RUDIMENTS, pt. 392
(avenel:seminary days, pt.1)
When I got to the seminary, it
was like coming from nowhere
to go (also) nowhere. The place
was situated in a fringe area of
the Jersey Pine Barrens, just
out of civilization, which was
always lurking, out along the
fringes. Seriously odd. There
was a series of small towns, one
jumbled-down heap after another,
that you'd pass through on your
way inland from the Turnpike. Like
Exit 4, or 3, I forget. (But I think
it's 4). These were all, (in 1961)
still towns of mystery and with
cross and in-breeding too. Not too
much with the God stuff. Berlin
(pronounced BER-lin), Blackwood,
Runnemede, and others. With
nothing in between them except
killing fields of high grass, old
strange homes, rambling oases,
and mysteries and more mysteries.
All connected to nowhere, meaning
if you took the wrong sandy lane or
hard-pack, down the end of it you'd
surely be beheaded. Enjoying life to
the fullest was everyone's local goal.
-
If I were to tell a local I was from
'Avenel,' they'd just scream. It
must have meant something in
their language. The seminary
itself, all through the 1900's and
up into the 40's, have been a
Buffalo farm. Yep, you heard
it right, bison grazing. I never
knew if it was for meat, fur,
hides, or leather - or maybe
just for their version of fun. It
always confused me, since all I
could ever picture was Indians
and cowboys fighting with
shrieks, screams, guns, arrows
and tomahawks. None of that
around there, though there may
have been some scalps hanging
from pine-barren trees. (That's a
personal joke I won't get into
[no pun] unless maybe if
somebody asks). In any case,
for seminary use there were
still some evident remnants of
the farm days and - as I said -
some of my time there I worked
the farm - pigs and cows detail,
and that Brother guy I told you
about previously, the one who'd
slapped our young Mr. Hitler. On
the whole, it was all I could do to
stay cogent by immersing myself
deeply into this farm-life stuff, or
the Drama Dept. stuff. Other than
that it was prayer, meditation,
mass, food, stilted discussions,
Christian history lessons, Latin
English, music, and only the
the barest of math and science;
endless ruminations about those
angels and how many fit on the
heads of pins and all. The kitchen
staff, run by some crazy Spanish
guy and staffed by a bunch of
southern-type blacks, was pretty
cool, except mostly all they were
ever serving was southern-dish
staples; things with gushes of
maple syrup on them. I suppose
to sweeten it up and disguise :
scrapple, very peppery scrapple,
chitlins, kale, southern baked
this or southern baked that,
flapjacks, pancakes, corn-bred,
and milk, always milk, everywhere.
We ate three solid times a day,
no messing around, and you had
to be there, though you could
eat as sparingly as you wanted.
Or, as much as you wanted, and
we had a couple of heavy-duty
fat guys too. I was always bored.
(Have I mentioned that before?).
Some twerp reading from 'The Lives
of the Saints' - or, as I often called
it, 'some saint reading from the
lives of the twerps.' Oh, forget it,
you had to be there. We'd eat in
a sort of silence while Earnest
Lackaday there would be reading
to us, a different 'saint' each day,
about St. Alphones Du Touri of
the Five Roads and the Stigmata
of St. Jane Muir. It was so
bogus and self-righteous that
you could actually eat a real lot
because you knew you were
going to barf it up in about
a minute when this story got
rolling : Some crazy saint, who
in our day would be in a mental
asylum with a straitjacket enfolding
him, who'd take a daily Jesus bath
in flaming hot coals and remain
unscathed except for the flaming
image of a cross on his back and
who saved his entire mountain
village from the Devil by reciting,
randomly and jumbled, all 55 words
of the Lord's Prayer nine times nine
times and by that collapsed the Devil
into a heap of manure. He'd then
leave his fire bath and retreat back
into the hills of - where else, Antwerp.
