RUDIMENTS, pt. 538
(pull up a chair, baby)
I find myself having to
think 'old' to have anything
make any sense any more.
Like when I was a kid, all
of maybe 9, or 10, my father
would have some Saturdays
on which he'd work. The
overtime and all the rest
was the draw, and also he
worked on some sort of
'piecework,' as I recall.
He was an upholsterer, and
kind of got paid by how many
chairs he finished, so I guess
the more he could squeeze
out, the better all around.
It was funny, he and his
work guys called themselves,
actually, 'reupholsterers'
because none of this stuff
was new; it was all older
furniture that people would
contract for to be re-furbished.
New fabrics and webbing,
and even sometimes woodwork
and frames, when old chairs
loosen up and get a little
wobbly. Too many big-butt
Aunt Betty and Uncle Bob
stuff, plopping down on the
tired chairs. So, anyway, the
shop was on a side street that
cornered with McCarter Highway,
which is actually Rt. 21, a big,
busy street, a main drag into
or out of Newark proper, the
downtown but two blocks away.
Or, many people just used it
to bypass Newark entirely.
This was in the days when a
street was a street, it had a
corner, people lived upon it,
a string of old-style brownstone,
vertical homes, multi-family,
with a store or two for candy,
bread, and groceries, and, by
the corners, some small, storefront
business, and then maybe, at the
highway, a larger factory set-up.
Still all small, and horizontal.
Everyone sort of knew each
other, like the fruit vendor or
the grocery store guy - small
credit, knew everyone's names
and families. I used to go in
to work with him on some of
those days - at his invite -
and I'd spend most of my time
outdoors, along the streets there.
I went inside too, but it was
pretty boring. Most of the time
I either walked around, or kept
busy throwing and fielding a
Spaldeen off the building, making
'strikes,' pitching to an imaginary
line-up of baseball guys, or just
catching hi-flies off the wall,
high-up. No matter. It's ALL
gone now, and when I'm back there
It's all I can do from screaming.
I guess I can understand what the
fools call 'Progress,' not that I care
or share a hoot about it. But the
kind of crap they put up now sucks -
after removing everything cool,
all those industrial era, almost
British looking, red-brick buildings,
reeking of soot and smoke and the
old industrial revolution, are now
replaced by crap with driveways
and parking lots. Whether it's a
MacDonald's or some copycat
version, or a car lot, whatever,
there are parking areas, drive-ins,
and all that, which long ago broke
up the street-structure regularity
of all that old feel. Too bad. The
worst thing in the world was,
later on, I guess in the 1970's,
a company named Krementz
Jewelers - Jill Krementz, of
Morristown shared the name,
but the family fortune, I don't
know. She married the writer
Kurt Vonnegut, and survives
him. Krementz Jewelers erected
the ugliest, gold-glass crud of a
building, taking up nearly an
entire expanse of a full-block
fronting McCarter Highway.That
was the end of all that. The street
was shot. It wouldn't have matter
anyway. By 1961 I never went
back. Just another nice memory.
-
Newark back then was regular,
old, American people. The guys
with the tophats, the ones who
later became bums, in those
same tophats. The idea of leisure
clothes, denim, jeans and sneakers
and all that never occurred to people
back then. Even the losers were
formal losers. Old guys would be
crudding around Broad Street or
passing to Market Street, and no
matter the lowness of their stance
or situation, they had ties, they
most even had a suit on. Incredible.
Working stiffs, like my father,
to them the everyday clothing, the
work clothes, were some sort of
khaki work clothing that used to
be sold. It's never seen anymore, but
was once universal. Shoemakers
and brick-layers alike wore it.
As did upholsterers. Shoemakers
classed it up with the rank of their
profession - leather aprons, signs
of honor. Everybody had something.
(Isn't it funny how 'rank' means
prestige and standing, yet when
something goes bad and is rotten,
it's referred to as 'rank.')....
-
Back in the late 1920's the third
best-selling auto was the Essex.
It was part of the Hudson namelate
later, and in between its demise was
also, for a while Essex-Terraplane.
Big, heavy, strong-duty cars - the
Post Office often used them. They
were Detroit based and (my point
here for bringing them up) I used
to think they were local-manufacture
Newark cars or something, having
Essex in the name, like Essex County,
where Newark was. I found out later
that wasn't true, and about Detroit
and all, but it was fun. There were
still a few around then. I also knew
where there was a Mercer Runabout,
and a LaSalle too. Back then some
of those old hulk sorts of cars
could still be found running about.
They were real cars, with some
brash and mighty distinction.
Old guys with names like 'Mr.
Jeffries,' always had these magical
ways with keeping their old cars
running. It was very cool.
-
There's a real spell of magical time
I can look back on. This entire life
of Newark thing is still vivid to me.
I'll work it through as I move along,
and write about them here. Not
all the memories are that cool;
some are perplexing. One time,
inside the upholstery shop, I was
hanging around - it was rainy or
had turned so, or cold, and I
came inside. In the front of the
worker's section was an old desk,
big, heavy wooden, and near to
that was the doorway to the big
old bathroom area. It was a mess;
guys' things, hardly ever cleaned.
Some calendar babes and stuff
up on the wall. Nothing very
pleasing about it, and I tried
staying away. I sat there and
eventually got to opening drawers
of the desk , to see what was in
them. Wasn't anything special,
until I got to the big deep drawer
at the bottom left. It was stacked
heavy with (I didn't know the
word then) pornography. It was
a stunner for little, old me. I had
sisters at home, yeah, but that
didn't mean anything - an infant
is an infant, you dig? This was
some other stuff indeed. Egads
and Krementz Jewelers for sure!
Pull up a chair, baby.
-
Another time, and the thing that
put en end to all this for me, was -
typical of my Father - a huge
workshop floor brawl where my
father and some other guy with
whom he'd evidently had some long
grudge match going on, went at
it in the middle of the workday,
clearing the flooring and beating
the crap out of each other. The
other guy (I'm told) got the worst
of it, and then he began proceedings
to sue my father, for coming at him,
he said, with a pair of scissors. One
scissors, not two, but it's called
a pair. I really know how it all
ended, except my father was
cleared, but they'd both lost their
jobs over it. The worse part of it
was that the guy's wife kept calling
mu mother, screaming at her for
her husband's plight, no job,
busted up face, all that, and she
always harangued my mother -
(who took it to heart and would
start wailing) - that "We're going to
sue you for all you have, you'll
have nothing left when we're done
with you! You be out in the street!"
Yep. It was a bad and weird scene
for a good long time. Court
stuff runs very slowly, and the
lawyers of course love it.
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