10,953. RUDIMENTS, pt 368

RUDIMENTS, pt. 368

(avenel's press passes)

A lot of the dealings within

life are about sensitivity. There

are things from my younger days,

even teen and young adult, that,

when I look back now, are seen

in a completely different way  -

and only because of the' societal'

sensitivities that went into it. Like

cigarette smoke. There was a time

when the entire everyday world

was a haze of the gray, stinking

cloud of cigarette smoke and

odor. People ate with cigarettes,

talked, swallowed gobs of smoke,

sat around, with cigarettes, and

not a thought was given. Now,

these years later, the slightest

whiff of that noxious blue odor

sends me a'frenzy. As with so

many other things. The entire

approach to what we live has

been altered. And that means

disrespect and scoffing too  -

sanctity is long gone. Police,

clergy, teachers, authority,

politics and process have all

been shown to be a tarred and

nicotined hell-hole of their

own, and mostly better not even

to be mentioned  -  let alone

movies and TV and such. The

common currency of everyday

life has changed, at both ends.

In a nearby small city, for some

years I knew of a lady high

school teacher who had two

different kids with two separate

students. it's all blown over now,

everyone's grown and I guess

worked it out, but no one ever

blinked, she was never removed,

it wasn't even talked about

seriously. You want to wonder

how that could be. I guess I

don't begrudge her liking the

old magic wand, but the least

she could have done was have

a cigarette after sex.

-

Most of the things I ever liked

were solitary things; like when I

went to Camp Cowaw, the Boy

Scout Camp up in Latham, at the

PA border, up above the Delaware

River. It was pretty cool, lean-to's,

sleeping outdoors, oddball camp

counselors and open air showers

and all, (secluded though). We

went up there with Mr. Hill, our

scoutmaster. He had a Ford

Country Squire station wagon,

early on, and he fit 5 or 6 of

us in it for the trip up and

back, after the 7-days of camping.

When we got up there, there was

a large, black bird, dead as ever,

stuck into the front grill. That

was pretty weird, like an awful

omen of something. He pulled

it out and we never mentioned

it. The only hang-up with Cowaw

(it means 'Tall Pines' or somesuch

in some local Indian tongue from

the woods up there, Ramapos

or Leni Lenapes, like anyone

really cared. Basically, we'd

already impaled all of them on

our metaphorical national grill,

and grilled them too)  -  the

only hang-up to Cowaw was

that they had what they called

a 'Buddy-System.' It was plain

lousy, and almost creepy. You

had to pick someone, reciprocally

I guess, because they had to pick

you too, somehow. (I never

thought of that). And  -  for the

week, or until you ended up

hating each other  -  you always

had to be in their company. You

couldn't do anything alone  -  it

was a safety precaution, for not

drowning, or falling off a cliff,

or getting lost in the deep woods.

No one ever mentioned bears and

stuff, but in the late 1950's a lot

of those wild-animal and natural

critter things had been wiped out,

with DDT or hunting and stuff.

Nature was pretty quiet in those

days. But, no matter, you had to have

someone hanging around with you

all the time. I hated that. As I recall,

my kid was Bobby Hill  -  Mr. Hill,

the Scoutmaster's son. He was OK,

in that we were both kind of aloof

and quiet. It was mostly for swimming

anyway. The only way out of it was,

and I took advantage of this, to sign

in for 'Merit Badge' courses, which

you went to alone. I did archery.

In case I had to kill one of those

Injun guys who snuck through their

genetic decimation; and I also did what

was called 'Long Distance Running.'

That was even greater, because, while

running, you're on your own. They

had marked out a long, cool, one-mile

straightaway, paved as roadway, that

we ran along for our 'miler.' There

were very few cars up that way at all,

and you'd see 'em coming a long way

off. I'd run that thing, over and over,

some days three or four circuits. A

mile is cool  -  we had Roger Bannister's

recent 4-minute mile famous world

record to run against. Except our mile

took like 9 or 10 minutes. I forget

actually, but it wasn't close. The

thing I like was how, at a certain

point of surge, a zen-like thing, the

'mile' disappeared. It wasn't long,

nor was t short. It just was; it was

a mere idea we toyed with while

our heads ran. Solitary things

like that are always my favorite.

Different for sure  -  there was

an early 1960's movie, maybe

even late 50's, a British film,

I really liked : 'The Loneliness

Of the Long Distance Runner.'

It was great stuff, and all sorts

of things cultural, political,

sexual, and running too, were

mixed up altogether in it. That

was kind of my imagistic ideal;

but of course I never told anyone,

mostly because I never had anyone

to talk to about really cool stuff.

-

Come to think of it, that high school

lady porking her students, or getting

porked, or however that phrasing

goes, would have fit right on to

the ideas and feelings of that plot.

Besides running, there was a lot

of other stuff in it. I don't recall

any special music or anything,

but it wasn't until later anyway

that 'music'  -  or memorable

music anyway  -  began showing

up as important parts of a film  -

things to be remembered.

-

So, anyway, so much for all that.

At least I never heard of any

extra-curricular stuff going on

in the local schools around

Avenel, but it's not like it would

have been a headline in the local

paper. Hush-hush is, after all,

hush-hush. The local paper back

then was still called the Perth Amboy

Evening News. Only years later

when conglomerates started buying

around did it become, after changing

hands like three times, one of those

crummy Gannett Papers, and it's now

called the Home News, which was

a scratchy, nothing paper from East

Brunswick, for years. Same drivel

but different ownership. All worth

nothing. After a while, locally, the

'Perth Amboy' part of the name

got dropped (as Perth Amboy

deteriorated) and it was just The

Evening News. I used to get

involved doing a lot of their

printing too, when they were

owned by one John Burke, of

the Burke family, but the they all

disappeared after selling out too. You 
know how newspapers used to be
delivered by 'paper-boys'  -  a 
bunch pf 12-year olds, with
bicycle routes, flinging papers
onto front lawns everywhere?
One time we were at a luncheon
the Home News threw, to show off
all their new, expensive equipment,
in their new building. We'd  been
invited, a few of us, because we
had their printing account, as I
mentioned. So this John Burke
guy is going on and on about all his
new investment and equipment, and 
he asks if there were any questions 
from the floor. My boss, the owner of 
the printing company I worked for  -  a
real hard-assed dollars and cents guy,
he was half-outraged over the idea of 
all this new equipment and its product
and output being placed into the hands 
of 12 year old kids, to screw it up on 
delivery of the product  -  which is all 
customers really got to see and cared 
about anyway. So, he stood up, and said, 
in essence, 'So John, this is all very nice  -  
and expensive  -  but tell me, really, 
you're putting all this into the hands 
of 12 year old kids?' It was funny, but 
serious and stern too. Maybe it makes 
some weird sort of businessman sense.

The cool thing was, I used to print

 their cards 'Photographer On

Assignment For The Home

News.' They were called 

'lanyards'  -  that's the official

name for the tags and passes and

stuff you hang around your neck. 

Anyway, I always made sure 

I'd take a few. Those things

falsely got me into plenty of

events  -  having nothing to 

do with the News Tribune. It

was all false, and I even used 

it after that name was dead
and gone. All I needed was
to walk around with a camera,
which I mostly did anyway. It was,

I always felt, a real 'Avenel' thing
to do  -  sort of an in-your-face
challenge to authority. Like
'Go ahead, find me out,
I dare you.'