RUDIMENTS, pt. 782
(gung ho about nothing)
Any of these places up here,
right on up to Ithaca and
beyond, were, in one respect,
normal, old-line country-land
communities, with all that staid
and simple thinking - and yet,
as if they were remnants of some
wartime casualty camp, it was
still possible to run into some
absolute wackos. Post-Woodstock
and post-hippie, even though,
up there, remnants of all that were
still vibrant - not even remnants.
It was all still active. Up along
the Ithaca hills, out of town,
there were still a few functioning
or breaking apart, communes.
Ithaca, the town, and Cornell,
the university, atop the town on
a series of oddball hills but all
walking distance from each
other, was still at war; a shambles,
wrecked-looking gigantic old
fraternity houses that had almost
been turned into bunkers. A street
strip of Black Power advocates,
still manning their parapets.The
issues all commingled, and no
one really divided them any
any longer, in any case. Vietnam.
Draft resistance. SDS. Mobilization
Against the War. Black Panthers.
Black Power. Yippies. Hippies.
Free Love advocates. Gypsies,
tramps and thieves - as a singer
named Cher would later have it,
about her own subject. We used
to walk the streets and hills, and
actually get enthused by the
sights - raggedy storefronts,
bookstores, little places with 25
cent coffee, and you could sit
for hours amidst piles of books,
cast-off, free, or cheap, and
listen to some nutcase ranting
on about Swineburne, Blake,
Marx, or Heidegger. Once again,
there were dirt paths along the
rear of all these places, with
people passing, slipping by, and
who knows what else. I never
even thought about crime, regular
crime, like thievery or break-ins
at the time. Everything was
communal, even the babes and
the dying. Girls still walked
around in flimsy hippie blouses.
Often the guys were wasted
enough to function, barely,
at 98 pounds and spaced - if
an address needed to be given.
And these were the fathers of
the babies we'd see. Life was
sure different; so was the food.
An 'old' person then was
someone in their 40's who'd
probably been around up
there since 1948. There had
been ways, in Ithaca, of
being a career -academic-bum,
let alone a Beatnik. Nothing had
been fully erased, like a blackboard
you used to see that still showed
lots of the smudgy, past messages
that had been on it. Life got like
that there. The past had some
royalty here, a regal status. But,
at the same time, I'd never see
any really 'old' old people. Never
knowing where they'd all gone, I
figured either the riotous political
atmosphere and breakdown, or
the fatigue from the hills had
just scared them off from older
life there.
-
My two friends, the Mateus guys,
(see a previous chapter) they always
liked it there. Don't get me wrong,
we did too; but we had our own
reasons. They liked it for its raw
and leftover hippie factors, for the
sloppy girls everywhere, and because
it was 'cosmopolitan,' as they put
it. I said, 'Cosmopolitan? What
does that even mean here? 300
miles out in the sticks, from
anywhere? This is a wicked
hideout; hardly a city.' The one
guy said, 'There's people here
from all over the world.' He was
right but I said, 'You didn't look
close enough yet. There are people
here from all over the universe!'
-
The first real exposure I ever had,
out of NYC I mean - which is
self-defining, and not part of this
conversation - of Chinese people,
now forcibly called Asians, was
here. On a face-to-face basis. I
guess they were a lot of early
tech, science, and computer
kinds of students, but they
took these hills in a joyful
and bouncy fashion. It had
been like that as well in
San Francisco. They wore
sneakers, and forged on in a
sort of hunch, a determined
one, into the direction they
were going. This was everyone
- young, male, female, and
older. Chinese people always
walk funny anyway, as if
their feet were still bound or
something, and these hills
were nothing to them because
the manner in which they
walked made everything sort
of horizontal. I used to watch
and wonder at that - maybe
that was the key. Ignoring the
vertical, instead of fighting
it or complaining about it.
After all, day after day it's not
going to change; so, mentally, I
think they beat the whole issue
by closing ''vertical' out of
their walking consciousness.
Sometimes the power of a
million things is not as strong
as the power of one good thing.
-
I never saw any of these Ithaca
Chinese talk. Seriously. They
were like mutant silent creatures.
I'm sure they talked glibly to
each other, but alone they stayed
silent and busy - that sort of
busy that people are when you're
not sure what it is they're busy
at. They always had a package.
They were dressed a bit differently
(remember, 1974, Chairman Mao
era, Nixon and China; there
were still fights about China
being seated and represented in
the United Nations, for goodness
sake, and I don't think we'd yet
begrudgingly opened any
diplomatic relations). These
people probably had 'Chinamen'
kin at home in Mao Camps or
still wounded and beaten from
the Cultural Revolution. Why
should they talk? It brought
nothing but trouble. Our
problems were black power,
riots, and campus shutdowns,
Vietnam protests and hippie
overdoses; a pretty pale brew
in comparison to theirs. I used
to watch all this and wonder
how, just a few short years
before, a stupid-ass TV show
like the Ponderosa or Bonanza or
whatever it was, could get away
with having a family cook for
the sexless, must-be-horny
AND hungry Cartwright
brood of men, be a Chinaman,
portrayed dumbly, and referred
to by name as 'Hop Sing.' It
was so racially abusive; for
hop and sing was exactly what
he was to do whenever they
called. He was a slave. Here
I am worrying about using the
word 'Chinamen' for people
walking up a hill.
-
There was a school song, believe
it or not, at Cornell, that people
actually sung (I was told). I
never saw any of that, except
in some old movie once. I don't
think, my whole time ever in
Ithaca, that I ever met or saw
anyone who'd actually stoop
to singing a school song. It was
called 'High Above Cayuga's
Waters' - a song about the one
of the Finger Lakes (Lake Cayuga)
over which Cornell's wonderful
vista spreads it view. If you look.
Nowadays no one ever does. The
thing was real old-school, that
song, and the entire idea. The
better song, back then, would
have probably been 'Praise the
Lord and Pass the Ammunition.'
Leaving out, of course, the
Praise the Lord part.
How passe.
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