11,187. RUDIMENTS, pt. 451

RUDIMENTS, pt. 451
(avenel - green with envy)
When I was a kid it always

seemed like the prim and

proper side of me had to be

up front and center. That got

pretty boring, quick. I maybe

sometimes felt as if I wanted

to lash out. It's tiresome being

strait-jacketed all the time. On

the whole nothing ever came

of it and everyone always 

thought I was well-behaved 

and nice. Yeah, good for that. 

My grandmother always said 

I was the image of Roddy 

McDowell to her. When I 

did finally find out who 

that was I was appalled :

some weak-knee'd little kid

in How Green Was My Valley. 

Nothing I ever understood or

cared about, and then one day

in like 1968 or '69 my friends

showed me a movie called The

Loved One (based on a story by

Evelyn Waugh, I think) and that

same McDowell person had the 

lead. I think it was the lead, and

he was pretty transformed, a

different sort of person, or a

different sort of film anyway.

So then I figured it wasn't so

bad. (As I think back on this I

have to catch myself, realizing 

there was no way back then 

to show me anything specific 

on a TV, like on a VCR or a 
'select channel,' so I guess it

was just a broadcast movie.

My one friend had a finished 

basement and his father had 

built a bar down there. Plus, 

it was air-conditioned. We

never touched the bar, I 

admit to that fair and square, 

but we watched movies down 

there sometimes, and listened 

to lots of LP's, in the times I 

was around).  I think he used

to maybe rent or buy films

and just play them onto a film

screen, from a movie projector.

He was really big on this crazy

movie called The Battle of

Culloden or something, about

Bonnie Prince Charles. I sat

through it 2 or 3 times, but had

no interest. He was, as it turned

out, and as I did not know, half

Scottish, even though he came

across as Italian, so I figured

that must have had something

to do with his interest in the film.
In that same basement too, one time
his brother, home from Vietnam,
was showing some home-movie
stuff of his camp and the country
there, and he'd shown the laundry
yard and clothesline area kept by
the Vietnamese lady who tended
to their camp needs, washing and
hanging laundry. In one scene was
the laundry yard, with clothes
hanging, and in the next scene it
was all obliterated, having just
gotten blown to smithereens. 

Another time, after his prodding, he

and I went into the city (NY) to see

some Napoleon bio-pic by someone,

at a cinema in the village. I didn't

know what to expect, but I went

along. All those epics and military

things actually bored me stiff, as

I never understood the issues nor

any of the concerns these guys

always professed, all that rank 

and honor and duty and dying 

for the cause crap. This turned 

out to be a really dismal surprise, 

but again I withstood it. The 

stupid screening room was 

about 10x12 feet, (Jeepers

his basement area was bigger!) 

and  the place had like 5 wooden 

folding chairs, AND the damned 

epic turned out to be over FOUR

hours long! I forget if there was

a break, or even a bathroom or

snack, but, the rigors of it didn't

kill me, I guess. What burned 

me up was that it a mere 2 

blocks and one over from the

Studio School. I should have

just walked over there and let

him have his damned movie.

In the dark he'd probably never

have even noticed my absence.

-

So, when you don't carp and

complain, when you don't duck

and bail, there's not much else

you can do but go along. I

wondered how many of the

'greats' of history would have

been great if they never had

opened their mouths back at

someone first. Or, as my

father would say, 'Geewillickers!

You have to sometimes throw

the first stone!' (Whatever was

with that 'geewillickers' thing,

from his mouth, I never got. It

never sounded like him at all.)

-

One thing that used to bug me,

and it was a pretty simple kid's

miscalculation of what geographic

boundaries were, I guess, was, in

Avenel, there were no cemeteries.

Everywhere I used to go, there'd

be these old village sites and

center squares and stuff, ringed

with a nice church or two; all

traditional, with steeples and

bells, etc., and at the side or at

the rear, or across the road, there

would be groupings of old 

headstones  -  the old families

and names. Stuff the little place

was proud of or fond of. Yes,

Avenel seemed to have the

churches. But that was all.

There was no  real 'town-center'

connection to anything, no

lore or locus, or place from

which this 'Avenel' was 

sourced. If there wasn't any
of that  -  which there wasn't  -  
not even a dead spike in the 
middle of the place, you can't
you can't have a founding myth, 
a leading story that carries the 
place along. We never had any of
that, and nowhere to where we
could turn for it. It was like our
 'gift' was in growing up rootless.
They just handed us a nowhere
place and said, 'Here.' I guess
the closest thing was maybe 
the White Church and the old
Dunham thing at the Episcopal 
Church,  Woodbridge way. But the 
White Church had been done up to
look like a toy bride, and no one, 
frankly, ever even mentioned the 
other place. It used to bug me.

And as I said, everywhere

else had something. It just

seemed wrong, especially 

when the occasional person 

would start lip-synching 

that BS tune about what 

a wonderful, small-town 

place it was. B as in Baloney.

-

Even Jack the Ripper had been

buried somewhere; and even

I'd bet John the Baptist's head,

if not re-united with his body

for burial, had gotten buried

somewhere. We got nothing.

Not even a notion of graves

down amidst the swamp-gas

and Nature-Preserve crap

that gets peddled. Not even 

an Indian burial ground 

underneath some oil-storage

tanks. It never seemed right

to me. I tell you, I lost all

respect. For right-liars, and

for wrong-liars too.

-

Another thing to mention: 

As I was growing up, green

was just a color. We never

had much thought about that

'eco' stuff like now. Long about

1958, the town of Woodbridge

changed the garbage pickup

to where people had to separate

the paper stuff from the metal;

two separate cans, all loose inside,

that didn't matter. The garbage

crews (that used to walk along

the sides of the truck, and handle

each can) would just heave your

junk into the back of the truck

and crush it. Separate collections,

two different days a week. Oddly

enough, that only lasted probably

for less than a year  -  and then

the whole idea was done away

and forgotten. Everything went

understated, and stayed quiet.

Now, by contrast, every blat

is about eco-this and eco-that,

recycling, and the rest. And the

towns and all, doing it, are the

worst offenders of all time  -

no regard for the planet or the

waters or the well-being of the

people living here. Just 

developing the place to its 

own green and nasty death. 

Arriverderci Homa. 

Forget Roma.