RUDIMENTS, pt. 172
Making Cars
As a young kid, maybe 10,
one of the first really serious
books I read - keeping it all
to myself and really trying to
absorb it, was 'Autobiography
of a Yogi,' by Paramahansa
Yogananda. Very strange
choice, yes, I agree. Mrs.
Muccilli, at the very small
Avenel Library, (when this
tiny place itself had one),
used to let me take it and
renew it over and again. No
one else cared of it and there
was no demand for the book.
It was (I have 2 different
paperback versions here
now, and I still look in) quite
the eye-opener for me, and
I diligently stayed with it. I
was fascinated, at all times,
by the story he told, the
consciousness presented,
and the theoretical basis of
it all too. I made clear note
to myself how, compared to
other kids who were swooning
over Yogi (Berra) shilling for
Yoo-Hoo, (a chocolate-flavored
drink), my Yogi was completely
different. No hits, no runs, no
errors. In fact, no things; all
passes. (wrong sport, fool).
-
If you start out on such a
footing, how can you really
go elsewhere? I was never
the sort to slide backwards,
nor down. This person,
Yogananda, as presented,
was completely exotic to
me and had nothing to do
with Avenel or my own
boyhood. Oh how I yearned
for other worlds, or another
world anyway. At this time,
in Avenel and Woodbridge too,
there was very little importation
or arrivals of immigrants,
meaning that newer wave of
Asians who began hitting about
1965, after Johnson loosened
all those laws some. Because
of the proximity here to Merck,
Schering-Plough, and other
science-type companies, the
'garden' apartments (that was
the official name given back
then to those red or light-colored
brick complexes that were
suddenly everywhere. Low,
mostly one or two stories at
the most, spread out, with
campus-like but sparse grounds,
and parking areas - which had
the most importance), began
filling up with technicians and
science-types from these other
cultures - the lab-coat crowd,
I called them. One after the
other low-level Merck scientists
or researchers, everywhere one
turned. I guess they made
decent money, in those days.
I never knew. Often they were
here, it seemed, without families.
Cloverleaf Gardens, in Woodbridge,
was the one I saw mostly (because
they had covered over my own
swampy playland at the tail-end
of Avenel Park, the neglected part,
to which I'd often ride my bicycle
as a kid - skunk-cabbage, ferns,
rocks, vines, and two or three
boggy ponds. They just ripped
it all away and built acres of
these Great Society era
garden apartments). On a
very quick (short?) amount
of time they'd be numerous
and seen around (these
small-science types). That
was fine, but there was an
omni-present cultural clash
always about to happen. A a
kid, trying to put together a
personal being with all the
backstory and valor of the
old American past, it became
difficult to understand or see
these people, all about, on
their own small agendas. It's
problematic - I say - when
a foreign instep tries fitting
into an American shoe. The
references were all wrong,
none of our stories fit them,
the things we'd just learned
in school, or been 'taught'
about our place and our history,
as a country and a people,
bore no sense in meaning or
importance to them. It was just
a different fit, giving meaning
to the word 'alien' in those terms,
for sure. It's different now, as,
in forty plus years already, most
people are since twice-diluted,
mixed breeds by another degree
or two. Everything's already shot,
watered down, the schools are
clinical madhouses, and no one
really gives a good God-damn
for anything. But in these days
I'm speaking of, certainly by 1966,
that breaking divide hadn't yet really
occurred. By today's standards it's
almost impermissible for me to be
writing 'they' when I talk about
them as 'others. But, too bad. If
it were 1911 and they were talking
about dumb Italian immigrants
who worshiped Popery and 9 kids
each and smelly foods, it would
have been the same and they would
have been talking about me. So,
at least I felt it was equitable, that
I took note of my strange bias.
Except none of those people, the
Italians, were technicians. They'd
come at a different level, as laborers
or apple-pickers. This was different.
These were technicians, like this
grade of 1960's Asians, from their
own, precise culture, worried about
order and precision. Yogananda
somehow represented none of that.
-
That was the striking difference, to me.
Yogananda was OF that culture, in
a peculiar sense, yet far and away
past it all too. Nothing of the
technocrat in him - although
it's sometimes now said the religion
reaches science as Science finally
ends up at Religion, and I sort of
get that, but that's accidental. He
was broader and higher and far
more cosmic. That's where it all
became difficult to relate to others.
I had somehow quit with this world.
Approached from these other angles
- Vedic scriptures and utterly ancient
teachings - the world is seen for
something else. Way before the poorly
equipped 'Bible writers' had amateurishly
tried their hand at re-scribing these
hazy tales and stories, the Upanishads
and even the Mahabarata, had done
the same, more authentically and
more factually. There really were
objects, people passing between
lives, multiple levels of concurrent
consciousness, and the rest. The
world was expansive, not closed.
And that's what I'd (amazingly)
tapped into, never again
to be the same.
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