9939. RUDIMENTS, pt. 73

RUDIMENTS, pt. 73

Making Cars

I forget who but someone had an

album out back in those early 1970's

called Pretzel Logic. Whatever Winter

that was I remember driving in a blinding

snowstorm in bitterly cold weather, in a

one of my cars, with visiting friends, and

with that playing. Hazy, but it was radio

they'd put on, for the ride, not a tape or

any of that (cassette/8 track days), so

I guess it may have been the Elmira College

radio station doing it. Sounds right. There

wasn't too much other stuff up there to keep

a person occupied  -  long, cold Winters, lots

of deep, mountain darkness, a need to mostly

do your own stuff, whether it was repairs,

doors and windows, cars, heat, wood and

food too. It was pretty weird  -  living like

that. It's easy to just look back now and

scoff, but it was a peculiar time out there,

right up through say 1976. Real 'modern'

stuff hadn't hit yet. Out in the hills and

hollows there were still things like smoke-

stacks with ribbons of smoke curling up,

snow up to the bottom rungs of fenceposts,

clothes and boots on the porch, with dogs

and cats about, just hanging out. It was

slow and singular. There was a private

screen of sorts around everything that only

got broken by invitation. I can think of

25 things, right off the bat, that didn't

yet exist to ripple that slow sea of time

I was living on. In turn, from my perspective,

we were still just a mass of kids, or people,

who accepted everything. Most of the people

I knew just went along, shared the usual

aspirations and beliefs which were then

current. I can remember, up at Cornell, on

that Ithaca hilltop where 'college town' was,

how definitely one could still stand out.

Just by being different : there was yet a class

of intellectualism to which one could aspire

and just by aspiring be seem as different.

There was a unique turn to things. I'd be

up there, sitting in any of the few bookstore

and coffee places that then were at the top

of that hill. The one we mostly frequented

had the walls AND the ceiling covered with

book covers, I guess stapled up. I forget.

That too sounds the simplest, dumbest form

of decor, but you have no idea how valued it

became. It acted as a token, that the world

could be broken if you just applied yourself.

There was something about being a sentinel

like that, a 1970's breakaway, that carried a

real lot of sense with it. Beatniks were gone.

Existentialism was over. Hippie stuff, yes, up

there it still lingered : maybe 5 years out of date,

but you'd still see it. The (mostly overweight)

hippie girls in those flowing caftan type things,

ridiculously tribal, beaded, flamboyant, would

still be sashaying along, mostly oblivious to their

own foolishness. Whatever that old hippie smell

was, they always had it  -  patchouli or something.

Whatever they were trying to cover up, I didn't

want to know. Then the other girls  -  if they

weren't chubby they were 84 pounds, in jeans

that were appliqued with elephants, peace signs,

moons and suns, pixies, donkeys, or daisies.

All together. The tiniest little breasts in unslung

blouses. Mirrored blouses, string blouses,

Indian fabrics, and 'India' or 'Native American'

at that point made no difference. Just Indian.

Slippers, sandals, boots, or  -  warm weather

feet, nothing. The guys, a fine closest-full of

vamps they were too : often much the same as

the girls, fey, wan, weak, slim, denims worn so

long you could see the body grease in the fabric

just waiting to be wrung out, or, jeepers, just

washed out.  Everyone just sat. The bookstore

crowd was no crowd at all  -  five or six people

at a time was a mass attack.

-

'Old Black Water' or something like that,

that too was one I can recall. Doobie Brothers

maybe. Except it sounded like some old,

Ozark country backwoods music. Startled

me. See I never knew this stuff but we'd

get visitors often enough from back home,

Avenel and Woodbridge people, even cousins

and kin, who would take the five-hour drive

often enough to just slum out with us, in the

huge, old, cold house, for the three, four, or

five days they could get. And those visitors

would bring all this current culture TO me

just by their existence. I was otherwise mostly

completely secluded, out of touch willingly.

