10,754. RUDIMENTS, pt. 292

RUDIMENTS, pt. 292

Making Cars

The only certainty left  - and it's

a large certainty, is death. But

before that, along the entryway

to something, stand recollection

and memory. When someone calls

it 'nostalgia,' which happens now

and then, I want to gently disagree.

I consider 'nostalgia' to be a

recollection with desire for that

recollection to be back. I'm not

there at all. I really wouldn't

wish to return to anything past - 

all this life is just too much of

a rigorous turning. What  I can't

figure out is a balance or a value

system for why all this must occur,

and run through and past us, and

then just go away, peter out,

sicken or slow down, and die.

Something's wrong and that can't 

be right.  I have many difficulties.

-

When I was a kid, at St. Andrew's,

the priests there that I knew were

fairly vapid about everything. It

was like an Avenel trait almost, to

be goofy and react to most everything

with some weird form of joyful

pleasure  -  like the local idiot

politicians here do today. It's a

form of turning the attention away

from anything of substance. Old St.

Andrew's had a fine, country-style

church, right in the middle of what

little passed for a town. Trees, grass,

curbs and a real nice atmosphere. It

at least made you WANT to pray for

something good and positive. It sort

of echoed the things they were trying

to teach us in school and church  - those

smaller, American-style local virtues.

What then do they go and do? Tear it

down and destroy any vestige of it,

while erecting in its place, using a

completely different geographic

angle for it, facing kind of east/west

instead of north /south as it had, 
a larger, new, 'church.' The new

configuration, whatever its reason,

(perhaps some odd form of Vatican

feng-shui) threw everything off and

made no sense. Besides the fact that it

was ugly, plain and boring, AND

surrounded by an acre or two of

macadam. It was a travesty. Yet no

one faced it off, none of those priests

ever even issued the words of it as

perhaps being a controversy or an

issue. The big deal, instead, was

the newness, the prosperity, the

growth. What that had to do with

anything, I never understood  - 

and it certainly had nothing at

all to do with the essence and

feeling of the 'religion' supposedly

imparted. It was soulless and

barren. Yet, it was all part and

parcel of the sort of thinking

which was slowly taking over.

As I said, at no level was there

any deep-talk, sense, or meaning

about anything imparted. I never

understood what they thought they

were doing. It was a medievalism

with just the pomp, and no Black

Death. There were better times

at the Woodbridge Drive-In.

-

When a gestalt or whatever begins

to change, it's a gradual affair as the

society around it begins to adapt

and take new form. Meanings and

approaches change. But, here,

nothing really happened. The

conservative aspects remained

conservative, while the breakaway

and the leading-factions, the

ecumenicals and the council

followers, made their moves.

Everything lost shape and

everything lost sense.

-

Some family I knew  -  I actually

forget the last name now, but it

may been the LaHoda family,

they died, in Ideal Trailer park,

from an asphyxiation in their trailer.

Two parents and two boys, carbon

monoxide of some sort, though I

forget what was faulty. But anyway

it was a quick, flared-up scandal,

horror. Sad for an hour and then

everyone forgot about it. But how

do you figure for things like that?

It was extremely weird to be in

school or catechism class, I

forget which it was, and find 

out the news. They were just gone.

I remember sitting on the little

wooden bleachers they had in the

old, de-commissioned St. Andrew's,

before it was torn down, and we 

were using it once or twice a 

week for one or another of those

silly after-school religion by 

memorization things they run,

a complete waste by the way,

and noticing the vacancy where

he used to sit. I guess that's when

it really hit me  -  that there were

things to face up to; that instances

happened, and were going to 

continue to happen in this same 

manner, for the remainder of 

my life. It somehow all seemed

OK then, even if it was horrid,

because I envisioned nothing but

all that long expanse of my life,

stretched out before me. Now

that's all gone. It's over. 

I'm finished.
-
Whatever one wishes to make out of 
that, it's fundamentally the same
for each of us. I have to admit, I'm
sad and sorry, and I wear this
collar only lugubriously. There
are things around me that's
I'll continue to hold until I die,
and people and memories too. What 
else can I do? As I live and breath,
everything else has been taken from
me  -  and by scoundrels. What's
left is someone else's really poor
version of what once may have been
ordinary, everyday, life.  No
longer : it's  now a bad medley, sung
out of tune, and by people who
can't really sing at all.