RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,139
(I wasn't going anywhere...)
If I never went home again,
after I first left it, it was only
because I'd lost the thread. My
brain was scrambled eggs. I
walked in circles. By the time,
believe this, I was 12, I was
resigned - to retreat, I ceded
all, and just give it up. The
way I ended up in the seminary
I still can't believe, or hardly
recall. Impressionable, stupid,
youthful nothingness, following
any lead I sniffed. I can only
remember, as I've covered
before, the idea of going to
Africa as a missionary; a sort
of romantic, worker-priest,
activist force for some way
misguided idea of civilizing
others by destroying their
indigenous ways with some
highly-crafted western and
Christian ethos of subservience,
and homage. It had nothing to
with giving thanks for surviving
getting creamed by a train. Huh?
I awoke, from one world and
well into another. I can remember
the phone booth I called home
from - it was on Avenel Street,
just outside where the old church
rectory was. I don't know why I
'called' instead of just walking
home and telling them; but my
Mother answered, and I simply
said, 'Ma, I'm signing up for
the seminary, and I want to be
a priest, but not here. I'm going
to Africa.' Just like that, as
simple as can be, in one big,
fat, stupid sentence. An 11-year
old kid, calling his Mother to tell
her that! It was about 4pm, after
school in some way. I was in
the brand-new, first year Iselin
Junior high School, as they used
to be called - what's now termed
Middle School,' (where do they
come up with this stuff?). That
school was everything wrong that
a school could be. The Kennedy-era
architecture was Gorge Jetson
bizarre - some weird arc-dome
gymnasium wall in pale yellow
was the first thing one saw. Then
from out that center-grid, each
year had it's own 'wing : 7th
grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, wings.
In between each of those was
some stupid grassy area supposing
to represent calm and steady.
Metal Shop. Wood Shop. Home
Etc., for the budding-breasted girls
who floated all over the place.
Loudspeaker messages. Buzzers,
and that 'gymnasium' double as
a lunch-room too, in some very
quick-turnaround daily double
duty. In two months there, I was
rattled to the point of nervous
breakdown. I was not fit for
that or any sort of mass-life of
the sort they peddled for kids.
And I damn-well knew it.
-
One striking think that stays with
me in a sort of muddled memory
with real clarity of time and place
and room - it was the centennial
year of the Civil War, I suppose
1960, by those terms. (Up north
here, 'Civil War' was the only way
it was ever referred to. Oddly, and
for whatever it's meant to mean.
None of that 'War between the
States' or 'Noble Cause,' or
especially, 'The War Of Northern
Aggression,' which was by far
the best of the lot. There was
an entire rear bulletin board,
with books, booklets, and
references up in that home-room
for at least 2 months, and I was
fascinated and absorbed by it.
I never quite knew why. It was,
to me, transformed from some
pitiful secular conflict, one of
men losing arms and legs or
being blown to smithereens or
just being maimed and left
behind to scream and moan in
a powerful horror, while they
died. The Matthew Brady photos
of the war scenes and aftermaths -
bloated bodies, blank-faced men,
back country boys toting long
rifles near taller than them, and
probably older, into some ritualistic
and bizarre religious zeal. I think,
perhaps, that too got into my head,
and along with the inhospitality to
me of the school, the physical
premises, and the adolescent
springings of all those weird
'youths' and it all was enough to
just turn me elsewhere. Five
months later (Feb.) I was in
that phone booth, calling home.
It's the most outlandish and
bizarre thing imaginable; as
if, tethered to some primitive
spacecraft, I was calling from
deep space, about to enter, yet
again, some crazy, new, cosmos.
-
I never knew what hit me. My
Mother never said much, just a
sort of 'Oh, yes, well, OK.' By
the time, later that evening, when
my Father was home from his
workday, then some was some
real 'splainin' to do. Even then.
none of it was very difficult,
and it never got into any deeply
religious stuff about meaning'or
motive, or if I was sure I knew
what I was doing, etc. They
both, by 8pm, it seemed, had
accepted it all, and in a most
lackadaisical manner. As if I'd
said I wished to join the Eagle
Scouts, or some ball team.
But, then they got right on it too,
weirdly enough - they went to
the church, arranged entry and
financing and all; dates and times,
supplies needed and the rest. To
be truthful, I didn't even know
where the place was - turned
out it was 80 miles away, out
in the piney sticks of south Jersey,
Blackwood, NJ, to be exact. On
some old buffalo farm with old
buildings from the 1940's, and a
few new ones too, in that same
crazed late 1950's moderne
architectural style. Mother Church
never looked so strangely odd
or welcomingly institutional.
Both. By August, I was there.
-
I never even looked back. The
local Diocese (Trenton, then),
as it turned out, paid for everything;
like 700 bucks a year, as I remember,
in a sort of parish-sponsored push
to garner seminarians - the idea
of which was to forestall any
looming shortage of priests,
which some said was nearing.
There were 5 or 6 other local
guys already there, all willing
and able to accept the Bingo Halls
and pious blue-haired church ladies
they'd have to deal with. I, however,
wanted none of that and was intent
on getting to Africa with the Salvatorian
order of priests and brothers. That
was a German order, homed in the
USA out of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
They ran a few schools and a seminary
or two in the USA. Lots of Germans
and Dutch types there, for teachers.
But it was all doomed. In two years
at most, the African aspects of
everything were gone - Tanganyika
and the rest. Congo wars, Soviet
takeovers, etc. Zanzibar and Tanganyika
were combined into what was newly
called 'Tanzania' and any western
missionary input got the heave-ho.
I wasn't going anywhere.
-
Never for me was the pleasure of'
getting posted to, say, Old Bridge
or Hightstown at some gyp-joint
called 'Our Lady of Sweet Sorrow'
or the 'Broken Heart of Jesus' parish.
Hearing cheesy confessions by the
carload and serving Christmas Mass
dinners for free. Coming up with
12 minute weekly sermonettes with
the simple language and Freudian
avoidances of religious comic-book
plagiarism. Like I said, I wasn't
going anywhere....except out. My
new challenge was in planning an
exit. By late 1966, I had that too.
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