RUDIMENTS, pt. 146
Making Cars
I never understood how, from the
seminary vantage point anyway, they
got so mixed up in caring for secular
things. The fact, for instance, that
John F. Kennedy was (supposedly)
a Roman Catholic - even though
we know now his Papal staff was
actually schmutzing into whatever
he could find, which isn't exactly
so Roman Catholic. Or is it? -
made him, in an instant, some weird
kind of secular saint, or a version of
it anyway. When he was killed, the
whole place sort of went into lock-down.
In a way that only Catholics could do.
Or pretend to do. I remember I was in
the library, sitting around, and one of
the padres came in and made the grim
announcement, and then the next one,
that the President was dead. In the
interim we were all made to drop
whatever we were doing and get to
our knees, and, in place, everyone
started praying. In the library anyway,
the 20 or 30 people there. Around the
rest of the place, I was told, the same
thing happened. Even, eventually, the
sports fields and outdoor activities.
Each area had someone in it, leading.
I guess it was an understandable
reaction, but I connected it somehow
to my personal 'disconnect' between
reality and society, which had begun
growing on me, or within me. I simply
found myself unable to be concerned,
or care. What matter would any event
of that nature have if I was to carry to
its determined ends the sort of life I
was supposedly selecting by being
there? No to be a town crier, or a
volunteer sunshine-booster and a
soul-angel only. I thought this was
to be about remaining separate and
singular from all that stuff. I remember
the next day, or whenever it was,
they had a TV (small, grainy, black
and white) in one of the rooms and
as I (we) watched, a group of about
10 or 12 of us in a clump, as this Lee
Harvey Oswald guy (the suspect then)
who'd 'killed' the President, was led
through a basement corridor. I was
transfixed as I saw this arm and hand
thrust out from the scrim of reporters
and officers in that police dept. basement
or whatever the corridor was they
were walking him through - and he
got blasted, shot, right in the gut, on
national TV. He went down and never
got up. The killer, dead! And the strange
guy who did it, Jack Ruby, a nightclub
owner with a string of hookers and
babes working for him, somehow
allowed in, to the basement walkway,
and with a gun? So cool. THAT part
of this strange drama transfixed me.
The heck with the rest. Somehow
no one in the seminary ever spoke
about that one, or those two. I was
led to imagine somehow that by
whatever designated criteria we were
to be playing by, neither Jack Ruby
nor Lee Harvey Oswald merited our,
or the same, attention. At about that
point I knew I was on to a scam here;
something maybe about the collection
basket and maybe even the same kind
of crap Martin Luther was wailing
about 450 years previous. The more
things change, the more they stay the
same. I can also remember, for the
next thirty or so years, really rooting
for Marina Oswald, Lee Harvey's
not so bad looking and interesting-
looking too, wife, and I often
stopped to hear or read what she
had to say, whenever I'd see
something - long after the
assassination. I always felt something
was up, she was on to more knowledge
then we were supposed to know about,
and the entire thing stunk; no matter
who got what prayers, which had
obviously been ineffectual anyway,
except for their propagandistic
value. It all just led me, a young
seminarian, to start figuring I'd
be playing for the wrong team,
when I came right down to it.
-
There's nothing anyone can
do about things like that -
none of it is Science; it's all
rather just the sorts of things
which are drummed into your
head. Every sixth grader, a
month later could probably have
retold - properly and with all the
accepted 'details' - what had all
just transpired. I was always
suspecting things. And I still do.
-
Back then there wasn't any of
that fast-food swarm of little
eateries everywhere and people
lined up in their cars at drive-up
windows shouting their endless
orders into the faces of hamburger
clowns or French-fry witches.
When that bus which I mentioned
previously used to run through the
countryside down there, it was:
town, big blank space, town, big
blank space, and town and space
again. I go there now and it's all
one vast, interconnected horrendous
swarm of one constant thing after the
other - plaza, eateries, auto stuff,
gigantic shopping plazas and malls,
300 acres at a time. Redundant.
One stupid same thing after another,
each re-doing what their competitor
does 500 yards away. The expectation
is that a person will 'drive' the distance
necessary (500 yds?) to select their
proper choice of well thought-out
sales selections. Like Hell they will.
They just gorge, consume and drive
- probably no one walks anywhere,
unless maybe it's yet back to their car
again. Have you ever looked at the
size of people lately? Corn-fed,
bulbous-assed steers and heifers
is all I see, guys worse than the
girls, mostly. How can you run a
country off a people that make such
lame life-decisions? Taco Bell rotundas
to Hippy Harry's Hamburger Hankerin'
(that's a rare entrepreneurial independent
food joint. You don't see that much
anymore either). Those are the same
people who get courted to go into
voting booths, make momentous
choices, and direct the fortunes
and fates of millions by their
selections of the varied goons
to run things. (If you take the
word 'run' and just add an 'I',
which is for everyone, you
get 'ruin'). Get enough 'ruins,'
and you get 'ruination,' (which
is a pun, yeah, with the word
'nation')...
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