RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,087
(a good sense of the old)
I've always kept a sense of
history about me. All that old
American stuff that is now all
dishonored, to me that still
resonates, and I apologize for
nothing. I readily admit I simply
don't understand the modern,
lunkhead, approach to the
re-lining of all the fields. It's as
ephemeral as everything else, and
ephemeral as everything else, and
in 35 years it will look just as
ridiculous when reviewed.
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Newport, Rhode Island, in the
Spring of 1639, received its
first small group of exiled
New Englanders (they'd been
'thrown out' of Massachusetts
Bay Colony, and exiled to the
'wilderness' - so much for
religious freedom, right off the
bat). They built a few houses
on the south end of Aquidneck
Island, which in the local
Algonquin language meant
'Isle of Peace.' By 1776 there
were 11,000 people living there,
and it thrived as a port and a
town in the 'Triangle Trade' of
rum, molasses, slaves and Bibles.
That's a very strange combination
of activities. But in that same
year, the Revolution began, and
with it came 6,000 British troops
who marched into the city, smashing
and burning it to the ground. It didn't
ever recover or regain that early
importance. In later years, as a
Naval Base, the 20th century
presence had gotten the waterfront
street, Thames Street, called, with
the Navy supporting and ruling
the town, 'Blood Alley,' because
of the fights inside and outside of
the many bars. The Convention
and Visitor's Bureau calls it, 'The
Street of the Sea Captains,' in that
uselessly false way much of America
has of going dainty and cute now on
the reality of what was. Kind of
makes one sick.
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Mostly, what did it for Manhattan
and New York City, what kicked
it into gear and predominance,
undeniably, was the Erie Canal.
Once that trench was open, connecting
the great, west-to-east, burgeoning,
inland sites for crops and apples and
lumber, and the rest, etc. to the transit
points of the Hudson River and south,
down to New York City's great and
busy ports, it was all over for other
places. They all took second place,
and it stayed that way for 100 to
150 years, roughly. Finance, banking,
capital transfer, insurance, ports
of call itinerary and transit-service
companies, as well as the huge
growth of accounting, clerks,
record-keeping, storage, and all
the manufactured supplies need
to service all of that. The country
grew, yes, and things changed and
spread out - Atlanta and other
great ports and handling points,
along with the modernization
and containerization of so much
of the freight, needing deep-water
ports, etc. New York, by WWII,
had already ,ost much of that, but
it, even today, held on - perhaps
not with the predominance it once
had, but it held on nonetheless.
Old New York was quaint and
quirky. I still lived it.
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In 1831, one interesting note -
Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting
the USA for a prison-inspection
and research tour, wrote of the
Americans he met (in this, to
him, perplexing but infinitely
fascinating new land) and of
the land itself - very curiously
writing of the coastal east (NY,
NJ, PA/Phil., etc, almost as if he
had flown in and seen it by air:
"North America has striking
geographical features which can
be appreciated at first glance. Land
and water, mountains and valleys,
seem to have been separated with
systematic method, and the simple
majesty of the design stands out amid
the confusion and immense variety
of the scene... On the easter slopes
of the Alleghenies, between the
mountains and the Atlantic, there
is a long srip of rock and sand which
seems to have been left behind by
the retreating ocean. The strip is
only forty-eight leagues [about
80 miles. For those Jerseyans
reading this, that's about to the
Delaware Water Gap area, from
the sandy, ocean, east], and north
to south about three hundred
and ninety leagues long [let's say
600 miles from Maine/Boston,
on down]. The soil in this part
of the country can be cultivated
only with difficulty. The vegetation
is scanty and uniform." I always
figured that to be a strange, and
almost incorrect, reading of what
is here, but, my terms and viewpoints -
and the modern day - surely differ
from what he'd seen. That useless
'tongue of arid land' by the terms
of the years around 2000, was
supporting 70 million people and
a few great cities, so, go figure.
He then goes on: "It was on this
inhospitable shore that the first
efforts of human industry were
concentrated. That tongue of arid
land was destined to become the
United States of America." He
also said "The inhabitants differ
from the French but superficially.
They wear the same clothes, and
their physiognomies are so varied
that it would be hard to say from
what races they have derived their
features." Pretty amazing.
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'I don't care about your mother,
and you can't marry a name.' That,
to me, (I made that up), was the sort
of context that the early-American
urban period represented. And that's
where I wished to be. I don't so
much wish that any longer, no. And
I've now taken a turn for the more
disant and anti-people stance of
rural country-living. But that too,
in retrospect and by today's view, is
old and old-American. So, perhaps
I'm still there. I can see myself just
wandering off someday, soon enough.
The rest of everything that I ever
knew is just dripping away now
like a leaky old sack of blood at a
blood drive. The needle's in your
arm, the prick is over, the drip-drip
at your expense has started, and
now it's leaking all over the floor,
as you yourself weaken. Today's
clowns in the street want nothing
but lawlessness and fun; as if the
two even go together.
-
Tocqueville wrote that in his
interview, on April 24, 1831, with
the prominent New York City
businessman, Peter Schermerhorn,
Mr. Schermerhorn had said : "The
greatest blot on the national character
was the avidity to get rich and to do
it by any means whatever. There
are in United States a great number
of business failures, and these do
not sufficiently injure those who
are responsible."
-
"Nothing is more annoying in the
ordinary intercourse of life than
this irritable patriotism of the
Americans. A foreigner will
gladly agree to praise much in
their country, but he would like to
be allowed to criticize something,
and that he is absolutely refused."
-
As I recall, we were basically
raised to be valueless. That's
from my point of view anyway.
Face it, being brought up to
simply 'accept' everything, to
question or doubt nothing, to let
all that rot about America being
the best and the most important
and richest and widest and most
enlightened, that's nothing except
being valueless. If you can't
question, then you can't learn.
Americans, for 200 years, were
brought up in a void. I don't know
what sort of void it was - logic,
intelligence, secular vs. religious,
wise vs dumb; but it seemed to
me that the most stupid among
my peers were always the ones
ape-ing some supposed higher
class of rot to which they aspired,
- whether it was in taste, money,
or fake lingo. The happiest and
most secure (in their blandness,
I suppose), were the ordinary
ones. The ones who really didn't
'aspire' out of their class. Who
didn't, as is done now, out in the
streets and alleys of once-Covid
America but now just screwed-up
trash, hammer on with no brains
at all about that they've missed
and are owed. As if they actually
knew something. They don't.
Who instead stayed in place and
learned. Who did NOT vacate
the premises for wanting all
but offering nothing back. I'd
say they knew what the fabric
of a society needed, and did it.
They stitched; not ripped. We all
once had a promise; now it's been
torn to shreds. And by candy-assed
moderns too,
-
Tocqueville's traveling companion
on this 2-year trek across the then
America, Gustav wrote de Beaumont,
to his sister, along the way: "I was
saying the whole country is but a
forest. I might add that everywhere
where a clearing is to be seen, which
is rare enough, the clearing is a village.
They give to these villages the most
celebrated names of ancient or modern
cities, such as Troy, Rome, Liverpool...
Ithaca!'
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