But they had, by osmosis, all this stuff in

them; in their cars, their radios, the things

they did and talked about. So I'd get the

complete rundown on it all. Then, for

something to do, I'd drag them somewhere,

to something of the sort they'd never have

seen before. As if taking them back in

time, and mostly it was and mostly they

never really even understood what they

were seeing. People, it seems, have always

tried to understand me, but I was never that

understandable at all. I used different words

and I connected different things. My concepts

were different, and unsubstantiated  -  in that

if I tried to set them down and explain them,

these ideas (I never wanted to, and never had

to anyone would just walk away, probably 

trembling, that I was plum loco). The way

I was living out there only compounded this

entire mess. After a while, the best solution

just always became to take them to Ithaca.

It always worked, my friends, as visitors,

always liked it  -  'cosmopolitan,' my friend

Paul called it, like I took him to Bombay

or London. It just meant that, because of the

isolated university aspect, he'd see all sorts

of international types walking around. And 

he was right. Besides, the college part of the

town was all still smoldering. Over the recent

few years it had been the hub of protests,

riots, takeovers, fights, and police actions.

A lot of the seething and anger was still

around; the Black Students Union was

still fearsome. Salutes and signals. As I

mentioned, culturally, hippies and slackers

were still dripping over everything; there

were huge, hillside rooming houses caked

with people, rags, dogs, old cars, vans and

micro-buses, as if the Grateful Dead had

forgotten they were supposed to have left

town. It was a great, fearsome scene. Cheap

food, beer, coffee, anything. We'd get back

to the old farmstead and its quiet, black-night

darkness, and just shudder at the difference 

those 35 miles would make. Country miles;

no one gave a whit of care about distances.

Cars flew, as things ripped by. In between, 

along the ways, we'd pass gigantic farmhouse

communes like encampments. People on the

move, cars everywhere, campfires. Out along

both sides of Rt. 14, or whatever that was,

you'd see them looming  -  like large biker

parties (I'd learn later) or itinerant groups

in their own campgrounds. Open fires

and all. Like Burning Man is today, once 

a year, except these people lived this way

and every day. Along the secondary roads,

and farther out, it got even better.  Things

were set way back, and it seemed pretty

private. Like those beautiful, little, Gypsy or

Romany encampments in some Transylvania

Mountain woods of old. I once read, about 

those days, post-hippie, etc.,  someone saying 

that in those early 1970's years, before it all 

settled back down and landed again, drearily,

into the rigid and dumb routine of (in quotes) 

'the 70's', there was a whole (underground) 

nation of youth on the move for two or three 

years, roving, unsettled, and just drifting. 

I guess that was true. And I guess if anyone

could have grabbed that, and made a power

out of it, things right then cold have really

taken off, been changed, and all the rest. 

I only think of this stuff now, and almost 

wish it had been me, back then, realizing 

that. I could have carried a great following 

to  most anywhere, I bet. I had that sort of

latent mojo, just wasted.

-

Anyway, that was then, this is now, as 

someone said  -  still another of those cranky,

leftover 'rock music' aphorisms we're stuck 

with. One last thing here, for this chapter: 

Again, whatever year it was, creeping out 

of my cocoon, one day some visitors came

by to stay for a while : maybe a week. 

Hopelawn and Fords people. They brought

with them about 7 homeless cats they'd picked 

up somewhere along the way, and they asked

if we wouldn't mind taking them. Pretty crazy,

yeah, but we did; they weren't large, and not so 

bad. We let them all out in the barn, and kept

after them for a while, but country cats eventually

get along fine on their own. And these did.

That same trip these people brought to our

attention, or to mine anyway, 'A Horse With

No Name' - by a two-man group called 

'America'; and something called 'You've 

Got to Give It Up...' or maybe it was 'Get 

It Up', I honestly forget, by some group 

called the J. Geils Band. I'd never heard

either before, and, by whatever standards

of the day, they were each refreshing, and 

different, to hear. Goes to show, I guess,

what living in a (metaphorical) cave will do.