11,780. RUDIMENTS, pt. 695

RUDIMENTS, pt. 695

(sand trap yellow, in the bunker)

I awoke one day it was late

1978, and I was in a different

place for sure. Have you not

ever had one of those moments

when you seemingly catch

yourself saying, 'Hey! How

did I get here? What am I

doing?' Well, that was me. It

was all tension, I was confused,

and almost as if unawakened,

thrown into other circumstances.

For one thing, I suddenly had a

larger than usual job. That's 

j-o-b! Yeah, just like that Bible

guy too, speaking of afflictions,

I suppose. I also suppose that

nothing matters but the numbness,

or, as the doctor says, wait a

few days and let's see if feeling

comes back. (Always fearing the

worst....'Before we amputate.')...

-

In Elmira, whenever it was, I guess

Nov. 1976, the only time I ever

voted, I walked an early morning,

-12 degree cold, to vote. What I

was thinking was way beyond me.

I voted for Gerald Ford, mostly only

because I thought one 'James Earl

Carter' was a complete, fizzled a'hole.

Of course, true to my form, 'Gerald'

Ford (whose real, birth name, by

the way, had been Leslie King. Bet

you didn't know that!) lost. Goes to 

show; don't ever get me on your

side. It was so cold that day, in

Elmira, that before the breath I

expelled was able to come out, it

froze in my throat as a solid piece

of ice. Man, I was spitting up

snowballs for days. Neither of

those guys was worth a vote, and 

I still can't really fathom why I 

did it, especially with such

determination. Idealism maybe

often wears the same cloak as

stupidity, and in either case 

whatever it was I was expecting

was one of those two things. I 

think it had something to do with 

the entire ethos of college, college

half-life, dead-city blues, a thrust

towards fake elitism among the

denizens of said dead-city. It was

like real easy to impress, back 

then, your average Dunkin' Donuts 

crowd. 'I vote for Boston Creme'

was more their style.

-

So a few years later, and there I

was. This President Carter guy 

was all of a sudden embroiled in

giving away the Panama Canal, 

as the story went, and everyone 

was in an uproar. The place I 

was working at was being 

re-paved, and parts of' it were

still under construction too, so

my daily parking had been 

relegated to a side-street next 

to a large 'Launder-Mat,' as they

had it phrased in a particular form 
of localized spelling, and a place 

called The Blue Bird Inn, which

was a sort of combo workingman's 

and Twinkle-toes bar. It was one 

of those nearly white, stucco'd 

places at the curb almost, of a 

busy road. No windows except 

two up-high porthole-type pieces

of glass, acting as windows. I 

truthfully only ever saw a few 

people going in, but there was, 

as I recall, a rear entryway

as well, so maybe I just missed 

it. Ten years previous, the place 

I was working (it was right across

the street there) in had been a 

regular house, farmhouse  -  sort 

of country-style, rambling, and 

then, after the farm-happy days 

around there were all over, it 

became a travel agency, on the

ground floor anyway, and they'd 

put in some new, larger, plate-glass 

sized windows for the travel agent, 

which were all covered over with 

those fantasy travel-poster photos 

you'd always see, of Tahiti and 

Samoa and all those exotic places 

Americans hadn't yet ruined.

-

The guy I was working for had 

a side-line career going as a 

builder of sorts. What were 

called 'professional buildings' 

once. (I never actually saw

an amateur building, though 

I had seen some really rickety 

places). He was pretty good at 

what he did, except everything 

always came out looking the

same. Ugly. Always tan stucco. 

Always lousy carpeting, tasteless 

entries and lobbies, poor signage, 

and little glass. Everything looked 

like a bunker  -  as seems to be 

the way for these places that are

simply erected to make money

and care little for anything else.

both aesthetics and taste included. 

Usually, I've found, you tell a 

lot about a place by its lighting 

fixtures. His were pure junk.

The old house I was talking 

about, he simply absorbed 

into the new structure he was

building (for the print shop 

wherein I was working). He 

just built all around it and then

opened it up. Inside, in the offices

I worked in, it was still mostly

like an old house, except all

squared off. You could tell

what had been the living room, 

bedrooms, etc. Now they were 

all offices and sales and record

keeping areas. Out back, which 

been pushed out and newly erected,

was a large, open-spaced factory

area, for the printing presses, etc.

It looked, in that section, like any

open, warehouse area.

-

That's how the onslaught of the

modern day goes about killing

the past. Eventually we lose it 

all so that a few power-players 

can make all their dough off it 

and leave us, the regular people 

who live there,  with their crumbs. 

And traffic and trucks and lights 

and driveways, etc. Suburbia's a

slippery slope once these sorts

get their hands on it. His passage

of pride, on Avenel Street, and I

still pass it daily, shaking my head

at what an amazing shitheap and

jumble I was once involved in

creating, was the old Shop-Rite,

which he re-purposed in the

absolute worse manner you 

could think of. Again, a Hitler

bunker, no windows, crummy

little glass, thick pasted-on

yellowish stucco, no front

doorway of any sort, and merely 

a pathetic and rude doorway

area at the rear, along what is

facetiously named 'Park Ave.'

(Right next to, by the way, 

'Fifth Avenue'. Even Avenel

somehow tried making mad 

fantasy leaps into high-toned

New York elite names, no 

matter that they here referred 

to rows of bungalows and

shacks. 'De Gustibus,' I think

is used to mean 'No telling for

taste.' Illegitimi non carborundum,'

by the same token, means 'Don't

let the bastards wear you down.'
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end of pt. A; pt B follows