12,119. RUDIMENTS, pt. 813

RUDIMENTS, pt. 813
(picnic lunches in the farmyard square)
At some point my mind

was shredded, my soul 

was flayed; maybe I got

lost in my own malarkey,

or the malarkey of others.

Being in NYC, in all that

swank darkness and/or the

seedy cubbyholes I hung

out in (how many other

places can you use that 

sequence? Out in..?) I

was able to duck and

cover enough that no

real harm ever came to 

me. I got into all sorts of

devilish places, and with

a myriad of strange scenes,

but always managed a fine

extrication. But, up in the

part of PA I'd gotten into

a year or two later  -  all I've

been telling about here  -  

there came a time when it

was all coming loose. I

had nowhere left to turn.

This Wallace McKnight guy,

the local Baptist preacher,

with his little white church 

and churchyard up along

Springfield Road, East

Smithfield Road, whatever

they had marked it as, had

his own  - totally unsatisfactory -

fiefdom. Up there, the whole

church-going thing was ladies'

business. No men ever got

involved, except for funerals

and death vigils and maybe a

picnic or something; unless you

were from, say, the Mattocks

family or such  -  local big-time

landowners, major farmers,

school-board types, etc. There

were only a few of them around,

the local bigwigs, political heads,

etc. They always showed up

for church stuff. Anyway, this

Rev. McKnight was a real pest

to the men. The ladies loved him,

because he was like them, and

childlike  -  gentle, calming,

caring, filled with foolish

stories about children and

Jesus, mercy and transgression,

reversals of fate, recurrences

of belief, all that stuff. The

'miraculous,' around him, 

always had a shoulder to 

cry on. He was about 70, a

little guy, about 5' 2" maybe, 

and drove a white Chevy,

a '56 as I recall, in white.

Which was a color I'd never

seen a '56 Chevy in, and it

was a terrible look. A 15-year

out-of-date car, then, which

isn't so bad  -  my own are

older. The guy was full of it,

and I really don't know how he

lasted. Farmers were mostly 

always daytime busy, out in

the farmyard doing something

or other, trenching, digging,

cleaning, building, working

on motors. The farmyard is

sort of like a communal area;

all sorts of activities center

there, even in the Wintry

cold, and anyone present

gets caught up into whatever

extraneous activity is taking

place there; like here, with the

Reverend's visit. It's a swell life 

like that. Plus all the animals.

So, we'd be around doing stuff

and every so often that Chevy

would come rolling in  -  it was

another of his blasted visitations.

To get the menfolk, where they

were. He'd get out, small talk to

ensue, dumb comments, this 

and that, a small break for

a circle-prayer, and a tie-in

somehow of 'religion' (what he

called it) into whatever we

were doing. Sure enough, he

usually got invited in for dinner,

or a meal or sandwich, and

a drink of whatever, soda, 

milk...And all the time he

talked, as I said, in ways

trying to tie all this into his

patterned religion. One time,

I swear, he started telling me

how the miracle of the loaves

and fishes had occurred because

Jesus, in his most divine and

good-natured way, had managed

by his words, to shame the

people present into breaking

out their picnic lunches they'd

brought in secretly, and share

them with others. No fooling.

The guy was piebald nuts.

-

I wanted to just shut-up, stay

quiet, out of the line of fire,

but he kept pestering me. So

I said, 'Look Reverend, that's

all good and nice, and I've had

my share of religious training, (he

didn't know about the seminary

era) but we can argue this stuff

all day long. Let me put it this way.

If I told you to go down to Troy,

at the diner, and bring me back a

lamb and buffalo meat sandwich,

you'd say 'They don't have them,

such a thing doesn't exist.' And

you'd be right, and we could both

go down there and then prove to

ourselves that such a thing doesn't 

exist. Yet, now, the way I see it,

except for the profound faith of

the constant believer, the existence

or the non-existence of God

cannot be proven or found, one

way or the other  -  except for

that 'faith' I mentioned. Neither

can the workings of, or the

presence of, this God in our

time; and we have nowhere to

go to check that out, except for

the faith you profess in your own

version of that unique intangible,

which I don't share. And I think

I have my own, which you wouldn't

share, and which, I'd bet, is probably
stronger, and sterner, too. Okay?' He
was  pretty much, by that, stopped

dead then in his prancing little

magic swirl, and just went on to

talk of other things, with others.

Now, I could just as easily have
said 'It doesn't exist, for them,' OR, 
had he been a sharper dialectition,
he could have said, 'Both of those
items exist, the lamb and the buffalo.
because of God, in isolation, but it is 
Humanity, in its fallen state, that is 
responsible for the combining,' which,
in its way, would have done nothing
but brought us back to that picnic
lunch again.  Of course, his closing

prayer as he was leaving seemed

to hold an extra glimmer of

supplication, with a twinkle in

his elfin eyes, for me.

-

So, perhaps you could see how I

was stretched pretty thin by this

time. Those last two or three 

Winters there, as much as I

enjoyed the isolation and work,

had just about run me out, though,

to be honest, I could have stayed.

It was special enough. But, wife

and kid, as I've mentioned, take

responsibilities and precedence

too, and an honorable person

can only answer to the situations

they've made. Or flee, and I 

wasn't about to do that to them.

Which is where Elmira came

in handy, and where we then

ended up. My wife simply did

NOT want the son to enter

school in that system  -  Troy

area schools. I disagreed a

little, not having much of 

an opinion about any form

of Government schooling 

being good anywhere. Rotten
meat is rotten meat, and
wherever you go.