RUDIMENTS, pt. 532
(broken puddles of glee)
I guess the first time I
ran across this motorcycle
stuff was about 1957. My
father somehow had gotten
involved with the local
First-Aid Squad - completely
out of the usual orbit for him,
and I was never sure where it all
came from. Blood and guts,
minimal training, the little
building, newly constructed
actually, on Avenel Street.
In fact, by 1958 he was
Vice-President, or a Vice
President (there may have
been two). It was sort of
an automatic office - once
you got on the treadmill of
titles, you eventually got
filtered up. Whatever. Back
then they had those cool
Cadillac ambulance things,
with the large pointed lights
on top and all that. Now it's
all EMT vans and all that -
by contrast this was low, sleek
and daringly sleek stuff. I
was enchanted. There was
a picnic or outing of some
sort at the old Maple Tree,
1950's version, with the pond
and the acreage out back, the
serving barn and all the rest.
Maybe 150 people, field games,
beer, music. I was only a young
kid but I already sensed the very
odd and weird sexual tension
in the air, believe it or not. All
these young couples, together,
people flirting with each other,
other guys and other guys' wives
an all. It was weird. Right in
the middle of it all, wouldn't you
know, there was an extreme
first-aid call, and guys ran out,
leaving with the ambulance that
was present. Just one of those
things - and then they came back
a while later, all subdued and
pretty quiet. They stopped at
the squad building and changed
clothes and cleaned up. Evidently
it had been some horrid accident
involving a car and a motorcycle
and a telephone pole - and the
motorcycle guy had been
decapitated. Yikes! A real
party pooper central!
-
With my father being on the first
aid, I'd eventually hear all these
rundowns of crashes and accidents
in trees and at homes and fires and
stuff. I never made much out of it,
a bad break is a bad break and that's
the way it goes, I always figured.
But this motorcycle thing had
brought these guys back, drained,
tired and deadened. Not much
else was said. The whole place
sort of just shut itself down and
subdued itself for the rest of the
time. Another time, much more
fun, they had, at the squad building,
what was called a 'burning of the
mortgage' party - which kind of
meant they'd paid off the loan for
the building or something. For that
they shut down the street, and the
building itself (back then there was
nothing else built around it, and it
was surrounded by a rear open-field
and a large side-lot). It was an
open-house, of the building, and
the rest of the area was like a
carnival and picnic combined.
Hot dogs, little rides and all,
like the kinds of things ('Whips!'
and little rolling cars and all), that
would slowly drive down your
block on Summer evenings. Like
the ice cream man, but 20 cent
rides instead in junk pulled by
trucks or built onto the backs
of flatbeds. I remember they
had a softball game going at
the rear yard (before Mr. Bumback
built that house back there when
he bought some of the property).
This guy named Bob Snowfield
kept hitting the longest, highest
arcing home runs shots I'd ever
seen. Man, he could blast 'em.
-
My own father, he burned out
in a year or two, as was his usual
wont - never got on well with
people much, wasn't the meshing
type. I remember another time
when he worked in the Simmons
Mattress Company, in Union, as
Foreman of their framing
department, (that didn't last
too long either), my uncle, who
was the professional type, in a
service job on Wall Street, brought
over a book for my father to read
(lotsa' luck there too), thinking
it would maybe help him in his
surprising new capacity as a
'Foreman'. My father's idea
idea of managing people was
more like putting a screwdriver
to the side of a guy's head, you
know, whacking with the handle,
instead of 'diplomacy,' which I
don't think he ever knew the
meaning of. My uncle gave him
this serious, solid looking book,
entitled 'Human Relations in
Supervision.' My father took
one look at it and went ballistic.
It was an affront, as if his own
pristine qualities of 'managing'
others were being doubted and
called out for correction. Nice
try, Uncle Joe. I forget where
or how that book and episode
ended up, but wherever it
landed that afternoon, that's
where it stayed. Years later
I'd still see that book on the
shelf, gathering dust, along with
the other 7 or 8 books in the
house; not counting a few
enormous Bibles.
