12,031. RUDIMENTS, pt. 787

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.

-

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.