RUDIMENTS, pt. 382
(aching for avenel)
Robert Frost, the poet, has
a quote that goes : "We dance
round in a ring and suppose,
but the secret sits in the middle
and knows.' Boy I always
thought that was pretty good;
nearly perfect too, in its
mysterium and perplexity.
But it's also as plain as day.
It's the way writing should be
- you can point, but you can't
touch. It's up to the reader to
touch. Good readers are fewer
and fewer to find. Everything's
disappearing around us now.
-
Long about the roundabout,
I've seen lots of things, most
all in the most informal and
casual way. I like it better
that way anyway - just sort
of living the life and running
across things as they come
along. In Elmira, about 1974,
there was some crazy kid that
got hired, where I worked, who
had recently moved in from the
Bronx. I'd never been exposed
to his sort before - tall, skinny,
loud, and a bit obnoxious. He
much typified, as well, the
prototypical New York boro
person - Bronx, Brooklyn,
etc. Rough and rattly. Every
day I had to listen to him,
coming in to work, to be,
saying, to me and others,
how much his dick hurt.
Yep. Then he'd go on about
how he and his girlfriend (I
never met nor saw her), had
too much sex the night before,
nearly every night, it seemed,
and how, because of that, his
'perpindicular punctuator' was
raw and sore. Jeepers, buddy,
shut up! Right now I forget this
guy's name even, maybe Alan,
or something lie that. He was
funny, (odd, not comedic),
talked a real lot, nervous
and goofy. And also, he
seemed to know extremely
little about the real world stuff
we all took for granted - like
trees and storms and fields and
grass. A real cloistered and very
citified dude, but not refined
like I'd expect - no schooled,
finer tastes or knowledge. His
bearing was more in the manner
of, say, the Jackie Gleason
bus-driver type of character,
Honeymooners style, but
with a sore tool. I used to think,
'That's OK for you, but is your
girlfriend still able to walk?'
-
Like they say, you meet all
kinds. I had a few other
co-worker friends in there who
were much more normal people,
and local Elmira guys too.
They got along better with
things. Their life was about
pickup trucks (not so common
a pre-occupation in 1974 as
you'd think, or as now). They
were a little bit crazy too -
girls and dates, married stuff as
well. On Tuesday or Wednesday
nights, I forget, the one guy
who had a key to the place, the
'press foreman,' would open up
the shop, and they'd go in. They'd
then set up a projector and
things, at some distance from
the large wall, thus getting a
large, projection image, and
run porno-films for an hour
or so, on the wall. I never went,
but always, the next day, they'd
be going on over the highlights
and incidentals of the action
they'd viewed the night before.
Pretty weird, but back then that's
how it went - no on-demand
sites, no phone-screens, and
not even VCR yet. They were
stuck, as it were, with film and
projector. The big kick for them
was how large they could get
the wall-image just by pulling
back a distance, and properly
focusing the film. I don't know
how the sound went, but I
guess everything was big.
-
The mid 70's were big times
too for the sort of bold 'graphics'
on the sides of trucks - they
were manufactured that way,
and popular. These guys each had
a new truck, with tough names,
on the vehicles, and graphics
- elk, or deer, or even bears
and fir-forests. Legendary
names, like 'Colorado,' or
'Yukon.' Actually, it was all
pretty ugly, but, whatever.
They'd occasionally go out
drinking, or to each other's
homes, etc. But I never hung
with them, except for work.
We had one lady working there,
she was like 400 pounds, no
kidding, she could hardly walk,
her thighs and overlap was so
big - her name was Margaret,
and all she did was sit on this
metal chair (you couldn't really
see it once she sat on it), and
for eight hours - with bathroom
breaks, which took about fifteen
minutes (she was slow getting
around too) - she'd just sit there
collating stacks of paper. She
talked a bit with the other ladies,
but most of her time was spent
being peeved or annoyed at the
raunchy tales of these three or four
guys. She came and went by
taxicab too. I knew her some,
and where she lived, but I never
saw her anywhere outside of that
daily work routine.
-
Elmira was a funny place. I liked
it a lot; it had a bit of 'Avenel' to
it as well - a slight bit off-focus,
out of key, a mess; a talkative bunch,
of not necessarily anything useful
or valued either. Physically it was
much different, and has Avenel
hands-down beat. But the rest of
it could pass an exchange. And,
oddly enough, like Avenel, the
place was crazy-nuts about fire
service, except that it had a factory
there that produced trucks for the
entire world (American LaFrance),
and a gigantic manufacturer as well
of fire-hydrants (Kennedy Valve).
We did all their printing, each, so
I got to know the ropes of that fire
stuff. It was cool except for those
horrible puke green/yellow trucks
they began producing, replacing
good old fire-engine red. That was
a travesty, in my eyes. I'd go there,
to the paint shop area, and there'd
be trucks getting set up and painted
for locations everywhere. Yuma,
Arizona; Akron, Ohio; places
in Canada and California, even
international places. Someone
once told me that whatever
municiplaity bought a truck, it
was driven out to them, and a
big hoopla made of it, but I
doubted that. You can't readily
drive a new firetruck 3,000
miles to California as a
shakedown cruise. That made
no sense to me. It was a really
busy place though. And as
for the Kennedy Valve Company,
as I travel around I still see them.
If you take notice, in many small
towns and cities you'll still be
able to see street fire hydrants that
read, Kennedy Valve Co., Elmira,
New York. In Elmira there were
other businesses too - the Hilliard
Company; and of course, just out
of town, Corning Glass Works.
They had their own print shop,
but we got a steady stream of
their work too. That kind of
'industrial' manufacture and
might is all gone now and nothing
much gets made there. Elmira is
sad and blighted, 40 years later, but
still a lot remains, and whenever
I go there my memory starts
right off working overtime.
-
You can't really compare it to
Avenel, but I do, and the differences
always end up to be way more
than the similarities, but that
difference imparts a lot of info.
Like how important 'setting' is -
when you've got a real river running
through the middle of town (the
Chemung), a lot of natural grace
and finesse happens automatically.
People aren't as bizarre and they're
a lot less snappy and cranky. Being
ringed by hills and mountains too,
that makes a big difference - as
does having a traceable history,
and battles and places of note.
Woodbidge, and Perth Amboy,
just have gibberish, because they've
turned their back on all that cool
stuff and just instead want progress
and new. All that modern junk, and
ways for people to make money.
If that's all you want for life,
there's plenty of that crap to be
found, and bringing it in is no big
deal. The problem is that the next
town(s) over, in either direction,
have the same crap, redundantly,
in place, just as you have. Really
boring sameness, and nothing
ever changes. There's nothing
new under the sun, but first we
have to sell you that sun.
-
Dance around that middle and sing -
but beware the aches and the pains
it will bring.
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