RUDIMENTS, pt. 461
(barney rubble, hands down)
I always had a hard time
with questions. I'm not
sure what that means,
but my second-grade
teacher, Mrs. Schur,
wrote that on my report
card. My mother didn't
understand it either, but
she went ballistic over it
anyway - just figuring I
was guilty of something
just for having been called
out. Essentially she took
the teacher's side without
even giving it a second
thought. 'Gary has a problem
with questions.' That was it.
I never for the life of me,
second grade or grade 115,
could figure out what that
crazy-creep of a teacher was
after with that comment.
Like to ruin a kid's life, and
for no reason at all. Problem
with questions? Well, I've
got one for you, teacher-lady,
'what's your problem?' How
in the good-darn-tarnation
was anyone to pull back
from that kind of rubbish?
(That's a question too).
I swear, 1957 must have
been a banner year for
idiocy, because most
everything that I can
think of from then was
just plain dumb silly and
plum-stupid-crazy.
-
And so anyway, a year
from then I'd be wrapped
up in swaddling bandages
and casts and be consigned
to the hospital's 'hit-by-train'
section. I seemed to be their
only customer. Little did I
know then how rare I was.
That ended all my problems
with questions because it
was about that time that I
learned you could never say
to an adult, 'What the Hell
did you do that for?' And
anyway, how was it
expected that someone
would go through life
with the expectation of
no questions at all? It all
seemed so 1950's American
to me. The only goons
around were the perverted
sickos like Joe McCarthy
and those guys who kept
throwing nasty questions
at people about who else
they knew and what they
were doing. That was so
much rubbish. All we ever
ended up with was criminals,
in power anyway. Hey, fry
me up anther Rosenberg, OK?
-
Man, I was 8 years old, and
I was dealing with pain -
and I mean the real stuff,
not just the existential pain
of living and all that crap.
This was train-pain : casts
and braces and bandages
and the rest. No one else
could understand what
I was going through.
Maybe, I used to figure,
maybe some one of the
'War Fathers' that all
my friends and me had
could maybe understand.
Maybe they watched a
buddy die; or maybe
they too had taken a
few slugs, or a hit that
blew their shoulder apart,
or lost a leg or arm. It
was like that - the
kind of stuff that stays
with you and never
really lets go. Not
much else can ever
take its rightful place
in some 'scheme' of
things (whatever that
was, and however
sneaky and threatening
it ever did sound. Anyway,
'Scheme of things'?! Whoever
came up with that idea?).
And after you've gone
through something that's
self-defining like that, it
did always seem to me to
be a right-solid assumption
that I, or anyone else, was
privileged enough to run
our own darned lives,
even with all the holes
and gaps it might have
in it. All these interrogators
(talk about 'problems' with
questions) and demanders
of answers, they always
seemed so useless and far
out-of-bounds to me.
-
The Avenel I ended up
growing in could never have
produced the sorts of people
around today. Really, it's a
different world. There's no
'rapport.' That's another old
word you never hear anymore,
even though it used to be used
all the time, meaning the sort
of connected relationship that
the old kind of face-to-face
world could produce. No
one today has that, nor looks
anyone in the eye and talks
straight to them. It's all
now winks and symbols,
everything's been infantalized
so as to remove any danger
of real engagement or challenge;
it's all icons and smirks and
initialed intentions, all while
looking down at something.
It's no wonder there's no
truth left - nothing truthful
being told. Nobody would be
able to stand it.
-
I ended up always figuring
that it took a good, solid,
education to make any sense
about things. 'Round these
parts right now I don't see
much of that. The biggest
deal I ever see, down at the
local 'Community' college,
which is all we get, is what
they call 'Criminal Justice',
or 'Medical Coding' or 'IT
Certification' courses. Three
of the most ludicrous things
you'll ever see. About as
inconsequential as those
semi-literates you see
around who drive for an
'armored' car company.
They get a pop-gun and
an instant attitude. A real
three-course lunch with
no brains on the menu.
I like to think, 'whatever
it is you do, your character
comes through.' That sure
works for these four
sub-genres of humanity.
-
There's really little goodness
in anything that goes on
without firstly it having a
sound-grounding in the sorts
of questions, and ideals, that
have dogged Humanity for
all time. That's what the
local schooling-years all
miss. They just train people
to be trained. Not to be
learned. And that's
really too bad.
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