10,540. RUDIMENTS, pt. 230

RUDIMENT, pt. 230

Making Cars

Along about 7th grade, I can

well recall  - still being local

to Avenel schools and not yet

having departed for seminary

days  -  I spent nearly an entire

deep and dark November and

December doing an in-depth,

highly detailed, almost bizarrely

so, report on Moscow. The city

in the then U.S.S.R., Moscow

River, and the rest. I concentrated

most heavily on the ornately

styled and architecture'd St. Basil's

Cathedral. So much so that for

all practical purposes it stood

in for me as the absolute symbol

and icon for Russia. Well, one

did not refer to it as 'Russia' in

those days. It was The Soviet

Union; U.S.S.R being simply

the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics. Americans apparently

would not forgive that, even

though it was really no different

than taking the 50 states (48 was

the number I grew up with, until

1959, when Alaska and Hawaii

were suddenly added) and calling 
them the United States of America.  
That striking national alteration
of flag and country-line, along

with the changing of the penny's

design, were perhaps the most

momentous yet momentary things

of my youth. I leave out the space

shots, the dual-headlamps on cars,

the design models of fins, tails

and swoops, sugar'd cereal, Tony

the Tiger (the stupid tooth-rotter),

Eisenhower's heart attack, Nixon's

'Six Crises,' Marilyn Monroe's skirt

blowing up over the subway grate,

allowing my perhaps earliest glimpse

of a female's underside, Gary Powers

and the U-2 flight that crashed, with

its ensuing crisis, Cuba, Kennedy,

Doctor DeBakey, Christine Keeler,

The Profumo Affair, Seven Days in

May, by Fletcher Knebel, Splendor

In the Grass, Pope John XXIII

(Cardinal Roncalli), Twiggy, and

Rudi Gernreich. I'll stop there,

and I'll call this, again, the
 United States of America. 
But, no matter.

-

I was way caught up into all this;

of my own doing, my own impetus.

And, yes, perhaps it was an apparent

symptom of my own sloppy obsessiveness

about things. I had subscribed, well

before this, to the monthly 'Soviet Life'.

It was an equivalent version of Life

Magazine, if Life had been a mouthpiece

for the rash of Government-controlled

story and photo lines extolling ONLY

the system and the Government,

(which it may, in fact, very well have

been; Henry Luce, media, etc.). As

'Soviets,' no one ever concentrated,

at all, then, on 'Russia' or 'Russians'

nor the Russian 'volk', the everyday

burden-shoulderers of the large, harsh

and confusing land. Back then one

had to have given up any 'Russianness'

in order to become 'Soviet Man,' as

it was called. It was all a 'system, not 
a 'people.' And I never got a feel for

what the mailman ever thought of

this  -  it was still not that far removed

from McCarthy era stuff, and I was

but a 12-year old kid. Anyway. The

thing about my over-the-top devotion

to the cathedral was  - besides its

bizarrely enticing design and color  - 

the idea that the Soviet State was

Godless, officially atheistic (these

were once the more pious people

on earth). And they had all these

great Russian Orthodox churches

and cathedrals and buildings being

used for secular or governmental

purposes; or for nothing at all.

-

My little room at that time, at home,

was in the rear of the attic, atop the 

stairs and to the back, with a little

desk built into the wall, which desk

my father has somehow built in as

forethought. It became perfect for me.

A haunt, from which I almost, it

seemed, never emerged. For some

strange reason I'd tacked up a large,

National Geographic map of the 

world, upon the wall, and in the 

that map were 10 or 15 colored 

push-pins denoting places, cities, 

and locations I'd grown fond of 

(from reading about). Places my

dreams perhaps had me visiting

someday. Strange, boyhood stuff, 

mixed with baseball items, a Pope 

thing, also on that long wall, and 

a poster of some car-design and 

models of the last 40 years, then,

or so. I say strange, now, because

from what I've seen over the years,

kids' rooms now, of this ilk, get

filled with posters of stars, entertainers,

robots, babes, girls, bosomy stuff,

pin-ups  -  certainly none of the

junk I was entertaining here. I

would burrow down on this Moscow

report thing like I was writing a

new Bible. Only later, by 15 or 20

years, did I get involved with

reading the other side of all this;

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Gulag 

stuff, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky,

Malenkov, and all those mishaps.

That was a lot to atone for; and about

1980 or so there was a movie called

'Reds' which  -  after 'Doctor Zhivago'  -  

made pretense to try and cover this

material in their own, lighter-hearted,

Hollywood blowhard way.

-

As I think back now, after all that 

toil and work (construction paper 

backers for photos, text typed in 

place, drilled and grommeted binder), 

I have no idea what this report was 

or for what subject or teacher I turned

it in. I have no recollection of the sort 
of text I may have written to accompany 
all these references  -  my point of view, 
what I  included, etc. Complete mystery; 
but a young boy's lasting fascination 

for the remainder of the big, fierce 

world. And now, in looking back, the 
closest I can get is a Turkish writer 
named Orhan Pamuk, who has a 
wonderful sort of childhood book in this 
vein entitled, quite simply, 'Istanbul.'   
Thinking back on any of that

now brings a small sort of heartache;

I guess part of the realization of a 

life being over and with it all this 

backwards compensation for things 

done and achieved while yet being

essentially without value except to

me. In that vein Life isn't fair at all.

You give, give, give, and get nothing

back except junk. Sugar Frosted Flakes

to rot your teeth; trips to Disneyland to

look at fake, ersatz, make-believe,

bullshit towers, castles, and 

crenelations. Not worth
a darn; nothing.