RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,047
(anxiously good for that)
Reality, now, hits like a dagger,
with a thrust and quick twist
and a cut. So unlike the more
simple days I envision that I
grew up in (it's all from a soft
form of memory to me, insofar
as I really have to say I recognize
none of it). I say I envision
it because, even my own past,
is somehow dreamlike to me.
I used to run across old people,
back then - I think they were
old, but most people past a
certain late 60-years used to
all come across as ancient.
All of those elders had their
own predelictions; varied
accounts of their pasts, ideas
about their own memories
that so much varied with
the then-present (which I here
now am calling golden) that
they were angry at what I
call great. Can you imagine
any of them here now? There
seemed always some fool
guy who'd be around to tell
you about how they used to
have to hand-crank their car
at the front of the vehicle and
then rush in when (and if) it
started; or about the great
convenience of turn signals,
and then self-cancelling
turn-signals!; then the starter
button was moved in, to the
inside of the car with a foot
knob that you'd press. Only
later were keys and electric
starters with any efficiency
introduced. I well remember,
in 1968, attending a large,
outdoor car show in New
Hope, PA. Among the many
old items on display, one
captivated me espaecially:
It was a very old woman,
maybe 85 or even 90, in
old bonnet clothing. She
was sitting atop her 1901,
I believe it was, curved
dash Oldsmobile. That's
what the model was called.
It was basically an open-top
carriage, motorized. It was
stunningly beautiful in its
finish - thickly lacquered
wood, coarse seats, and, for
steering, a tiller, not a wheel.
(They only came much later)
You can look it up, but a tiller
was like a handgrip, lever, or
half-u shape, just a thing you
steered directly with. I'm not
sure any longer about the
linkage to the wheels or
anything, but it was all
pretty direct. No steering
box, no hydraulics. She and
I engaged in some conversation,
and she was beaming as she told
me how, in those very old days,
and in THAT very vehicle (so
she said), with the tiller-steering
and the open top, she and her
beau managed the arduous task
of driving that heap across the
country, to some place in
California. The amount of time
was laughable, something like
50 days. I'd never, ever, been
face to face with such an
elderly personage who still
possessed her story AND the
'thing' her story was made
with. It was a phenomenal
entry into my memory bank,
and I can only wonder what it
did for hers. I wish she was
still among the living, but I
know that cannot be.
-
What I'm here getting at are the
deep and delicious aspects of
life that are shown by the types
of sheltered memories we each
harbor. Maybe not so much to
speak about, or write of, because
not everyone has those same
capabilities, but certainly as the
deep background motivation of
all the later actions of our lives.
I believe in so many ways each
of us are always acting out an
eternal 10-year-old's aspect-view
of the world. I'd bet Hitler was
still sourcing some young yet
vivid recollection of whatever was
driving him. I use him randomly
(there's a surprise!) but it could just
as well have been Atilla the Hun,
Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or Nero.
Any of a thousand faulted and
twisted despots, cranks AND
ordinary people too. We are
always caught in that old mesh
of our tiller-steering memory.
Draft A of History is the memory.
Draft B is what is done with it.
-
The 1950's version of living was
of no real value by 1965. It was
already shot, and people being
paying the price and facing the
consequences. It had all seemingly
passed, as in a dream. Certain
things remained, and stayed scary.
The Bomb, the War, Sputnik,
the assassination. Those were
one-off occurrences that were
burned into us by school and by
home. As in a dream, something
nightmarish will pop up and startle.
The good wishes one kept about
oneself were not yet viewed as
or thought of as 'harmful' to others.
There was still a certain benevolence
in the air - by contrast 10 years
on, and worse now, people willingly
claw and mangle, while stomping
over others, to attain their own,
and only their own, often twisted
dream of themselves. It was, back
then, just assumed that all things
would go smoothly; the kids would
do well in school, socialize correctly;
social coaching and the school
psychologists would be able to reach
the troubled. Cars, and space, and
all of existence would fall rightly
into place - no room for the failures
or the mishaps. Within a decade, all
of that was gone. And its absence
left me in place, right where I was,
and anxiously-good, for that.
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