10,259. RUDIMENTS, pt. 157

RUDIMENTS, pt. 157

Making Cars

Hard to believe though it may be,

when I first got to Inman Avenue,

in its unfinished state as I've mentioned,

most of the environment around me was

still rough cut and wooded. You'd not

know that now, as the residents of the

town have somehow been convinced

that a bare and tortured landscape is

next to Godliness. How all that got

started I'll never know, but thank

goodness I'm not a tree. Anyway, the

projected houses of my 'development'

(man, what a loaded word that was, ever.

It presupposes, of course, the rightness

of the 'developer's' very presence), were

not yet completed and piles of rubble

and cut-trees, etc, still littered mounds

and piles of dirt everywhere. The last

house on the block, for me, on the

left side facing Rt. One was the

Wolchansky house  -  John and Joanne,

twins, a year younger than me  -  and

past them, out to the highway, was the

trailer park and the junkyards, two of

them right there. And right after the

Wolchansky house everything broke

back into woods. There were two or

three giant old trees there, right about

where now there's the entrance to a

walkway-fence thing they built when

the newer homes were dropped in after

the woods came down (another, smaller,

'development'). The road right there was

still dirt, and rocky and rutted, single

lane, tree'd. In those trees, on those

trees, from those trees, the first maybe

three years there, on Spring and Summer

mornings we'd come out, to enter the

woods for a day's play (great spot) and

there would be early-morning possums

hanging from the limbs. I remember the

sight very well  -  they'd evidently hang

by their tails and, apparently, sleep the

night, into morning, upside down like that

until sunlight or whatever it was roused

them. Somehow Nature had equipped them

with tails that acted like clamps and locked

into position, and by which they hung,

suspended. To a young wide-eyed kid, it

was all very Nature-istic, amazing in fact.

And I could see it with my own eyes  - 

all while everything else around me was

slowly being de-naturized. Even the milk

which was delivered daily : the first

few years the cream would be at the to

and the milk (glass bottle) had to be

vigorously shaken to mix the cream back

into the milk. That too soon stopped, as

we got one 'homogenized'  -  meaning

'same' liquid wherein that separation

no longer occurred. So one one hand

I witnessed the pure Nature-fulfillment

of the possums, hanging, while at the

same time, (1954ish) the rest of the

natural land around me was being

destroyed and leveled. DDT had

just about eradicated everything

-  only rarely would we find a garter

snake or even squirrel. You'd never

know that from today's world, but

Nature back then was pretty quiet.

Larger birds, owls, hawks, pheasants,

deer  -  not a one, not a whisper.

Even the water back there ran blue,

from the Philadelphia Quartz factory

which just let it leech from the big

holding pond they had  over by

the railroad tracks.

-

It was doubly amazing in that, just

150 feet behind me, across the tracks

was actually a working farm  -  the

prison farm, but no matter. Each season

they planted, plowed, furrowed  and

then harvested and re-plowed for the

Winter fallow-season, those 200 or so

acres. Very, very few things were ever

seen  -  rabbits, crows, and all that. In

an almost eerie nothingness, that which

passed as Nature was ever only seen as

controlled by the hand of man.  Cornhusks

and tent-stalks and all that, but nothing

like you'd think. My parents, or any

other parents, never made mention of

any of this. The mosquito-spray truck

was welcomed in, always, and the rest

of it might as well not have existed.

Which it pretty much didn't. In the

next 20 years,the country would perfect

all that anyway, Monsanto and Vietnam

combining to half defoliate the natural

world and then carry it home. But that

too went unsaid. This was Gloryland,

and we were the finest. At least that's

the story kids got, from home AND

school. So, was there really ever any

truth? I'd guess not.

-

Growing up, all along, no matter where I

was, I'd observe lots of things. One time,

we'd driven to Washington DC (this would

have been 1956) and stayed in some sort

of cottage settlement of motels, little cabins

or something in a large semi-circle. This was

in Virginia somewhere, right out of DC, and

it was pretty southern. I remember all the

'tasks' being done by black people and that

was the only time you'd see them  -  carrying

stuff, cleaning, changing beds and things,

serving food, etc. One time  -  I recall this

well too  -  I mistook some black lady

charwoman, with a bucket and mop and

all, who was clomping across the lot and

field, for my grandmother (who'd taken

the trip with us). My grandmother very

much resembled a black woman, not real

dark, but dark and featured that way. We

always later 'joked' that she was part black

in her genetics, Northern Africa and all those

sea-faring guys coming up to the southern

tip of Italy, from where her family had come.

The mistake was honest, and it was a big

laugh at the time (thankfully; my father
usually got mad about everything). But the

mistake was made, and it just made me

look even deeper into whatever I'd see.

This trip too was my first experience with

'restaurants'  - except for Stanley's Diner,

on Route One in Woodbridge, which had a

Friday night fish special thing we'd go too

now and then and it had a special 'kid's'

menu in the shape of a fish. That was

pretty exotic. Anyway, I digress. Down

there, in Virginia, or along the tourist

highway or whatever it was, I was 

really taken aback by this scene  -  

we'd entered some sort of giant eating 

hall, maybe 50 tables, people milling 

all about, eating or getting food, with 

trays and such. In the center of the room, 

facing out 4 sides, was the serving and 

food area. Whatever you wanted on 

your plate, you'd go to that area and 

they'd loll it out onto your plate and 

tray, etc. This was ALL black people  -  

servers, cooks with big, white floppy 

hats, people in aprons, messy or clean, 

guys pushing carts of dirtied dishes, 

sing-songy ladies handing out trays and 

silverware, all pleasant and happy. It

was pretty amazing to me and I was

mesmerized, engulfed, taken in by the

amazing scene. I'd never before seen

so many people in one place doing the 

same thing. An eye-opener for sure.

-

America has never really gotten over 

race. I'm older now, and I know that.

Others do too, though they probably

don't admit to it or confess it out loud.

The whole topic is so off-limits and

politically incorrect now that it's best 

just to stay mute. When I was in Princeton 

those years, I'd see Cornel West often 

enough.  He'd be strutting around in his 

'Dignitary' guise, most often bloviating 

aloud to whomever was near to listen, 

about his own terns and views of injustice 

and entitlement and the rest. He was a 

cheer-leader for an anguished form 

of equality, with admittance of mistake 

first, please, thank you. Admit you

'screwed' us in the past. OK. Like any

one of those taking head opinionators 

you can see on TV most any time. They

get hired for their fifteen minutes. Man 

oh man, I would have loved to have 

Cornel West see all this with me,  

back then.

-

I feel that there are definitely different 

strata of people. Some are just dullards,

and they deserve that strata they're stuck 

in. I could argue equality, and whether

all people are really the same, all day.

My world is a lot different than the more

conventional view of things presented 

to me. I carefully say, 'No way.' John

Cheever once wrote - 'The constants 

that I look for are a love of light and 

a determination to trace some moral 

chain of being.' - I accept that totally. 

And then, thinking of those possums 

again, I add the rest of his quote, - 'No

simple matter in a world that lies spread

out around us like a bewildering and

stupendous dream.'