Tuesday, January 16, 2018

10,411. RUDIMENTS , pt. 197

RUDIMENTS, pt. 197
Making Cars
I was never ashamed of anything
because I never had much to be
ashamed about. When I was first
a kid, I had a pretty nice Columbia
bicycle, and then it was followed
by a nice, sturdy J. C. Higgins. The
names themselves meant really little
to me, though I was told by my
father they were good brands. I used
to really love that swirly text-type
that the Columbia logo use. It
was a really nice piece of metal
around the front fork tube and
riveted lightly on. The J. C.
Higgins, as I recall, was an
altogether sturdier bike, of more
heft and durability. To me, as a
kid, there was a real price of
loyalty to one's bicycle; it was a
funny feeling and completely
without connection to anything
but personal sentiment. Maybe
hot-rodders and motorcycle guys
shared in that same feeling, but
I don't know. Back then, you have
to realize, there was a lot less to
take up your time with, far fewer
distractions, let's say. Outside of
the opposite sex, there was a closer
latitude to what  you did  -  maybe
girly mags, in their primitive stages
then, were the diversion needed for
any Bob or Joe in need of outside
stimulation; but most guys, as I
saw it, were content with tinkering,
tuning, and driving. It was all just
of a different focus. I remember
young guys in their yards working
for a month building engine hoists.
-
I never really had a bead on what ever
was going down then  -  I knew there
were crazes, and dances, and all that
which were making the rounds as hot
topics  -  even hula hoops, and skates,
jalopies, and hot rods. Home model
kits, of cars and planes, were another
big item, as were ten cent movies on
Saturday mornings at the local school.
But whoever wanted to sit in a sloppy
big room with  120 plus screaming
kids yelling back at Abbot & Costello
or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Nothing was ever shown possessing
any intelligence past 2nd grade.
Later on it was always held out to
kids that a good future was to be a
teacher. I'd look back at what I saw
and remembered and would just think
to myself 'who'd ever want that?' It
seems that people get stuck in the 
rut of the crowd they deal with, and
you end up with 6th grade teachers
always acting and thinking like 
6th graders, etc. How to figure 
that as a career move? Beyond me. 
As I saw it, there was nothing worse 
than an insincere adult, except maybe
one who wasn't even aware of how 
insincere their pandering seemed.
-
Some kids I knew seemed to have 
really cool family lives  -  with
memberships in swim clubs and 
pools, beach passes from Lavalette 
on their family car's window year 
after year.  Big cars, newer and 
fancier. I never knew if the house 
atmosphere reflected a better 
education, or awareness of things, 
or connections or learning, but it 
was never like that where I lived. 
Which was OK and I never dwelt 
on it. It just didn't seem to matter. 
One of the big problems with 
being a boy was the ongoing 
rush of hormones; you kind of 
just knew it was coming, felt it 
flushing through you, and so 
many friends had sisters. Yes, 
all that was always before you  -  
calling, enticing something, and 
you never quite knew what the 
heck it was. Yet. Until. There 
were some houses where the 
daughter or sister was the older 
one; some where they were 
younger. I remember this one 
kid, Jim, who had a sister about
6 years older than I was, maybe, 
and I watched her in awe, thinking 
of her as the most graceful, beautiful 
thing I'd ever seen. Once or twice 
she maybe looked my way, said 
something, or smiled, and that was 
enough for like ten weeks. And 
to make it worse, she was arty, 
talented, fine, delicate. A hundred 
words. She disappeared, I disappeared, 
life went on; but it still sticks. (She 
died, alas, a very early death, in her 
30's, of which I only heard later and 
in passing). They lived on Park Avenue, 
in Avenel (that doesn't mean rich 
or any of that; it just leads to the 
park, not like 'Park Ave' poshness 
in NYC). Her father drove a soda 
delivery truck for Royal Crown 
Cola. Living there must have been 
a difficult location for anyone like 
her, in that it's really difficult to 
be exceptional and be stuck in 
such ordinary surroundings. It's 
funny, because I still pass that 
house all the time (no contact 
with the brother at all, for 50 years 
now), and the enormous tree on 
the neighbor's small front lawn 
is still there, huge and the only 
tree left for nearly the entire 
block. It's the same way with 
another friend I once had, over 
on Chase Ave. The neighbor 
there still has the same giant 
oak on the front lawn that was 
there 50 years ago too. And it's 
the only tree still standing along 
that whole block as well. Funny 
how things go, like the old bell 
clanging on some leaky memory 
ship listing on some choppy sea.
-
Avenel can pretty much be defined
by the scrub oaks that once grew
everywhere. On the street I lived,
Inman Ave, a long stretch of blah,
the first half of the block (not my
half) had backyards that had been
left treed, fully grown in. It was a
buyer's choice. My parents, evidently,
had opted for the treeless yard. My 
father was a stickler, and really
disliked trees  -  dropping leaves,
acorns, making shade. He seemed 
to like the bare, bright sun of a
mowed, crisp yard, picnic table
and cookouts under afternoon 
clear skies. I guess it was just 
a preference. I liked the other 
yards  -  all that darkness,
and trees you could befriend 
and grow comfortable with. 
A really good scrub oak, if
left alone, grows secondary 
branches off the main trunk,
low, at head height and less, and
they sort of grow downward too, 
pointing towards the ground. It's
very cool to see that, natural state,
except most 'yard' people always 
trim those bottom offshoots, clearing
the tree in the lower portions. It
had something to do with neurotic 
niceness or demanding neatness 
of a natural-state tree. Anyway,
in many of my friends' yards this
wasn't done, or rather it was 
neglected enough so that no
 one tended the wild trees. I
used to love the thickets formed
because of it  -  vines and weeds
and things which would grow in.
This was once all over Avenel.
It can still be seen, here and in
other places, oddly enough, in those
cast off triangles of land where
roads and ramps often lead into
other roads or highways. Spare
land, ignored, left to grow. They
always end up growing in perfect
specimens of what the entire area
must once have looked like. A 
great site. I started out here saying
I was never ashamed of anything.
When these small parcels suddenly
get trimmed and shortened and 
mowed and pillaged, I'm ashamed 
of that.

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