12,070. RUDIMENTS, pt. 798

RUDIMENTS, pt. 798

(attempts at eden were over)

Maybe it all went slowly,

maybe it all went fast; I

can't remember. I just recall

that I, and it, slowly started

unwinding. Even all that

'country' stuff was no longer

any good. I guess life goes

like that, sometimes  - in

pulses  -  first one thing, then

another. A changeable motion,

and for sure a changeable

notion too  - that's why the

old folks used to say you

should never get married too

soon, the 'hitchin' post can

be a real uncom'frtble' thing.'

They'd say things likes, 'Boys

gotta' sew their wild oats; get

all that out'a their system, first.'

Imagine saying something like

that today? You'd get run out

out of town for either being

a sexual-maniac predator,

talking like that; or just being

a misogynistic creep. Men!

Can't live with 'em, can't

live without 'em. Ooops! What

am I saying? All those adages

are long dead now. Like the

old people who used to say

that stuff. I think the point
of all that was how it was
important to learn that all 
things change, that there's a
constant transformation always 
going on, underway, effecting 
(and affecting) things. Those
old farm people were so set and 
settled that when the reached 
their certain points, as if almost 
predetermined, they just settled 
in, home-life and farm-life, and 
stayed put right there. That's what
the old and the 'Americana' images 
are always about. Good maybe 
for calendar photos, but not much
else really. No move. No change.
And so, signalling  -  almost in 
desperation  -  over things, those 
are the sorts of advice lines they'd 
give out to kids. They were pushing
for old and unchanging; meanwhile
the world around them, and their
kids, was blowing itself up into
smithereens. Anyway, for me,

one day it just hit me that,

for the most part, all those

farmers were just as much

jerks as anyone else. In the cities

and suburbs, people disrespect

the land, pave everything and

build everything up; but in

the country it was the same

thing. Just like some factory

on McCarter Highway or

somewhere up along Newark,

farmers treated their lands the

same. The land was their factory;

no other way to put it. I wasn't

escaping anything. They just

didn't pave and cover their land

over. But it was, nonetheless,

their constant raw material, like

an open-pit mine. I was, I admit,

far enough away, and secluded

too, to get all my distances kept

right, but nonetheless, the

presence of all that activity

was a constant. Like having

a shingle factory or something,

near-around. It no longer seemed

right, nor fair; and it wasn't

what I was after. Like a Spring

awakening, of my own, I somehow

re-hatched my old self : I again

needed learning, knowledge,

stimulation.

-

It was a sorrowful parting; and

I saw it coming as it began to

loom over things. After a while

everything becomes tiresome.

How many trees and open fields

does a person need? And then how
many hurts and disappointments

can a person take as, piece by

piece, he has to see it all get run

down, marred; here and there

another house  -  all those kids

growing up, and only the oldest

son, usually, 'got' the farm; everyone

else needed a place to live  -  that

meant a new, simple house with a

family and a few MORE kids to

be growing up on 20 years and

doing the same thing over gain.

And also it seemed like no one

ever moved away  -  they just

stayed around, crowding things.

Seemed like there'd be no way

out. It wasn't Eden, and oftentimes

the beauty of it all was fleeing

out the nearest back door. How

did I get (I wondered) from here

to there, without really setting

our for anywhere?

-

Like I've said before, so much

of anything is timing. You can

be skinny like a rail, or fat like

a tub, but in each case if you do

it when either of these things are

stylish  -  it's cool. Your timing

is perfect. Thin ties and belts,

or thick ties and belts. But if

your timing is off, you're a

dumb fat (or skinny) slob. I

don't think people living out

there around me sensed all

that  -  they were rock-solid

in their steadfastness and

application. But I had lost the

timing. I was, once again, out

of sync, and I knew it and it

was obvious to me. I wondered

if others could see it? I could

be seen (alas, again) as a

betrayer, a fouled interloper

in their midst. I sensed again

it was time to go. Or 'out of

time' too, I guess.

-

We were spending more and

more time  out of there anyway  -

Elmira and Ithaca, to be sure.

But other places too  -  Cortland,

Hornell, (a town; not to be

confused with 'Cornell' the

university). Cool, oddball places

like Montour Falls and Watkins

Glen. The Glenn Curtiss Museum, 

in Hammondsport was a pretty

interesting place for me : the guy

was a maverick, speed-demon

motorcyclist and aircraft pioneer.
He just about represented every
thing that people today aren't
supposed to be at all. He gets
a museum for it all. Go figure.

The budget-museum back then

(now it's larger and modern) 

was in a old, converted 1910's 

schoolhouse, one of those old,

multi-storied, serious looking

sad places (like School 4 in

Avenel), but they'd managed

to crisp it up with all sorts of

exhibits, artifacts, history and

information. It was a gem. It

was as if I realized again, from

the inside out, that there was so

much to see and learn, everywhere,

that all of a sudden hanging

out atop some hilltop redoubt

wasn't cutting the grade. (School

pun). Nothing wrong with it,

and my usual, paradoxical self

still, to this day, has parts of me

wishing I'd never left it, but, for

me again, attempts at Eden were

over. In the balance hung lots
of other things  - where to move,
how to implement any of that,
and what initial means to put
into play. Fortunately for for
me, as I've noted previously,
this Pakistani guy (a real foreign
rarity back then and there) who
owned and ran Elmira Business 
Machines, showed a real interest 
in the place, after I told him what 
was up. That was pretty strange, 
his interest in such an outlying
property some 25 miles from his
place of business, but I wasn't 
about to discourage it. I'd already
listed it, so he had to work through 
them, which sort of cut me out of
my personal play, and the whole 
thing ended up taking a long time.
Stupidly for me, I just ended up
owning two places for a good
bunch of time before he was
able to get his deal running. In
the interim, we'd moved to an 
Elmira house, I started some
classes at the College right
down the street, worked around
my hours at a darkroom photo job
I'd gotten at a print shop, and it
all was sort of falling into place  - 
Cornell and Ithaca; I'd be slumming
around that University some too,
and we'd even take bus trips from
Binghamton (75 miles east)
to NYC. They were pretty much 
a stuffy bore, the buses and all, 
but it was fun and kept us in
the mix.  The pressure was up;
I needed those relief valves.