn'
area somewhere, into which trash, garbage,
and the like were thrown until enough
had accumulated for an open fire. Usually
started with a slight touch of gasoline-dribble
which was let to sit for 15 or 20 minutes to
soak, and then a match thrown in from a
distance. (We used to buy long, wooden
stick matches, called 'Pennsylvania Blue
Tip Matches' - brand name - with a
blue-dotted, 'strike anywhere' tip. They
were outlawed all around here (NJ), but in
Pennsylvania sold openly and everywhere.
You could pretty much swiftly strike on
most any surface - boot-heel, sole, even
pants zipper, and get the flame going. They
were often sold with the caveat of not leaving
them around because if mice take them into
the walls of your house or building, which
had been known to happen, a fire could
ensue as the mouse dragged the match along,
or whatever mice did. The match would (could)
self ignite and torch, from inside the walls,
your structure. Nice clear warning, that.
There was also the folk-wisdom in the barn
of not carrying them around loose in your
pocket, lest you burn your balls. Rural joy
came in many forms.
-
Now, this fire - controlled as it burned mostly
by just being watched - would sometimes
become a real tall, almost exciting, blaze. It
would usually begin in the barrel, yes, of
course but many and most time some flaming
pieces of this or that would float up or breakaway
onto the ground and start a little ground burn
right there; which we called a 'fire-pit' but which
really was just the same spot consistently burned
in, adjacent to the barrel; so why not call it was
it was. I never quite understood why people didn't
do this fire, actually, in their rear yards - at our
location we simply kept to the same barrel and
burn spot which was already there. Others had
told me it was because, in the back, 'that's where
stuff is,' - meaning cast-off mattresses, heaps
of junk wood, an old sofa or two, piles of crap,
and maybe even an old refrigerator and/or car
- that is, of course, if none of this stuff wasn't
already out front. Including Grandma, Uncle
Jed and cousin Nathan too. Some seemed often
to just hang around until found. It was said
you could tell a man's worth by the junk on his
porch and such, the things he refuses to throw
out. (Not really, I made that up). But I bet
that's true. So was having that fire on your
front lawn - it was a way of telling others,
showing others, how comfortable you were,
having all this trash and consumption and
so many things to burn. Poor folk had really
little fires. Remember that crazy economics
writer and social critic I told you about much
earlier, from Cornell University, up in Ithaca,
Thorstein Veblen? He had a name for that
sort of display - 'Conspicuous Consumption'
he called it. I also had a friend who used to
joke, 'I remember when Consumption was a
disease.' Meaning now it's cured, but we still
have consumption. Good one.
-
The thing abut Pennsylvania, which I caught
onto after a while, was that there was always
a chance by turning somewhere, a surprising
spot, an old woods, you could turn up most
anything. By the mid 1970's, the 1920's were
only 50 years back; that's abut what 1970 is
to us now. Far off, but not. In the woods out
behind my own acreage, there was, I discovered,
a long, lonely, unvisited place that had been a
local 'dump' in the 1920's and '30's, I was told.
I asked about it, discreetly - only a few old-timers
really remembered anything of it, but there it was.
We'd go back there and pick through stuff, heave
and dig. All sorts of grand old things would turn
up, much the worse for being rusted and weathered,
but nonetheless very cool. Lamps, car parts, lanterns,
doors and fenders, old shoes, the leather white and
hard; tools, broken wooden shovels, things unknown,
old milk crates and cans, farm stuff. Most anything
even reasonably long-lived. No books or paper or
anything like that, but hard goods, larger items, etc.
It could have been a goldmine for a real collector
maybe, or an anthropologist or archeology group.
As it was it was just old and forgotten. There was
a 'newer' dump, town location, whatever it is, about
a mile or so up and over one of the local hills. It
too was cool but current. Ecological concerns
weren't for sure anyone's big concern thereabouts -
this place bottomed onto a nice, scenic stream and
location, but no one cared. People would just drive,
back in, sometimes right to the stream-bottom, and
start dumping their junk, or just heaving it down
the cliff. Big stuff, little stuff. Washers and dryers
and refrigerators too. It was almost a social center
of sorts, and there'd be the usual local grifters and
pickers always diving into the latest-arrived junk
to see what was being thrown out. It was all pretty
crazy, and you really didn't have to say much at all.
Maybe a nod and a 'hi' would suffice, but everyone
was just to their task, and no one really cared what
anyone else was doing there. It was a real scavenger
city. I always enjoyed it. On our last, most recent,
trip there, we went back to that current dump for
a look-see now. It's about the same, years later;
been cleaned up some, it seemed, and moved a
little over too, but the stuff is still there, though
there's now a nice spread of good, green grass
and it's a heck of a lot neater looking. Tidied up.
I wonder if they still do open-burning.
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