RUDIMENTS, pt. 787
(colossal impressions)
You never want to be the
kind to go to a wedding
just so others can see you
dance. That's fairly obvious,
yet for many that's considered
a big opportunity. Up in the
hills where I was, I never
needed concerning about
any of that - unless a
polecat was in my family
and it was marrying a heifer.
At that point I'd suppose
there would have been a
bridge even I would have
had to decide about crossing
or not. I was so far off from
anything, right then, that the
people in my broader family,
back home, were by this
time getting married and
all having kids of their own.
I wound up never knowing
names nor who was who. Most
often, I still don't - weirdly
enough I guess.
-
We were switching engines
on my '62 VW once, and I'd
called in a friend from over
Canton way - a mechanic guy
name Jim. Truly a wild man,
but he knew his engines, and
his stuff, and could turn a
wrench like magic - and
did VW's on the side too,
(no, the car was upright),
coming right to people's
yards and homes to do them.
So we hooked up, made a deal,
for 300 bucks, to work it all
out one weekend. I said he was
a wildman, and I mean it. He
brought his wife, and three little
kids too, with him for that work
weekend. That was sort of never
mentioned in the deal, but, I
figured, why balk now. He's
got the engine, and I've got the
weekend. So we fed and lodged
them all. I'd never heard the
phrase 'rugrats' before, and as
that was how he referred to his
kids, I soon surmised what he
meant. I was hoping it wasn't
interchangeable with the word
'regrets.' They were all a very
active bunch; wife included -
she kept hanging around stove
and counter, sort of annoying
my wife, who'd never been
challenged on that count.
Mostly all I can remember now
is a pile of 'flapjacks' - known
to me previously as pancakes -
that was about a mile high. We
had real maple syrup from Edie's
farm - the sheep lady down the
road in Big Pond. It was one of
her sidelines too. Maple syrup's
a precious thing - the real stuff,
not the drivel they sell in the
supermarket. Along about the
beginning of March, each year,
you'd see, stretched out along
Edie's property, a real load of
mature maple trees, and they
all would have a bucket or two
or even more, hanging from a
tap driven into the tree. That
would all stay in place for a
few weeks - let's say late
Feb, all through March. These
buckets would slowly fill, as
the rousing sap running up the
tree, inside, with that year's
Springtime life, would get
intercepted along the route
by the taps and ever so slowly
drip out into the buckets. Of
course, that sapped (Hey!) some
of the growth potential from
the tree, but it never seemed to
much matter. Bucket by bucket
over time, she'd have a huge,
heavy, accumulation of sap.
The raw Maple Sap : The basis
of maple syrup, though useless
in that condition - it had to be
vatted and boiled, vapor'd and
with all the processes of the
boiling off and distillation, or
whatever - I never got the
real process down too well.
What was left after all that
was your prime, grade AA
maple syrup - sweet, deep,
rich, luxurious, and of a
taste-to-tongue I can't quite
describe. It's usually sold in
metal tins, at like 14 dollars
a thimble-full. Real pricey
stuff. None of that supermarket
issue, corn-starched and watered
down fakery for 4 bucks. This
was real life, man.
-
This 'Jimmy' guy, (he referred to
himself as Jimmy, it wasn't my
tag for him), he had a thing
about names - just oddball stuff.
Like, right off, immediately he
coined me as 'Yrag Enortni.'
That threw me for a minute, and
then I realized he'd simply
reversed everything, and I
became Yrag. Why, I don't
know, but neither did I care.
I was learning the innards of
a VW engine mounting, which
was about the simplest thing in
the world. As he explained it, this
Ferdinand Porsche guy and Herr
Hitler had designed this 'peoples'
car for the German masses, and
included in that premise the very
simple unbolt and roll away
aspect of working on the car
and/or switching engines. It
was sort of ingenious, and we
got it done in amazingly record
time. Had to be. I don't remember
too much else of that weekend,
frankly. I know there was no
drinking, nothing much special
that we did, and no TV either,
so I'm not recollecting what we
did to pass the time. I remember
he loved the place, and we really
had to push him away from the
idea of settling his brood in the
barn apartment out back - as
unfinished as it may have been,
it suited him fine. We paid up,
loaded the old engine onto
the back of his vehicle (I can't
recall what it was), and they
left. It was still cold out, and
I recall then going to visit them
in their place, in a town called
Canton. This 'Canton' was I
guess some 30 miles off - one
of those places that don't really
deserve a name, but get one
anyway. There's a lot of that
out in the country. A few
warring gas-stations, lube-joints,
some scummy food-crap tin-
can hostelry, and probably the
remains of three or four large
homes mostly just rotted out
since the 1940's. The few people
around are simply 'survivors,'
getting by, somehow, making
do and with apparently few real
wants or needs. I think the
alcohol shop, though well-hid,
was probably around the nearest
corner. I wondered how he'd
be living : We got there. It was
as if they all lived in a warm,
snuggly, tight-quartered and
primitive coal-mine. Two or
three of the walls might even
have been earth-walls. I didn't
check. It seemed like everything
but the ceilings was carpeted -
both for warmth and for sound.
One wall was taken up (I'd never
seen this before) with a giant-
sized, built-into-the-wall, kerosene
heater, with blaze controls and all
else. It was flaming away and
throwing fire-heat everywhere,
really warm, right-to-you, heat.
It was really the neatest thing
I'd ever seen, and made me feel,
immediately, like a cave-bear.
This guy was totally cool about
everything, the heat included;
a complete, class-A primitive.
We all hung around a while,
the kids all playing, ours too,
in one happy heat-bask - toys
and weird things everywhere,
old, sloppy chairs and things to
sit on. And though he didn't
drink at my house, there was
plenty here - whiskeys and
things other than beer. The
apparent idea was you weren't
supposed to really by 'drinking'
the stuff, more just touching it
to your lips, where it lingered
a bit, as you slowly took in the
smallest taste at a time, each
time. Very interesting. I wasn't
able to tell if that was so as to
conserve the precious liquid or
if they had actually perhaps
acquired some high-class
cocktail society habits. Which
I truly doubted, of course.
able to tell if that was so as to
conserve the precious liquid or
if they had actually perhaps
acquired some high-class
cocktail society habits. Which
I truly doubted, of course.
-
That was all the only, and the
very last, time we ever saw
or met Jimmy and his family.
Rugrats or not, demons or
angels, they've never left
my mind.
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