11,548. RUDIMENTS, pt. 599

RUDIMENTS, pt. 599
(part juggler, part clown)
I always felt that we lived

under a dictatorship of bad

ideas; of two useless 'legacy'

parties, each reflecting the

other in rhetoric and the

fact of inaction and societal

obfuscation. Whoever gave

out the idea that fealty is due

only to one or the other of

these ineffectualities should

have been jailed immediately.

In Elmira  -  and in Pennsylvania

there too  -  there was always a

third party, equally ineffective

and equally uselessly verbose.

Its name was 'Religion.' No

one ever uttered 'The Religion

Party' but it was there; engrained,

to be scratched just under the

surface of 'righteousness.' A

lot of these really ineffectively

weak types adhered to that as

an operative work-zone. That

sort of blindness was almost

worse than the other. It was

Nixon who said that the

American people were like

children and deserved therefore

to be treated as that, in that

manner. Promise them some

ice cream later, throw them

a toy now and then and,

occasionally, yes, produce a

dixie-cup of what passes for

ice cream now and then. Like

country religion too, it all went.

-

Elmira had some really heavy,

serious, churches; and that made

for more of a 'religion' than did

the weakened country churches

out in the sticks. As is usual,

and in Elmira, the Catholic

Church was a non-presence.

It was there, it had its crowd

and its holidays and feasts and

all, but Catholic church stuff

is more an 'absence' than a

'presence.' It's filled with the

banal and the weak; it ends

up with platitudes too, and

with inaction (even about its

own perverted affairs). No

peep ever comes out of that

nest. What I'm referring to

instead are those other

denominations, whatever

they were. I'm not big on

names and determinations here:

various Baptist, Episcopalian,

and Methodists creeds or whatever

it all is. They each maintained a

sizable presence, with their own

separated church edifices (no

Catholic) arrayed around the

center town square, all from the

old days, maybe 1840, with

pathways and arbors and some

sort of communal public space

where people gathered and sat,

right amidst the business sphere.

A lot of those old places have

that  -  Carlisle, Towanda,

Waverly etc. Something like

Rittenhouse Square, in

Philadelphia. These were

foursqaure and heavy, these

churches  - and through them,

had run many of the issues of

their day. Abolitionists, pacifists,

WWI opposition, returning dead,

public mournings, speeches, the

outpourings of emotions over

assassinations and such. You 

can partake of a public mourning 

or outburst of emotion or passion, 

I've found, a lot easier than you 

can maybe personal factors of 

the same intensity  -  I don't know 

why, something about the public 

aspect of group emotion, I suppose, 

makes it easier, that's what these 

old town and village centers 

were set up for. We don't have

that anymore, unless you count 

Starbucks or a Waffle House 

as its equivalent. Kind of, 

that's what suburbia and 

roadways and the motorcar, 

did to all these locations  -  

killed them. No one thinks 

like that anymore, and any 

developer worth his salt knows 

enough to forego 'dead' spaces 

and squeeze as much money

and use of out every square 

foot as he or she can.They're

all assholes, but I say 'he or 

she' so no one will start wailing

over that silly category of things

too. Cis-Realtors, or whatever

they'd be called. Same underwear,

with or without a flap for peeing,

I guess. Like a town square,

with no bathrooms.

-

See, the thing about America 

that's still pretty strange is how

it was supposedly constructed in

a secular manner, religions each

observed by their omissions 

(or 'emissions,' for Catholics) 

in the plan, but yet how so many

people still base their votes on

the dictates (no, I won't make a

Catholic joke out of that) of their

religion, or religious organization.

Pretty strange, that is. We've 

gone to all that trouble to isolate 

it, and it still comes down to the 

preferences of others who 'instruct' 

you on what to do and how to vote.

I don't know of any solution for

that except for taxing all church

property and transactions. It sure

is a mixed-up confusion, and, at

base, a lie as well.

-

I'm not singling out Elmira, mind 

you, except that it has that perfect

town-center, church-square thing

going on. BUT! My last two trips

there I've also been annoyed now

by how 'Military' things have also

infiltrated  -  they have memorials 

and monuments now to every 

soldier or sailor who may have 

gotten a mosquito bite, with high 

honor, of course, while dispatched 

somewhere on a mission. That's

another line that needs to be 

drawn. If I told you that Stalin 

or Malenkov or Mao had taken 

over the town centers of places

in China and Russian-Soviet

lands, you'd get all in an uproar

and pissy over it. Well, come over

some time;  can show quite a

few places right around here, 

and if you have five hours

each way, I'll take you to

Elmira to see. You buy gas.

-

Down in Columbia Crossroads,

a due-20-miles south of Elmira,

they were crazy. The religion 

people were out of their minds.

There were any number of those

perfect, small, steeple'd, 

whitewashed storybook church

buildings, probably way too 

many in fact. 9 people in

this one, 14 people in that one,

and 20 over here. If they had

just consolidated themselves

into one larger and better

playpen, it would have been

a lot more efficient and cost

effective, for survival and for

upkeep. But I guess God doesn't

teach, necessarily, economics;

and it was ore important for

these nitwits to remain separated,

each with their own bizarre

versions of (I think) the same

God. Nixon, remember, said

Americans were like children 

and, damn, if these little country

churches didn't prove that out.

Everything was little lambies,

little bunnies, smiling angels

and cupid-type religious things.

The 'Children' I guess, the same

ones that Jesus suffered to have

brought to him. Not one whit or

aspect of any real theology or

credible religious teaching, or

learning, or logic (?) ever passed

in these places. I witnessed it.

My wife was the church-goer

'round those parts, and I'd get

the visitations and the Ladies 

Aid Society and bake-sales 

and bake-offs and the prayer

meets, and we even, 2 or 3

times, had African missionaries,

home for a spell, (white 'Mericans,

mind you), on the circuit with

their talks and slide shows of

happy natives (the same sorts I

guess that Sullivan killed around 

there), going on about their

quest in the tribal bush. The

local Minister was this little

old guy named Wallace McKnight.

How that ever happened, I'll

still never know. The guy was

part juggler, and part clown.