12,733. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,025

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,025

(slumming for antecedents)

There may have been a

few mis-steps along my way,

but nothing I ever admit to.

I left off last chapter about

that Miami Vice printing guy

and I still daresay I truly hate

those sorts of people, and they're

still about, who hang their coat

on the most current peg, even

as it's already passing them by.

That's a good way, for sure, to

lose one's coat. It's the same

way with bearings or principles.

I always hang on to my own

coat; never using coat-checks

either. Thoreau it was who said

something like 'Beware of any

enterprise that demands new

clothes.' I say the same. 'Stay

away from any enterprise that

involves checking your coat.'

-

I could never stand stances,

or pretention; those people

who 'select' where they're

going to be, and have only

'selected' that because they

know they'll have plenty of

like-minded back-up. All it

amounts to is a pose, and

fakery. There were lots of

times, during the 1980's say,

where I was at a lot of those

nice-weather outdoor venues

of crafts-people. pure-food types,

historicism and historic accuracy

groups, out on lawns and in the

vast gardens of old estates and

manors. All that 'History' stuff

ringing every bell of supposed

authenticity they could find :

The 'right' doorbells, lanterns,

wallpaper,' breads, footwear,

costumes, the historic accuracy

of portrayals and those collected

glass cases of sick displays of

trinkets and kettles of days long

ago. Old postal cards. Daguerrotypes,

glass prints, etchings. Old sashes

and tools and implements. Even

bedpans and scissors. Really now.

That's some pretense for you.

-

The real fact of the matter is that,

except for the very smug, none of

that mattered a whit, in 1883, say.

You used what you had; you'd

gotten what you had by either

happenstance or hard work,

and there wasn't any of it

that was worth commenting on.

Utility was the watchword. It was

only these 100-120 years later

that put the dumb-stamp on all

this. "Oh my, what wonderful

shoes they wore then..." Not quite,

fat lady, they had to lace up 200

rows of laces, probably twice a day

at least, and remove the mud and

cow-shit too. You'd have enjoyed

it about as much as having a

hemorrhoid, and one without an

available store-bought tube of

ointment for it too.

-

When I was about 10 or 11, I went

for one Summer or two, to a Boy

Scout camp, called Cowaw. It

was up above the Delaware

Water Gap, near a place named

Latham,or something. It had once

been an iron-mine or somesuch;

old Indian-marked trails, a few

vertical rises and walls of rock,

and a big-hoot vista out over

the river and valley. Sleeping

in an open lean-to, hiking and the

rest of that Boy Scout stuff. But

I could never keep my mind on it.

I was a crazy kid as it was, and,

even at like 11, what drove me

crazy (pre-seminary days by a

year too), was the way I saw,

or thought I read the vibes from,

these 'camp counselor' leader guys.

young men, in their late 20's maybe,

there for the Summer. I guess they

got hired on, maybe by Scouting

USA or something, to run these

Scout camps, week after week, as

the various troops and residents

would come in for their week or

two periods of time. All I kept

seeing were these weird little

sub-dramas that seemed always

to be going on between those

camp-guys and the five or six

females who ran the little snack

store, laundry thing, and aid

station. I was certain there was

something going on; that they

were all 'seeing' one another,

as it were. I couldn't say, but

I read the air, and I wasn't no

dummy either. That seemed, in

fact, to be a real good attraction

for taking the job. If so.

-

Cowaw itself meant 'Little Pine,'

or something like that in the

old Delaware language. As if

kids like us were all of a sudden

supposed to care and/or show

reverence to anything having to

do with the million locals and

natives we'd killed and driven

out so we could have a paved

road and batches of pre-teen

kids, and horny camp-counselors

who were provided with babes

for the taking! Yep, there's a

trade-off. I used to wonder

what sort of merit badge they

got for that sort of work. Boy

Scouts was a funny business,

even back then, but this made

it all worse. Normally, like, for a

priest, if you're dishonest you're
either gay or able well-enough to
conceal whatever the oddness is.

In Boy Scouts none of that was

ever admitted too or even broached,

lording it all over young boys

and all  -  that same old routine

as ever. I never knew what it

was about that, but at least these

randy guys were getting it off

with the opposite sex. Also,

in Scouting, an Eagle Scout was

like the equivalent of a lifer in

prison. How they ever stuck

through all that so as to become

18-year old Super Scouts, with

a zillion weird achievements of

knife-carving, egg hatching,

long-distance hiking, and

wilderness cabin building,

always slayed me. Just their

sash alone weighted 20 lbs.

with all those pins and badges

in it. Teepee Building, indeed!

(I wonder how many became

architects).

-

Antecedents are pretty important,

I always thought. Like being up

in those high hills, above the

Delaware  -  the only antecedents

there, maybe, were three. The

'original' land-dwellers, the

native Delawares and Lenapes,

Ramapos and Mohawks, those

ancient tribes who probably saw

all of this land I was traipsing on

in an entire and different light;

one even with different lines

and markings than any dumb

white man interloper ever had.

That was an antecedent, and

a large one. After that started

trickling in the settlers, with

all their weird implements and

ideas about living, fixed, in

place. Cabins and settlements,

and then their iron mines and

then their railroads. That all

came through here  -  for what

purpose no one really knew  -

and changed the groundscape

forever. Giving up, eventually,

on waterways, they all began

to gouge and cut the ground,

felling trees, dragging lumber

across it, flattening the access.

That was maybe antecedent #2,

newer, and destructive. All

those Indians and local natives,

by the way, killed, murdered,

slain, or driven off  -  not a trace.

Not a grave, a marker, or even

any burial mounds to be spoken

of. As if all of it, and they never

existed. Lastly, I figured, antecedent

#3 was us. 1960, rat-kids and

people, skimming over the tar 

landscape in large, finned cars, 

trying to endlessly do 50 in a 25.

I wondered; they should have

had a merit badge for 'Finding

Antecedents.' I'd have done it.