Sunday, February 24, 2019

11,568. RUDIMENTS, pt. 606

RUDIMENTS, pt. 606
(cutting no corners)
Storms came and storms went.
Nothing much ever bothered
me up there, weather-wise. The
Winters were long and strong
and brutal, but it was all cool.
When you live way out in a
rural place like that, you do
realize you're on your own,
and since there's not much
else around you except natural
things, there's not much that
gets disrupted. Things like fire
and medical emergencies, a
heart attack, etc, you were
sunk  -  probably 35 minutes
at least before some sort of
organized help would arrive.
That's way too long for fire
or death to be forestalled. So
a form of fatalism was always
in the cards being played.
When the big snows came,
and they invariably always
did, the key was dealing
with isolation and managing
squeak by. Trudging for long
times, if need be, to get to
others  -  places or supplies.
I've already made mention
of the snowmobile mercy
missions, but that stuff never
came our way. I can well
remember the screaming
winds rolling over the hill,
and I also remember those
nights when, even set at 62,
the thermostat would never
quit kicking the heat on. It
was tough imagining all
those dollars flying by me
for heat. Finally one time it
all got the best of me  - we
drove out to Kennedy's
Country Store, out by
East Smithfield and Milan,
about 12 miles off maybe,
and bought a big old pot-belly
Franklin Stove for about
180 bucks, back then, and
I got it home and we dragged
it in and I punched a hole
into the chimney wall,
exhaust piped and puttied
it up, put some asbestos
flashing on the walls around
it (for intense heat deflection),
and for the next few seasons
solved my whole problem by
dragging home sled-buckets
full of pea coal, which I took
from the coal-hoppers I kept at
the school. I'd order in a ton
or two of coal for the hoppers
as needed. Served me well.
Primitive stuff, but good.
-
We had to make sure the toddler
didn't stumble into or blindly
walk into, the red hot Franklin
Stove, and, in the real cold we
just slept right there, near the
fire, on the floor, with blankets.
It all worked out. The worst of
it was one time we ran out of'
fuel oil, and had no money to
refill. When my mother-in-law
back in Avenel got wind of that
tale of woe, she freaked and
called the Bradford County
State Police Barracks, telling
them that her daughter and
6-month old kid (and I guess
she mentioned me too. Guess),
were stranded and without
heat, freezing out there
somewhere near whatever
address she blurted out. Sure
enough, there was the Trooper,
at our door, in some weird
State Trooper all-weather
combat vehicle, telling us what
he'd been told, making sure we
were OK, and asking what we
needed, if anything. I said, 'Oh,
no problem; we're living off the
coal I've been stealing from the
school.' (No, I didn't really
say that). And then he gave
us the name of a the fuel oil
company in Troy which had
arranged already to extend
us credit for a tank re-fill,
provided I'd clear the filler
nozzle area, and the walk to
it, of snow. So, I did, and the
next day by about 4pm we
got a truck coming up
delivering fuel. Between
the truck tracks, and the
State Police vehicle tracks,
we were able to drive ourselves
out, with some care, and go
down to Troy and arrange for
and sign on, the fuel delivery
we'd gotten, at like 20 bucks
a month or something. I do
remember it was sold at 18.6
cents a gallon, and I think we'd
gotten 200 gallons. I forget.
Then I got this country-boy
half lecture about what a
dumb-ass move it was to run
the furnace unit clear out of
fuel like that, how a re-start
could be difficult, it might
need priming again, blah,bah.
I'd already had it restarted,
with no problems whatever,
but I just nodded along and
took my stupid Jersey-boy
verbal licking.
-
I used to think how odd it was
to get door-to-door service up
there, by State Police. When
those guys wrecked that Austin
Healy at my barn, and when
the fuel-oil thing arose as a
crisis, they (Staties)came flying
in as local police assistance. The
area of land up there was so
far-spread and within, and
without, jurisdictions, that I
guess they just covered the
areas involved, for everything.
They seemed mostly based in
barracks, Towanda, and then
Scranton. (About 80 miles
east). It was weird; the little
town cop guys seemed to never
leave whatever the town was
that it said on their car-door.
In this case, Troy. I never saw
them north of Route 6.
-
The politics of things out there;
there wasn't any. I never saw
one sleazebell type around trying
to peddle grease and lies about
anything. First off, he'd most
likely have been punched in the
head or clubbed and thrown
into the barn until he awoke.
People didn't take too kindly
to bullshit up there, and another
thing about rural living, unlike
here, was that men were men.
Not girls. They'd never get
involved in that horseshit in
the first place. It's only in the
settled lands that you get the
useless guys in shirts and ties
deciding they can make their
living off other people, and
manipulating and bobbing,
weaving, ass-kissing and
sucking like they do to 'pass.'
Like light-skinned black men
used to do (read Anatole
Broyard) to get by in that day's
white world  -  they'd 'pass' as
white, but still be courageously
black, and true to themselves in
other ways. Unlike these bleach,
and hamstrung limpers we get.
Or, as Winston Churchill put it,
far better than me, 'We have not
journeyed across the centuries, 
across the oceans, across the
mountains, across the prairies,
because we are made of sugar
candy.' But now, sugar candy
people are everywhere.
-
One time some guy up there said
to me, 'For someone so serious,
you're funny as hell! You should
do comedy.' I thought about it
for a minute, and said, 'Yeah; a
regular riot, that's me.' See, their
idea of comedy wasn't much I
could latch on to. My farmer
friend, Warren  -  one time we
were out in Burlington, along
Rt. 6, for one of those vehicle
registration/barbershop trips
at the Justice of the Peace's
place, and we passed a Russian
style, circular barn. Round.
I always liked them, they
looked really nice, and I
commented to him about it
as we (he) drove. He laughed
it off, and said, 'You know
why they make round barns?'
I said, ' No, why?' He said,
'So the farmer,  when he's in
there milking, won't have
a corner to take a shit in.'
-
That was his idea of funny, yeah,
and maybe it was. I chuckled
along, not asking any follow
up questions like: 'Guys shit in 
their barns?' I figured if you
had to ask, the joke's ruined, 
and I didn't want to ruin his day.
I always had to be careful, like
I've said, about how I came across
and what I gave away  -  so in some 
sense like any happy idiot at a
party with people he doesn't
really know, I laughed just to
keep the peace. Sort of like
justice of the peace, but not.
-
Maybe I should have used that
old Groucho Marx one back at 
him. I always thought it was pretty
funny  -  'Outside of a dog, you
know, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.'











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