RUDIMENTS, pt. 608
(camptown races, doo dah, doo dah)
I might have tried twenty
different things, but I kept
getting stuck on one. The
one that I stayed with was
mostly in line with George
Washington's farewell
address : 'Keep away from
foreign entanglements.' It
was as good as anything
else I'd ever heard.
-
And up there, it sure was
easy - seeing as how I'd
blown in from another land
entirely : The hide-bound
attainment of the isle of the
Manhattoes. Where everyone
wanted a piece of you, or at
least wished to sleep with you.
I'd never been exposed to that
before (I was really a sheltered
soul) and found it exhilarating
to see in action. Everyone in
NY was always underway with
something - an angle, a copious
alliance to some underhanded
deal or connection. Besides
envelopes of counterfeit
hundreds, I'd been asked to
run guns, and steal groceries
to work in a theft/delivery
ring, which was more really
just a way to get inside people's
apartments and spec out the
spaces and entries. In both
those last cases, I declined,
but I did run hundreds for a
trip or three until I got warned
off by someone else higher in
the ring. I'll relate the story
later.
-
I never knew better which
was the more 'real' American
simplicity of which we were
supposed to be descended
and allied. The raw, push-push
squib of the New York City
business and pressure type,
or the faraway and hands-off
singular individuality of those
northeastern PA mountain
dwellers. They both had and
held bedrock values, but they
were so adamantly different
too; both the people and the
values espoused. What
bothered me more than a
little at first was that I could
see myself favoring both.
Or either. Or one, and the
other too. That left me
nowhere; was I supposed
to just jettison one at the
expense of the other? That
seemed too absolute, and
too much like the either/or
of religion.
-
The great Free-Soiler David
Wilmot was from, and was
celebrated in, Towanda. Not
much else ever came out of
or happened in Towanda, yet
it had an interesting visual
attraction. It was, otherwise,
just a sleepy, old burg out
along Rt. 6. I got interested,
by it, in Wilmot, abolition,
the slavery issue as it played
out through these hills, the
factions and the sides during
the Civil War. The Free Soilers
were all about Missouri, and
keeping things unfettered (yes,
including people). There was
another guy too, Redpath or
Redfern, I forget, who was
actually from Missouri and
heavily involved with the
Free Soil movement. So I
often imagined him there,
strolling through Towanda
and past some of those grand,
old homes. The Athens Institute
was not car off either - that
was a music school run by the
brother of Stephen Foster, who
also had a presence all over
these hills. Foster wrote many
of his songs and tunes right
there, and was celebrated along
the roadways with signs and
plaques. Camptown Races was
the most famous of all these,
with a big sign and location of
the old racetrack, etc., along
the high rocks of Wyalusing.
Between these three guys, and
with Twain in Elmira and all
the rest, I felt pretty rich. What
I felt was - sort of in the air -
a strain of all this past that was
still running around. But, like
the New York City aspect of
that too, that old, less fevered
and more eerie and odd OLD
America was gone. Long gone.
It had been killed off somewhere
between the Sullivan Expedition
of murdering all those hundreds
of thousands, and electricity. It
was in between there somewhere
that we'd lost everything. I could
sense it. The people up there, of
course, they themselves knew
little of it; had no clue. Their
own lives were clustered in
the present, with lights and
labor-saving devices, cars and
pumps and electric washing
machines and dryers too.
Anything that could be done
or used to steer towards
alleviating the 'burden'
of that old farm life, they
bit at, chomped, and ran
with. The old was dead
and forgotten. The only
thing the hills held was
a tired, old leftover echo
that maybe, every once in
a while, some freaky soul
like me would claim to be
hearing still.
-
Now, I'm going to be taking a
moment here to set you up for the
next chapter, since I only feel
it's right to let you know ahead of
time, and to clear my own name too,
that the adventure submitted here
is a complete telling of the truth
though a name or two have been
changed. It's a long time ago, but
I'd still like to die a natural death
and any one of these guys could
still be lurking. Not that they'd
read this, necessarily, nor be able to
come at me from their wheelchair
oxygen tank set-up; but, still. The
story's in the story, yes, but it needs
some back-up. As you'll see, one of
the perps here warned me, right up
front, to get out, and get out then
and quick and right there, because
sooner or later it would get me nailed
or killed. OK. So I never went back.
There was a time when the distribution
of counterfeit one-hundred dollar
bills was one of the largest and
most nefarious and wide-spread of
of the Soviet Union's (then, now
'Russia's again) operations to
undermine the USA. In fact, it got
so bad and so widespread that it
became the reason, back in the
early 1990's for all the changed
designs of the paper currency. The
fake Russian 100's were perfect,
and widespread. In fact, again, the
design of 100's was changed a
SECOND time about 15 or 20 years
later again, because they once more
had to protect the currency (security
bars, and holograms) because
the Russky's had bested them
again. Paper money designs and
re-tools are not done lightly, nor
for frivolous reasons. One of the best
best, and attainable, ways to ruin a
country is to successfully degenerate
its useful currency. This operation
was a simple infiltration, in small
batches, maybe 2000-3000 100's
at a time, to have money (the fake
money) entered and brought into
the light commerce of the piers and
dock districts of lower Manhattan.
That's what the story recounts.
-
Now, I'm going to be taking a
moment here to set you up for the
next chapter, since I only feel
it's right to let you know ahead of
time, and to clear my own name too,
that the adventure submitted here
is a complete telling of the truth
though a name or two have been
changed. It's a long time ago, but
I'd still like to die a natural death
and any one of these guys could
still be lurking. Not that they'd
read this, necessarily, nor be able to
come at me from their wheelchair
oxygen tank set-up; but, still. The
story's in the story, yes, but it needs
some back-up. As you'll see, one of
the perps here warned me, right up
front, to get out, and get out then
and quick and right there, because
sooner or later it would get me nailed
or killed. OK. So I never went back.
There was a time when the distribution
of counterfeit one-hundred dollar
bills was one of the largest and
most nefarious and wide-spread of
of the Soviet Union's (then, now
'Russia's again) operations to
undermine the USA. In fact, it got
so bad and so widespread that it
became the reason, back in the
early 1990's for all the changed
designs of the paper currency. The
fake Russian 100's were perfect,
and widespread. In fact, again, the
design of 100's was changed a
SECOND time about 15 or 20 years
later again, because they once more
had to protect the currency (security
bars, and holograms) because
the Russky's had bested them
again. Paper money designs and
re-tools are not done lightly, nor
for frivolous reasons. One of the best
best, and attainable, ways to ruin a
country is to successfully degenerate
its useful currency. This operation
was a simple infiltration, in small
batches, maybe 2000-3000 100's
at a time, to have money (the fake
money) entered and brought into
the light commerce of the piers and
dock districts of lower Manhattan.
That's what the story recounts.
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