12,702. RUDIMENTS, pt. 10,014

RUDIMENTS, pt. 10,014

(can we get back to the game...)

All my life people kept telling

me where I was born. It wasn't

the same place as where I grew

up. I wanted to prove them

wrong. That stuff was all

immaterial to me, and where I

was born, anyway, was a place

they'd never see. It seemed

often enough that it took me

a million years to get from there

to here. But time's an illusion

too. It's a click we count. Or a

count we click, maybe. I wanted

to run my course. But I was a

weak person sometimes. With

all the things I was told and

taught, most of it being so

gimcrackery wrong, I should

have just stood up and said

'Enough!' and maybe that

would have been it. But what's

a kid do  -  he or she has to sit

there and take it, one piece at a
time, always.  Teachers, schools,

parents, aunts and uncles, all

the rest. There was a weird

kid up the block, when I was

9 or 10, named Michael. He

would, a few times, get us

street-kids together, if we

were outside playing football

or something, pole-to pole,

he'd gather us up and start

going on to us about sex, and

what our parents did, and all

that. He was maybe 3 or 4 years

older than us, probably 14 or

so by then already. What did

we know, and, frankly, we little

cared either. It was always a

big deal to him; meant little to

us. A person has to reach a

point, a threshold of maturity

or something, before that stuff

matters. It too 'clicks in,' like

time. Michael had an audience,

but we were never a good

audience. It was more like,

'Yeah, OK...Can we get back

to the game now?'

-

A lot of the things I did were

one of a kind, the sorts of things

I'd get into probably only

because of my own personal

proclivities. Like stamp collecting;

that only started because my aunt

in Fort Lee corresponded on that

cool, light blue airmail letter

kind of paper they used to have,

with some family members
in Italy. It folded up, when

you were finished writing it,

into its own envelope, with

the airmail markings and all

already on it and in place.

She, in turn, got them as they

were sent to her, and I'd see

them in her letter tray with all

those Italian stamps on them.

And another aunt of mine

had letters sometimes around

from Germany, with those

stamps on them; German stamps.

That stuff all fascinated me.

As it turned out, stamp

collecting was all an entire

mini-industry unto itself, and

and there were a hundred ways

to get going with it  -  comic

books, and Bazooka Joe gum,

and Scouting magazines, they

all had ads and offers for, say,

sending ten cents or a quarter

and getting a zillion stamps

back. I did lots of that, even

though often they duplicated

each other. There were companies

too, like Littleton Stamp Company,

in New Hampshire, that always

were sending stamps 'On Approval,'

once they got your name and

address from these other offers.

I got lots of that too; what you

didn't want you could send

back. They also had collector

books, mounting kids, pricing

catalogues, stamp hinges (that's

the sticky things by which

you put them into the albums).

A person could specialize too.

International only, or by country

or continent, domestic, or

theme. I had them all. They

always also sent these weird

testimonial things about stamp

collecting. They were bogus,

but whatever: Franklin Roosevelt,

about his love of stamp collecting

and how it taught him so much.

Dwight Eisenhower; same stuff.

Winston Churchill; even Charles

Darwin had one. They were too

goofy for my blood. All these

high and mighties pretending to

be humble and going on about

their stamp collecting habits.

It was nuts. I expected Mickey

Mantle or Yogi Berra to be

going on about it too, in their

Yankee uniforms. Except they

were both pretty much real

Sluggos, so it wouldn't be

much of a testimonial. Here's

Yogi Berra: 'Well, uh, every

time I cross the plate I stamp

my feet? Is that what you mean?'

-

After that I used to make stuff

up -  like Hitler going on

about killing people and how

it taught him so much; or Stalin,

about eradicating Kulaks and

how he learned so much from

instituting the 'pograms' to kill

minorities. All I am I owe to

stamp collecting. Funny thing

about all that too; it used to

be that you could walk down

Nassau Street, in the Financial

District in NYC, and pass 10 or

12 serious stamp collection shops,

for the hobbyist or the buyer or

the seller. Coin collectors too,

for they often went together.

Someone was often trying to get

their dead Grandpa's collection

appraised, or traded in for a

cash value, etc. It could be, back

then, worth some money, or

some real surprises too, rarities

and all. You could look at all

the stamps for sale, in the

counters, behind glass, etc.

Oftentimes there'd be weird

countries you hardly knew of,

or principalities or kingdoms.

Sometimes, the less-known

the place, the more they had

specialized stamps  -  the

Kingdom of Baltorino, some

dumb island somewhere, with

its large, oversized automobile

stamps, or Lower East Patagonia

or something, with only horse

stamps. The Emirate of Wahoohoo,

with oil-well stamps. Crazy.

A few years back, well, maybe

20, I went into one of those, with

some Nazi-era German stamps

I had, or Wiemar and then Nazi.

Inflation was so bad then, they'd

take stamp-sheets back and

overprint them with new prices

or values. 20,000 Deutchesmarks,

or whatever it was, then 30,000,

then 40,000. Overprints, they

were called. I have 20 or so of

them still. The guy said it was

all worthless, the stamp industry

was dead. Computer and Internet

and email and all, according to

him anyway, had pulled the

floor out from under the stamp

market, forever. No one anymore

even cared about that stuff.

I myself thought he was full of

crap, either not wanting to

bother with me or undercutting

any value so he wouldn't have to

give me but 5 bucks for the

whole mess. I told him to shove

off, and if that was the case I'd

just keep them. But, he made

no counter offer, so I guess he

meant it; except I couldn't

figure then why he'd stay in

business.

-

You see, that was one of the

things then that were mine

alone, sort of an isolated and

solitary pursuit. When your best

friend is a magnifying glass,

you know you're in trouble.

(That's not a joke, Mike. Can

we just get back to the game?)...