RUDIMENTS, pt. 472
(omens)
The simplicity of most
people's thinking always
surprised me. Mine was
very complex - not that
there's anything wrong
with simple thinking,
but I could never make
it work; it left too many
questions (yeah, remember,
my second-grade teacher
had written, 'Gary has a
problem with questions,'
as I've mentioned some few
chapters back). When I got
to Pennsylvania, a lot of
the complexity had to right
away disappear - those were
very straight and simple
people. There weren't any
gray areas to things, mostly
they were always one way
or the other. Juxtapositions
and the lightened hand of
thought or philosophy didn't
cut a thing with them. As a
for instance, when I did finally
get the boot from driving the
school bus, it was over an
issue that I thought quite
defensible, (and which the
kids loved), but which the
local parents and school
people thought out-of-bounds.
One of the kids, in his glee,
blabbed to his parents. Must
have been quite an evening's
talk. There had been a glazing
ice storm. Traction was really
lousy, and although some of
my route was on paved roads
(where the icing was the
worst), most of it wove and
twisted through hilly, farm
country and/or lowlands.
Ice was everywhere, and
the bus, with 25 or so kids
on it, wasn't catching the
roadway too good, spinning
some and sliding too. So I
went off-road, driving over
the roughened corn-stubble
on the field along the road,
open and unfenced - which
afforded much better traction.
The hard-frozen ground held
the bus-weight just fine too.
It got us to where we were
headed - the main road,
and then to school. Mission
accomplished. Or not - two
days later I was hauled in
and let go.
-
Now, I will still say that
there was a certain complexity
to this issue which made what
I did quite defensible. Even
arguably a safety-measure.
(God forbid they had ever
been attuned to the girl at
the Troy Hotel). But to them
the issue was as clear-cut as
sliced baloney - with all
the usual : 'We're answerable
to our District's parents here,
some of them now are up in
arms over this (the Lorton
Mattocks family especially;
one of the area's big-wig farm
potentates and a school-board
member, though with no kids
currently in school). We cannot
have this go unaddressed....blah,
blah. I knew it was coming,
and turned in my keys, losing
perhaps 20 bucks a day for 5
days a week. I was able to
keep my current schoolhouse
maintenance job though,
and thus the $4200 bucks
yearly that brought in. I did
always love that guy's name
too, 'Lorton.'
-
When I came out of Avenel
I was already kind of a
daredevil sort of kid. The
skidding around on a bicycle,
the antics and all that, and then
later, driving too fast, always,
with half broken-down cars
and motorcycles. I guessed
all that was in my DNA (I
was 1/64th 'engine?')... But
up in those Pennsylvania
woods the most fun I ever
really did have was by
barreling around without a
helmet on a friend's Honda
150, or, even better than that,
cresting the hill at the top
of my dirt road, (in the VW
I'd stripped to nothing and
hollowed out so as to use
for collecting firewood)
at about 65 mph and then
leaving the ground while
passing over the crest. It
was pretty dangerous stuff.
Plus it left a nasty trail of
dust and was hell on the
suspension. No matter,
life was meant to be a ball.
-
The last Western Union
telegram was sent in 2006.
No one mourned it but me.
I used to sit around a lot, in
Elmira now, not Pennsylvania,
at the bus depot, which had a
telegraph office. I always
enjoyed the preposterous
goings on, the dot-click things
about the telegraphs, the little
row of 1970's plastic chairs
with TV's attached where the
destitute or down-and-out
would plunk in a quarter and
get a half-hour of some inane
game show or daytime TV
crap, and enjoy it. That always
confused me - how anyone
like that could be so plain
and simple-minded as to take
enjoyment from that, with
all the other bits of life all
around them. The telegraph
was a funny thing - looked at
now, of course, I can see it
as the 'Internet' of its day, in
the way it got people to be
communicating, exchanging
messages and data. Not much
else than that. Not even recipes,
but gossip, well, who knew.
Check this : "When it appeared,
the speed and range of the
telegraph sparked paroxysms
of euphoria, much like the
rhapsodic predictions that
greeted the arrival of the
world-wide-web. Pundits of
the mid-nineteenth century
credited the new-fangled
technology with collapsing
time and space, rendering
distant swaths of geography
into a cozy neighborhood.
Samuel Morse's famous
message, sent from
Washington to Baltimore
in 1844, trembled in the
face of his invention's
import. 'What hath God
wrought?' was the message."
-
The first 'telegraph' President,
believe it or not, was Abraham
Lincoln. He became something
of an addict, sitting in the
basement of the then 'War
Department,' he would send
instructions to his Generals
on the front - a highly
personal and effective
means of command. Over
the course of the long war,
the Union Army strung 15,000
miles of telegraph wire, as
opposed to the 1,000 miles
the rebels managed. This
proved an enormous tactical
advantage, with savvy shifting
of troops and supplies across
the map. That was - and most
certainly so - a new aspect of
things, and one I felt that had
obliterated complex thinking
too, rendering things either
'this way,' or 'that way.' Maybe
we lived in that old realm a
very long time. Simple minds,
however, are still around, now
just doing different things.
-
Which brings me back
to myself, and my own
case, and simple thinking.
In the bus depot, most
nearly every day, I'd see
a fellow named Vince
Murphy. Speaking of
simple thinking, he won
the prize. Vince drove
a Binghamton run, 75
miles away, each day,
and back, twice a day.
Than twice a night, on
the Elmira TV station,
(yes, 'WENY'), he was
the weather guy. Almost
a complete fool (he was
about 50 years old then),
he managed to hold on, and
do the weather - utilizing
weird phrases and such.
Cold-weather nights, he
would address as 'Snuggy-bun
Time again.' A kind of half
simpleton who drove a bus
and could talk. Simple. But
talk. Nothing complex.
-
When Hurricane Agnes came
through and tore Elmira to
shreds with the raging waters
of the Chemung River, there
was little time for complexity.
What got Vince to lose HIS
bus job, as I'd lost mine, and
his TV job too, was the one
time he ranted on about, in
the midst of the dire destruction
and brunt of the storm, how
he had seen Jesus, up above,
in the clouds along the roadway,
(Route 17), and how that
tremendous apparition had
assured him that all would be
well and Elmira would survive
and rebuild. In two days he
was gone - no longer driving,
and no longer the weatherman
either. Actually, though it
sounded simple, I thought
what he was getting across
was some really complex
and deep thinking. No two
ways about it.
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