RUDIMENTS, pt. 657
('just right for me')
I believe it was August,
1974 I read the Gulag
Archipelago, by Alexander
Solzhenitsyn. It was the
same month, too, I believe
that Nixon resigned,
mid-month. Whatever.
What was interesting about
it all for me was that my life
and times had so turned as
to end me up in such a
situation. I was reading,
day after day, in some
wooded field. It had once
been a farm field, long, long,
ago, and had been allowed
its own new growth of trees,
lightly filled in, for about
70 years, which would have
brought it all to about 1900.
Which was interesting in its
own way, but disappointing
too to realize that, even then,
nearly a century ago, farms
were being abandoned, or
changed over, and even here
in way-rural old Vermont. This
was Hubbardton, and it was way
the heck up in the pure middle
of nowhere - long winding dirt
roads, and what the Vermonters
called the Green Mountains all
about, and Rutland, some little
ways off. Whoever or whatever
this farmer guy had been, whether
it was 25 years ago or 75, he'd
built or had built, along the
dirt-roadside of a seldom
traveled unless you lived along
it, this old, wooden set up braced
against some gigantic old tree :
a desktop-like platform table,
and two wooden-hewn bench
seats; a veritable outdoors bench
set - reading room, and perch.
I loved it; no noises, a view out
for miles, all below, from the
heights - cows, dotted homes
which followed the old road,
and lines of old, broken fences.
I guess what was most amazing
about it was that it was there.
It was really amazing.
-
There was a marble works right
around there too, Proctor Marble
Works, Proctor VT., I think it
was. That place was cool too -
jut to see the natural chunks of
everything strewn about, and the
kind of silent, shuffling guys who
worked it all. It seemed, in those
parts of Vermont I ever was at,
that people were either 'farmers'
or workers who 'worked.' Harsh
and heavy work - marble, mines,
railroads, timber, all that real
industry stuff. Once you got to
Rutland, of course, there was the
usual - print shops (why I was
there), car shops, stores, and all
that service and professional stuff,
but I'm talking more here about
deep country. I liked it all around
there, even this little covered-bridge
post-office town call Florence.
That's where the mail was kept.
Vermont had all this heritage of
fighting and Independence, and
Ethan Allen too, and his Green
Mountain Boys. Their little,
independent, kingdom called
Vermont (Green Mountain), and
pine trees. How it all turned into
a stupid line of furniture stores
on the east coast (NJ) too, called
'Ethan Allen Furniture, was
beyond me. More early-American
ersatz clutter.
-
So, that Vermont time went by
quickly, but I could never make
much sense of that either. It wasn't
so much that I didn't feel 'home' as
that the entire location just seemed
too high and mighty. There was a
quality there that I couldn't find
room for within myself. maybe it
was money; maybe an aloofness
or distance, but something was
too far-off from my touch. There
was a different line of Americana
there, and it wasn't mine - maybe
even as much as I might have
wished it was. The touch-to plane,
with others, was lacking nothing
there to share. Hard to say, but the
funniest part of it all became, a
short while later, when Solzhenitsyn
got the boot from Russia anyway
and they exiled him out, he ended
right up in those parts. I used to
know the location, but now I forget.
His later works came out of there,
'The Red Wagon' or whatever the
later stuff was called. He grew into
just the sort of cranky renegade I'd
always wished I could be. His
neighbors, didn't take too kindly
to him after a while.
-
None of it was my concern. I knew
that. Nixon was gone, I was gone
from that location, and just another
notch of experience was up. There
are always people to tell you what's
right or not in their own eyes, and
it for sure may differ from what you
yourself see, and I guess that's the
way the world runs itself. There's
the 'fray' and then there's out of the
fray. My whole initial point in NYC
was to stay out of the fry of the
normal run of things, which I surely
did, and here I was 6 or so years
later, realizing while I sat far up
on that hillside, that the clearly-bright
goodness of 'Vermont' was quite
right either. I knew I was, and
didn't want to be, laze, but my
friend there was working himself
to death, and just watching that,
everyday, was annoying me. Ten
hour a day workweek, with most
Saturdays, over at some stupid
Toyota joint called Lertola's. In
the fair middle of the outskirts of
Rutland, Vermont, a car dealership
of early Toyotas. Who in their right
mind would ever have thought that
crust Yankee people would take
to a Japanese car? But they were
selling and being serviced constantly
out there. That just meant to me
that everything was slowly changing.
Twenty years previous to that no
self-respecting Vermont farmer
would ever have touched anything
that was a Chevrolet, Ford, or
Chrysler, and they'd defend it too!
Now, the whole world was rolling
over, into a new nothingness just
getting started, and here, even
these people, were doing it. So,
we just gt out of there too, and
went back home, back down to
Elmira. Elmira was like a bad
and dirty, poor cousin to anything
in Vermont, but at least it had
Ithaca, which was a nice, crazed,
smart, comfortable nuthouse.
Just right for me.
-
My pace was going to remain
different, and I was to be sure
of that. Ithaca was like going to
San Francisco. It even had the
same cool smaller, version of the
hills. My few friends used to come
out for 'Jersey' and I'd take then
there. They always ended up calling
it 'cosmopolitan' and very pleasing.
They always enjoyed all I showed
them; the talk, the banter, the
bookshops, the downtown, the
University and its places,
museums and cafes. It was
all well-filled with things all
beyond expectations; if you think
about it. A crazy, land-grant college
from 150 years back, snug and
nestled right in the nicest possible
place to be. It wasn't so bad at
all, and we'd return to Elmira, or,
even when we still lived there, to
Pennsylvania, still quite nearby,
and enjoy it all the better because
we'd just re-supplied on everything
cool that we'd need : some more books,
art magazines, crazy flyers, records,
even weird foods we'd bring home.
All was good, and all seemed blessed.
Yeah, I was working, but it was all
done at ease, off the cuff, and I had
all these accesses. Not like some
hunkered-down anvil-banger
at some dead Toyota shop.
-
The thing was, from my point of
view, as bad as any of it may sound
these days, was to have a wife or
a mate who did it all with you.
And I did, which made it work.
No tension, no conflict; she liked
all the same stuff I did, and more of
her own too, so we wound up
sharing those same excitements
and the little things places like that
brought us. It was all a sort of fine,
working, unity, that reaped rewards.
Slaving away and never sharing any
of the joint ventures would have
just wrecked everything.
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