RUDIMENTS, pt. 967
(call this what you want)
Curious things about America?
Once credit and extended-time
payments got started, as an idea,
about 1880, and forms of the
day's mass-merchandising
took hold, property, and the
idea of same, had to be
formalized. Traditional
property had always been,
maybe, land, houses, cattle,
and the tools of the trade for
whatever it may have been.
Then the 'new' nation began
wanting and advancing 'new'
kinds of property. Funny how
it wasn't very long, into the
next 25 years or so, that many
of these new things, all together,
came to somehow be seen as
the standard of Subsistence; the
persons who did not possess
these new objects were said
to be 'deprived, and seen as
not well off, (yet those who
possessed them were not seen
as 'well off.' That's where this
possessed them were not seen
as 'well off.' That's where this
democratization of property
got pretty weird - people woke
up one day, having all this 'stuff,'
and realizing, nationwide, that
no one really any more exactly
what was 'owned,' as ownership
became oddly uncertain. In
precisely what sense did they
'own'? With banks and loans
and time payments and large
ticket items, people realized
how perplexed they'd all
gotten themselves. I can
remember countless times
myself the way kids would
often say 'We got a new car,'
and then just as quickly
backtrack and say, 'Well,
it's not 'new' but it's new to
us.' There was a certain form
of unspoken message always
there - having to do with
the expense of actual 'new'
cars, and yet the joy of a
new-to-them used car, and
one affordable in the sense
of lower class Americans. The
days of the 'sign-for-this Lexus'
etc., and its bank notes and
loan rates too, had not yet
arrived. America, in that
sense, was still forming.
-
To my mind, it was always
difficult growing up in the
situations I did. Back then,
you could still get a serviceable
car, one that would run daily,
and get you back and forth,
for, say, 80-100 dollars. I
speak from experience -
my father had any number
of 1953 Dodges and such,
in that price range during
those first years. Those cars
were perhaps 6 years old,
with what was then considered
high mileage, at 85,000, God
forbid 100,000 miles. Cars
and things were different.
The window glass in 'older'
cars often began to cloud
up or fade to opacity, as
early 'safety'glass' was
essentially a sandwich of
two plates of glass with
some clear silicate or
cello-phane fused between
- it was that middle layer
which, over time and
sunlight, would fog. Yet,
people were quite willing
to put up with these paltry
circumstances if it meant
keeping them out of debt,
and, in fact, securing a real
'ownership.' It was tangible,
and there was a feeling to
being in a world like that.
There were yet no real frills,
people were solid about what
they had, what was theirs, and
what was not. In America's
earlier days, and out west,
priority rule had governed,
the mines and the unoccupied
western lands - if you had it,
it was yours until the next guy
came by to say it wasn't. The
laws of 'property,' if they existed
at all, were raw and fundamental.
As time went on - with banks
and laws and lawyers and loans
and mortgages and surveyors,
actual titles, etc., property
became more particular
(elaborate, metaphysical).
The speedy change of the
advertising and selling, of ads
and representatives, and rates,
also went into all this - pushing
credit and allowing people their
dreams of 'ownership.'
-
I got things, as a kid, and I never
thought about where thy came from
or how they were bought. There
was a bicycle shop in Woodbridge,
along Main Street, called R&S;
and one in Rahway too, name
right now forgotten to me. It
was somebody's 'Lock and
Key Shop, also selling bicycles,
but it's the 'somebody can't recall.
I'd gotten a J. C. Higgins, and then
a Columbia - bicycle brands -
and I enjoyed them both, as
'mine.' No questions asked. The
old adage about 'possession is
9/10ths of the law', boy that used
to throw me too. It sort of meant,
to me, that if you had something,
even if it was, say, a stolen
bicycle (since we're now on that
subject) the fact that it was in
your possession (and not the
rightful owners?) gave you the
preponderance of ownership?
That was very confusing. That
worked for small things, but
when you got into larger stuff,
like cars and houses, where the
'ownership' and banks and rates
and mortgage and time payments
got things all mixed up, again,
who owned what really?
-
Slavery was supposedly dead,
so no one 'owned' another person
anymore, but then they began
for a decade or so putting the
photos and brief bios. and
descriptions of missing kids
on the milk cartons. I was older
then, but that was freaky too. As
it turned out, the preponderance
of those kids were divorce and
dispute cases, over who 'gets
custody' - fathers would abscond
with their son or daughter, or
mothers would do the same.
'Missing' is whatever you call
it, at that level. But, who owned
kids? That too baffled me, as
I realized it was all another
legal construct by which to
shape our peculiar form of
society. Treating other humans
as chattel was supposedly long
abolished, but here we were
doing it, just spinning it a
bit differently. All the while,
there really WERE societies
and tribes in deep, dark Africa
where those supposed 'primitives'
in their villages shared all the
children and raised them, as
benefits to the village as a
whole, and took fine care of
them and they all prospered
- all the time 'owned' by no
one but their village peers and
people. Couldn't have been
any worse than schools and
lockdowns and families that
hated and quarreled. 'Family'
and 'Property' seemed like
whatever you called it as well.
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