12,737. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,027

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,027

(falsification knows no bounds)

You know what happened

to me at 70? I woke up and

said, 'Damn! I'm gonna' die.

I don't want to, yet.' Same for

everyone else too. It's right

there, slamming you in the

face nonetheless, (or will be,
 soon enough), and there's

little you can do about. The

idea of summing things up

takes hold, I think. The

response of many others is

silence. My response was

always to make more noise.

-

I have lots of sunny days

to remember. I remember

one time, t was maybe late

May, and we'd gone to the

Philadelphia Navy Yard and

when we got there it turned

out to be some big open-house

celebration day of some sort,

with tours and talks, and

music and food; all that

usual festival stuff in places

one is not normally allowed

access. There were three

of us, and I had my own

interests in the ships and

water stuff, and those I was

with had their own interests

in the floral displays and

plantings and all that female

stuff that didn't attract me

at all. I know, it's probably

not 'female,' but whatever.

So we wound up doing that

which we liked. And then

there was this jitney-bus,

kind of open-air thing, more

than one actually, which

were driving around all day

and you could hope on or

off at will, go into the old

officers' houses and mansions

of the Commander and all

that. It was cool. The air

was nice and fresh, bright

sunlight glinting off the

water, and all those gigantic,

mothballed fleet ships just

'there' as if on hold, out in

the water. Like an apparition

from some other time and

place. The seagulls and

birds and whistles made

some sound, but mostly

all you heard, on land, was

the usual folk-songy kind

of throwback music for

guitars and flutes and junk,

like from the early 1960's

What's so funny about peace,

love and understanding?

Well, yeah, I guess not much,

except it was funny to see all

this kumbaya going on in

the confines of grounds that

mostly had been dedicated for

war and war purposes. I guess

turnabout is fair play, and toss

me another fennel-cake.

-

You're probably saying, 'Philadelphia

Navy Yard? Why there?' I made a

wrong turn at the Brooklyn Navy

Yard? No , not really. I just go

where fancy takes me sometimes,

and I find the coolest stuff. This

Navy Yard is mostly repurposed,

like the Brooklyn one too, for

small business, artisan and craft,

artists, and all that smaller stuff;

but what makes it cool is all

the old-stuff still scattered about.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard too was

once like that, but like 10 years

ago it got hit with this whole

wave of clean-up, redevelopment,

modernization and all that. Of

course, when that happens, the

first things to go are the cool old

things that I always like the best.

But everyone else thinks in a

different fashion, so in comes

the plastics, and the pastel shades,

the faux sidings and window

treatments and all that really

inauthentic crap that seeps in

when the wrong people try to

pretend something new is

going to be something old. We
have that here now, right now,

like a zillion tax-dollars later, 

(often unaccounted) and they're

not near done. I guess you could

call it 'Oldernizing,' instead

of Modernizing. This one is

being fake oldernized so they

can put in   -  what else  -

a local-veneer, glib, history

museum. Multiply that by

maybe, 40 times, and it's the

sort of crud these Navy Yards

get too. Like having Superman

on display  -  they say look,

see, don't touch  -  except it's

only Superman after they've

removed his manhood. Then

the banjos and the high-singers

come out.

-

I could go on, I suppose, but I

won't. The Philadelphia Airport

is right near there too, so you

can see all these nifty jet lifts

and approaches too; coming

and going. The juxtapositions

are really good, visually. For

camera too. Old battleships

and aircraft carriers, all grayed

out and slogging away, paddling

themselves to a mothball-death

on the waters, while all these

sleek, fast, jets make their

approaches over them.

-

So if and when I'm going to

die (Wait ! I just told us all

how here's no IF about this),

my last cloud of blazing glory

will be yet another tale about

some horrid old crap with a

meaning only for myself, but

with which I continually am

clonking you-all over the

head with. (That was funny

to use you-all, or, I guess,

y'all in Georgia usage. Ain't

never done that before, y'all).

I'm not about to apologize for

it, no, but at least me relating

the tales will place them in a

better perspective, against all

time and being, for when I'm 

gone. 'That curious little guy

was sure full of it, wasn't he?'

I wonder how much that costs

to get etched on a tombstone.

-

I've never, ever, been one to

get in line with all that gung-ho

military history stuff. I see the

rearward path of life behind us

as nothing more that carnage and

death, undertaken in the name of,

or under the guise of, military

and war-like things. That includes

these Navy bases. Philadelphia's

particular burden is that, on the

broad and useful Delaware River

and delta here, the lands in use

were all misrepresented and then

stolen from the local natives. From

what's called 'Penn's Treaty' landing

(a simple derelict park area now,

replete with an abandoned power

plant for Philadelphia Electric, a

nasty fishing pier, once mostly

for crack addicts and criminals,

some dead-man swings and slides

for retrograde kids, and a once

very nice and reverent statue and

monument to Penn Treaty itself,

now all soiled and graffiti'd up),

well south of the Navy Yard,

maybe 5 miles, and up to the

yard itself, and airport, this was

all riverfront land, harmonic and

in-tune with Nature and Being.

Taken by harm, endangered, and

then wracked and rotted, it's now

been brought to this : mothballed

fleets of dead battleships, the

groans and wails of the dead and

the dying, and some air-headed

flower-porkers with their lutes

and bandannas. Go figure.