(Pretty fitting). And he did this once
a week for 300 years! Yes, we were
sent out to believe all this crud and
preach the word to Bingo Halls
and Sodality matrons.
-
Like I once said, perhaps, all of
this may have driven me, early
on, over the edge. I was pretty
certain I was crazy at some point.
Every so often my parents, and
my family (very young sisters,
and a brother I'd not really even
seen), and they'd bring with them,
sometimes, some creature from
'Avenel.' I wasn't sure who was
the zoo-exhibit, them or me, but
the visits always went OK. It was
just very difficult, because, in a
sort of psychically mathematical
or algebraic sense, my 'X' no longer
matched their 'X' in whichever
equations we were each living.
So, when the basic incidentals
don't match, you can't do the
equating, or the solution, or
whatever it would be. One time
they came down, for a field-day
or some sort of family day thing,
tons of people everywhere, all
sorts of cars parking on the grass,
picnics everywhere, families
and kin of all those kids I had
to eat and sleep with, and my
father had complete and total
laryngitis. No voice whatsoever,
just some weird whisper. I swear,
it was the weirdest moment of
my life to date; like one of those
Lives Of the Saints moments.
-
Leftover from the buffalo farm
days was a round barn which the
monks and brothers - since it
was right next to their lodgings -
used for a storage shed - lawn
stuff, rakes and plows and things.
It was cool because it WAS round.
There's also one up here, now,
in this present day, over at Cook
College at Rutgers (their separate
agricultural school), but they have
it set up with arena style seating
inside and a front lectern area,
and use it for speakers and such.
When I lived out in the wilds of
Pennsylvania (also written of
lots of times here), there were a
few of them, larger by far. They
were called 'Russian Style,' barns.
My farmer friend, Warren Gustin,
for whom I worked for a year or
two, on his large farm, used to
laughingly say they were built
that way (round) so that a farmer
couldn't go off and find a corner
to shit in. That was a big laugh
line out that way.
-
Out back of the seminary farm
area, were the pig lanes; really
sumptuous paths leading to
the pigs - sows, boars, hogs;
whatever they were. Perhaps
20-30 of them, young included.
I'd get there when I did with
their buckets of slop - food
leftovers and peelings - and
these crazy animals would
bee-line for the fence like there
was no tomorrow (I think for
some of them there wasn't -
since I think we wound up
eating them eventually. Oh,
yes, we ate a lot of southern
style pork dishes). Barbed
wire, electrified fence, nothing
really stopped them until they
started chowing down. They
were noisy, smelly, and chewed
like maniacs, grunting. If anyone
ate like that at The Plaza, they'd
be summarily executed. For these
things it was par for the course.
I loved those fat bastard pigs.
I used to just stand there, or
sit on a bale of hay or whatever,
and watch and wish I was one
of them, at that moment anyway :
free of all guilt, unknowing,
viciously hungry and way into
it. I'd try to see the world, I guess,
through the eyes of the pig I was,
or at least my inner pig. I figured my
inner pig didn't need any doctrine,
no Salvation, no degrees of right
or wrong, no pig God - or maybe
they did have one. I never figured
that out. Yeah, I was coasting,
and often far gone.
-
Weird thing too, about the seminary,
and it took some getting used to,
straight out of Avenel as I was, was
all the 'commonality' I had to
put up with. All of a sudden. I'd
never been exposed to that before.
I'd always done everything alone.
It wasn't about 'privacy' per se,
more about space and silence.
I found myself sleeping in a
roomful of some 20 other guys,
all exactly like me, but different.
Stages of maturity differed, for
sure. That was one thing I wasn't
keen on at all. Long common
sinks. Common showers. Soap.
Razors (only some shaved). It
was all way too weird. I'll
leave it there. All that prep
school crap too - lights out,
silence, the jerky guys in the
dark (there's always a few), to
whom the big joke is farting
under the covers in the dark.
It could be big trouble if
laughter broke out. Lights
back on, Joe Fart gets
identified, and whooped.
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