RUDIMENTS, pt. 931
(pursuit of happiness, right down the drain)
I'd have to imagine I was
meant to be happy in Avenel;
or that was the reason we
'moved' here. The trouble
was, I could never be sure.
There was usually enough
misery around my house
as to cloud that picture -
the visits of aunts and
uncles, the funny ways
family Italians have of
being acrimonious, even
in family, civil, situations.
You'd think; but the mix
was always volatile and I
realized too that at any
gathering of this sort, the
'family' there was really
only half family. The other
half was all of people who'd
married in, so with 9 people,
each having a mate, that
meant as well, really, when
you think, 9 other people from
out of the blue. There was
no guarantee ever that people
would have 'liked' each other.
My father was such a rigid
thinker about that ethnicity
stuff that it was sometimes
all he could to abide the fact
of 2 Poles, a German and
an Irish guy too, had married
in. Imagine all that around a
social table. Truly, it sometimes
got preposterous.
-
In the same way as Pilate -
saying his, 'Truth? What
is Truth?' line, when hearing
Jesus out - I often shrugged
and just said, 'Happiness?
What is Happiness?' It was
my far less regal circumstance.
It all became immaterial to me.
I'd watch whatever occurred
and just take mental note. Mr.
Zirioni, who had driven an
old Buick until then, comes
home one day in a new '58
Buick Special - looking like
a war machine. The car, that
is; but probably him too. He
was pretty suave - slicked
back hair on a half-balding
head, and always holding a
cigarette, smoking away. He
was one of those guys who
could make a loud whistle
with the fingers-in-his-mouth
thing that some people do.
He knew all the local guys
who did contracting work,
had family connections to
builders and repair guys.
His wife, my friend's Mom,
who was a perfect double for
Betty Boop, of cartoon fame,
had her own cream and light
blue '55 Chevy. She always
scolded us big-time for leaning
on it with our 'dungarees' and
belt buckles. The dungarees,
(no one ever said 'jeans') had
pocket-rivets that she said
scratched her car. Maybe
so, but we never scraped or
danced on the car. The funnier
thing was how, until about 1957
or so, the old steam engined
trains that went by (the tracks
were all electrified after that.
The old-style (real) trains, were
done away with. But still,
when I think 'trains,' it's
these old steamers, then the
diesels. Before that era-change,
each time an evening train
passed, we kids would gather,
running under the large cloud
of smoke and soot the train
generated, as it wafted over
the neighborhood and slowly
petered out. The funny thing
was, all the parents complained
of the ash and soot fallout - it
landed on everything and
left pock-marks often enough
on car finishes. There was a
big howl and clamor over that
at first - as if no one told them
there were active train tracks
500 feet away. It was great fun,
and then they electrified the
tracks and that was that.
-
So, that was, in a way, Happiness,
I guess. I never sought for it, it
was, instead, just always there,
all around me. I found that a
person didn't have to 'strive' for
it - it was always there, all
around us. It can't ever really
even be explained. The quotient
of 'Happiness' is different for
everyone. In my father's case,
unlike so many other guys, he
hated mountains and forests and
fresh-water lakes and all that.
To his idea of 'Happiness',
fishing was salt water, ocean
or inlet, and big, fighting
bluefish and things like that -
when they were running. I
was always bored stiff. Flounder
and Fluke looked too weird to me,
and senseless, Sea Robins were
junk fish, Blowfish were gross
and any of them, in their dying,
waterless, choking on air death
throes, where nothing I cared to
deal with. Saltwater OR fresh.
I never understood - still don't -
why people had to eat any other
being. Beyond the ken of our
understanding, I was sure, the
consciousness of every living
being held an equal or better
value than did ours, and had
its own pocket-pouch within
the universe to live in. Never
ours to blot out.
-
But, that was Happiness there.
Poorly explained, maybe, but
present. I found there never to
be language enough for me to
get across my own feelings about
these things. No one listened
who would understand, and it
was all just poor grammar to
most people. I was mainlining
sensitivity as a kid when I
should have been injecting
rough-and ready; and I was
never able to meet anyone, in
Avenel and area, who knew
anything about things. It was
all a slapdash, half-learned,
scribble of ideas I got from
others. Theoretical physics
had nothing on half the crap
I was told or talked to about.
Even in the present day, you
never really find anyone to
talk quality stuff with. Everyone
has seemingly become a slate
wiped clean, afraid to say or
even mutter anything real or
authentic to them, for fear of
the usual offence to the
prevailing group-think that's
taken things over. Any local
schooling, at young ages, is
shot to hell, and the next thing
you know, if a kid's off to what
is still expectantly called 'college,'
their next step isn't into any
real, renegade, learning, but
just off sideways to all that
bullshit, vocational proper-ness
that passes for learning. The
common currency of what
passes today for knowledge,
learning, or wisdom is actually
not that at all. In fact, what
the authorized schooling and
processing ends up doing is
draining these kids (the heck
with 'Happiness' and steam-train
clouds) of any judgmental
authenticity, rendering them
fit for being, instead, passive,
disconsolate, indifferent, and
SUBJECT to controls and to
authority. Which is just the
way Authority likes it.
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