RUDIMENTS, pt. 497
(himalay)
Like so many others, or
other things maybe, I grow
tired and weary too. I lose
direction, but never impetus.
So I continue to go forward
though in the strangest,
eccentric way. I no longer
understand a thing of what
people are talking of. I
share none of that, and for
that I am glad. I saw a
fireman today, scanning a
fire hydrant with his phone
and calling it work; to take
a picture perhaps? I leave
it right there.
-
It has been said that hard
work will never kill a person;
well, I don't know about that,
but this is tailor-made for a
joke. In 1960 I had a friend
who lived on Woodruff Ave.
That would be east, near
where it crossed Lord Street.
You'd never know it now, but
it was all once heavily tree'd
and not so much developed.
As I'd look down that street
it appeared as an unkempt
woods with some house set
along it. Nothing like now,
in a town that hates trees.
When I learned about the
Taylor boys, that's where
they lived, and their Dad
was my baseball coach,
who called me Paisano, I
began see interesting things.
began see interesting things.
Whenever I'd hit a homer
in the 3 fields by Van Buren,
he'd cover and say, 'My
Paisano.' Meaning I'd saved
his game again. He liked
winning. I didn't always
know what he meant or
what he was after - it was,
after all, only Little League,
and meaningless at that, but
I went along. I still don't
much like or understand
men who get all gung-ho
over kid sports; organized
and programmed sports at
that. It's like children are a
captive nation.
-
In case you're wondering :
No, there's no joke here,
unless maybe if saying
'Wood-Rough' can
be called a joke. And a
Taylor-made one at that.
I get sorry sometimes
that all those guys are
dead now, that whole
generation of my father's
bunch, and Mr. Taylor
too. For myself, as an
old guy now, I have so
many things I'd have
liked to ask but never
did. It seems like I've
lived a life, one life,
circumspect and isolated,
and with an entirely
different sheaf of
references and knowledge,
than any of those men
I'm talking about. What
has that meant? Who was
their Whitman and Twain
and Sartre and Blake?
How'd they manage that life
and with what references?
Outside of rabbit-ears on
their TV's, and maybe some
excitement about space shots
and making kids, what was it,
I wonder, that kept them?
-
You can't ask questions about
things like that in school. No
one would understand you
anyway. So you end up keeping
it all to yourself and get the
reputation of being an introvert,
someone all coiled up inside
themselves. I always thought
that was a good thing, the best
thing - that's when good stuff
starts to happen. The first big
step in making anything
worthwhile of one's self is
getting out of Dodge. (I
picked that up as TV speech,
I think, from one of those two
guys who ran St. George Press.
He used it all the time, as a
shorthand way of saying to
be ready to hunker down or
flee because something terrible
was about to be happening.
It was new to me, and I liked
it). The other time a cool word
thing like that happened, well,
a phrase anyway, was at NJ
Appellate, when Bill Konowalow
told me that Ron, the owner,
had gotten wind that I was
about to be leaving, quitting
in fact. He (Bill) told me
ahead of time to watch out
for when Ron arrived, because
the 'shit was going to hit the
fan.' Man alive, that was a
cool phrase, and a new
one too. It was like the time
I heard some guy, after his
friend or whatever was leaving,
and he said 'Later...' the guy
said: Laid her? Your honor
I never touched her.'
-
So, I supposed I should have
gotten out of Dodge because
the shit was about to hit the
fan, all of which was about
exactly as I was doing so I
guess it was cool. And later...
no, no, never touched her.
I always loved stupid stuff
of that nature, but not too
many were ever on that
gangplank with me. I kind
of just took it all in, all of
it as raw material; without
really making a good or a
bad of it. No judgments in
that manner. As Hamlet had
it, 'there is nothing either
good or bad, but thinking
makes it so.' In James Joyce,
and like James Joyce too,
Molly Bloom loathes those
'big words, 'jawbreakers,'
she calls them; she prefers
monosyllables, curt (Ha.
Made you look), crude,
obscene. 'It is, of course,
no defense of obscenity to
say that Nature is obscene.
The life according to nature
would be as intolerable to
civilized man as the perpetual
parade of nudity must be
nauseating in continental
schools of nature. However,
obscenity has its niche in
the scheme of things and
a picture of life in which
this element was ignored
or suppressed would be
incomplete, like the home
without Plumtree's Potted
Meat (in Ulysses, by Joyce).'
"What is home without
Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete."
-
Joyce also wrote, through
Stephen Dedalus, 'A man
of genius makes no mistakes.
His errors are volitional and
are the portals of discovery.'
And so it is that in varying
from the normal we may
often detest the tend of
creative evolution. The
interpretation of what
seems arbitrary, erroneous
or haphazard, and the
scientific use of so-called
unscientific methods are,
in fact, portals of discovery.
Let me cap that, because
I like it so well : Portals
of Discovery. Or, as William
Blake put it, 'I must create
systems of my own or be
enslaved by those of another.'
More or less, OK. Really, I loved
too many things then to remain
stuck in Avenel during my
most productive days. ('Do not
go gentle into that good night;
rage, rage, against the dying
of the light.')...
-
So, back to those home runs,
(oh, shut me up, there were only
6), and Mr. Taylor, and the games
we won, when he'd take the team
down the street, as winners, to
Stewart's Root Beer and we'd
all have root beer and fries. And
then, back on our bicycles and
across the meadow into the rear of
Avenel Park, and home. No one
ever died, not even close, nor
hit by a car or any of that. That
too is mostly all adult stuff, like
worrying, of old, over TV
reception and those stupid
rabbit ear antenna things. We
didn't care about any of that
stuff, and we certainly didn't
sit at home all day worrying
about any of it anyway. Right
across from Stewart's, my
friend's father had a car
dealership - for Studebaker
cars. I thought that was just
about the coolest thing in
the world.
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