-
I like to think back on those
days and chuckle - everything
about it all was so different.
This most simple mention of
the old first-aid squad episode,
I hope, brought some old light
back. I never figured out - nor
did I ever like - that whole
'Avenel-Colonia' First Aid
Squad designation. Why'd we
have to share with another
locale? They had their own,
and it was merely called
'Colonia First Aid.' My
father's answer had something
to do with the Chain o' Hills
Road area, which was technically
Colonia, but somehow closer to
Avenel for emergencies, and
which area they covered. Thus,
the name.
-
That was OK. I didn't really
dwell on it or care. I've always
had a paranoid bent to my thinking,
maybe overly suspicious, maybe
even twisted and perverse. Like
in NYC (I was never a taxi-rider
kind of guy, money was scarce;
plus I thought the whole sense
a place like Manhattan was
about the getting around and
discovering things while walking).
I remembered a phrase that always
stayed with me, though I never
knew why. It had something to
do, simply and at heart, with
authenticity, which is what all
this came down to, I think. It
went 'Bread baked on its own
bottom is best.' I think it meant
'no tricks, just a loaf on the
bakery grill.' I don't know if
that's right, but I hope you follow.
Anyway, this whole taxi thing,
in the mist of all my other crap,
and having these draft-board
guys always after me (they finally
did catch up to me; another
story I'll rehash some other time),
it all led me into great pangs of
disordered paranoia - it was late
Fall '67, early '68, the stupid fake
war was blazing away, kids were
getting shipped over in groups and
in an instant, and here we were
stealing govt. cars dropped off by
AWOL runaways, and we gave
them them lodging and further
transport to Canada. Bad news
for me if caught, and made worse
by the tenor of the times. What
if I WAS being tailed? What if
the FBI or Selective Service guys
(a big joke; they were about as
'selective' as is a mosquito in
a random crowd). What if the
coincidence' of that taxi just
being there, catching right up
to me, just meant it wasn't a
taxi at all but had instead been
tailing me? This stuff freaked
me out, and I had no one really
to talk to - just a bunch of
girls and some drug-addled
guys who looked more like
bobble-head dolls at that point.
-
Now, I make a point about the
girls - they'd have loved to
listen to me, but they'd not
understand and they drove
me crazy anyway. I couldn't get
anywhere near them without
inducing a raging you know
what, and how was I going to
impart my rampant paranoia
upon them? I was clearly
out of my elements. All they
ever offered, or wanted to,
was solace, and that tender
compassion of civility that
eventually just gets everyone
in trouble. It was tough being
me. Uncle Sam on the one
hand and wham-bam thank
you ma'am on the other. Yep,
just like the guidebooks say.
-
Anytime I wanted, I could go
over to the Diggers Store and
find any excuse to ferry something
from the store to the large apartment
they kept - the Digger girls were
always there. Curiously, they wore
no clothes. They gave them away
for free, yes, but even in the best
hippie-garb days, at home, together
they wore no clothes, and that's how
they would answer the door, and
take the bundle or the package,
and then ask you in - tea (hated
the stuff) or any of a million stupid
cookies they were baking, God
knows only what was in them.
I ain't going on, but some of
the stories I heard, they'd curl
your hair. But I did like the
girls; they - the Digger girls -
really burned through me. They
were a tad older, 3 maybe 4 years,
at a guess, well built and well
fed - not to a chubby degree,
I'm not meaning - just all
matured out and nicely rounded
and smoothly curved. None of
that new-fangled Biafra-boney
stuff. I guess you could say
girls kept me out of the Army,
or were the one better reason
I stayed clear of it. Why the
heck would I want to get all
bungled up killing on other
people for no reason at all
really, when I had all this
at my 'fingertips' as it were.
Go figure. There might have
been a hundred high-minded
reasons for saying you opposed
the war, but that was probably
mine. Who else cared anyway,
and here I am re-confessing.
No comments:
Post a Comment