11,605. RUDIMENTS, pt. 622

RUDIMENTS, pt. 622

(splash me out a conflagration)

A lot of the towns out along

that way you'd ended up just

buzzing through, going right

past, whatever. America and

its towns have never  -  in the

modern era anyway  -  been 

on any too good terms with

each other. I think the towns

wanted to live; America itself

wanted them dead. That place

called Sheds was a good example.

There are probably people all

around who may have once

hailed from 'Sheds'  -  maybe

they grew up there, stayed long

or left early. They could probably

give you a hundred memories

of the times and location within

it, things they'd lived and 

remembered. The parson, a

schoolhouse, a neighbor, some

old beau  -  all gone now like

the old hardware store guy and

the feed mill. The big highways

came around, or through, and

took all that heart and soul stuff

away  -  people passing by, at

60 miles an hour, if they stop,

(big if), they want a hamburger,

maybe, some shit-souvenir of a

place-that-ain't-no-more, any 

of that. The big stores, the gas

stations, those national names,

all that, park themselves on the

highway, not in the town. What

you're left with is the shed mill,

maybe a half-park, where something

else used to be, and those taverns

I talk of. The local town-hall

buggers, between their meetings

and crotch-pickings, they put

up some plaques, where old

Mr. Gentry once lived; the

initial schoolhouse that stood

on the knoll; the pond and the

fish-basin; a little crap-story

attached with each of them.

Goodbye, Eden, hello real world.

-

You could feel all that loss and

sadness just blowing by each

town. One time we took a car trip,

a few days, long travel, 1100 miles

done, all across the upper and 

central tier of New York State.

Just driving around to wherever

we pleased. One of the places we

got to  -  more money in a town

then I'd seen in three days of driving,

Cooperstown, I suppose, was the

most monied and central highlight

of the trip. I went there to see

the lands and lakes and things by

which James Fenimore Cooper

wrote his Leatherstocking Tales,

all the Natty Bumpo, fading-fast

Native-Americans-facing-the-

frontier-settlers stuff. That was the

real stuff, a part and parcel of the

old America I was looking for.

For me it was gut-wrenching and 

all-absorbing. My heart was

in the canoes we rented. But

did you think the town itself

cared? Not a bit, except for the

money to be made. The whole

town is about the Baseball Hall

of Fame and all that stuff  -  

anything that ties in or which

merchandises off it, that's fine.

You can have Babe Ruth pancakes

and Ty Cobb panty-liners too,

if you wanted them. It's a 

Paradise for any of all that;

oriented at two different levels,

for kids and adults, real baseball

people, and Little Leaguers with

dreams, dads, and stars in their

eyes. Any words about essential

Americana and real lessons of

things about that  -  are subdued, 

kept quiet, little mentioned, 

and even the library references

keep pretty quiet about all that.

'Yeah, there might have been

some Indians around here once, 

but now it's all nicely settled 

and we've got those big baseball 

homes over that side of town  

-  lots of the players and the

broadcasters they keep a 

second home here. We keep 

it orderly, lots of lake and

boating activities, children,

and of course the Summers 

and the really high times of 

the Hall of Fame Inductions, 

games and ceremonies. Gosh, 

I live for all of that, and we're

so proud of our town!'

-

Well, that's probably the story, 

in about the same way, for lots

of old American towns. Just 

outside of Cooperstown  -  

which is sort of unique for

being what it is  -  the land

returns to miles of rolling

farmland  -  large barns and

farms, vegetable-stands here

and there, old names on farms

and silos, mailboxes  -  all 

the sorts of things one 

otherwise just speeds by. The

multi-generational farms are

still there, I guess still working

(they were then anyway, and I'm

going back here, remember, 40

years already). But there was

something missing too  -  as if 

the intention was there, perhaps,

but the lines no longer connected.

The business now was in just

moving along. Thruways and 

things had the usual State-run

rest stops  -  the same five

jim-cracked fast food outlets

and coffee shops, in a row, 

with some ice cream and

cookie stands in the middle 

of the aisles and entryways; 

endless bathroom stops with 

weigh-yourself scales and air

machines (they were a new idea

then) to dry your hands with.

Before that, is seemed, it was

always some soiled, damp and 

crumbled and needing to be

changed, rag machine they

expected you to actually touch.

Only the towns, IF you stopped,

had the old and the nasty. The

ghosts of New York State, 

taverns and bars and diners.

The loss was always intensified

by the anguish of those surviving :

the poor were always still there.

Back then, as in Elmira too, VCR

porn video shops, 'adult' toys (what

a dumb and embarrassing concept,

using that strange euphemism), the

ratty and leftover bus stations and

raw terminals. Soup kitchens, but

without the soup. Anything that
had been left behind in these dead,
unsettled oases, was just left to
rot, wither, and fall. Mostly the
towns lost all being : What takes 
their place (especially now) are the 
attempts at the authentic; what 
you're left with when the last 
furniture factory that once 
employed 60 people turns into
 'Mighty Maven's Antiques,' selling
anything   -  or  trying to  -  that 
they can salvage from a hundred
of the dead-people's homes all
all around. It's a wonder there 
wasn't insurrection in the streets; 
but the people's hearts are no
longer in it, their spirits are dead, 
the ark is gone, that boat has left 
both river and town. Going into

any one of those sad, corner bars

with the broiling anger of the

locals, still festering, while their

Main Street crumbled, the lights 

were out, the only grocery place 

in town just having folded and

closed up for good, the flyers for

the Elks Fish Fry, in Goreyville,

12 miles away, the Little League

signup day a few weeks off, I

always expected some drinker

there to just say  -  to the bartender  -

in the heat of anger and wrath and

only a lousy home to return to,

"Splash me out a conflagration,

John, and then bring me another."
Like setting the world on fire,
just only in your local brain.