RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,099
(just a bit subterranean)
I always figured the most
straightforward among us
were probably the most
boring too. I had a friend
once who lived in a tightly
squared big house atop
Mount Tabor - out by
Morristown, NJ, that is -
by the golf course that ran
alongside or behind the
house. I forget. They were
British. Every trickle of that
family's body was British:
tea, warmed-over stewed
tomatoes on toast, for their
breakfast. It was all sort of
England, by way of New
England, and somehow all
transported to Mount Tabor,
atop some strange hill once
ruled by a Methodist religious
community. The meeting
house, assembly/concert hall,
the twisty little streets winding
their way up the inclines, with
sharp and ill-defined twists and
turns. Geographically it was the
most loose-limbed and anarchic
place imaginable, and the most
complete opposite of rigorous
religion-thought that you'd have
imagined. That was striking. It
was the sort of place whereon
you'd think even cars would be
banned.
-
Banning cars? How unAmerican
could that be? In every other respect
the huffing engine of beastly progress
had by this time, and long before the
1980's, swept its trouncing manner
over every pit and parcel of American
life. The land and hills and farms
had long ago been sacrificed to the
rampant foul of highways. In the same
manner as the 1840's railroads were
slam-introduced into the American
weave, so too did the car get the
granted allowance to take over. Now,
no one even thought about it - now
being then. The 'now' that is NOW is
even weirder - the general idea is
somehow 'Give your loved one a
car for Christmas.' How that ever
got started is an ad-man's dream.
-
Apparently, the idea is for any
old Mexican family, yes, even
those, the newly-arrived whom we
welcome from the backs of trucks,
as part of their welcome, should
immediately be saddled with debt.
And debt service - but they've got
their Lexus. Wouldn't it be just as
equalizing and fair to, after they
the language-gist down pat, grant
them a set of the Great Books, so
that the new household has the
impetus to get intellectually up
to speed as well? Feeding little
tykes a common stream of Dora
the Explorer, while Mama and Papa
read The Snow Chronicles (or
whatever that stuff is), just doesn't
do it. Or, perhaps, that IS now the
American character and it DOES
do it. I gave up, long ago.
-
This Mount Tabor guy, parents
exported from Britain, constantly
walked around with the big, white,
paperback copy, famed back then,
of a book called 'Godel, Escher,
and Bach.' OK, you may say, 'What
the Hell is that? If you don't know,
it won't hurt to go find out. There's
another level of debt - to ideas and
concept - that perhaps you'd get
introduced to. There was a reason it
took this guy (my friend, who lived
in this house), over 6 months to
carefully read it. It's not the glib,
ride-along, sled of adventure and
glee the country is otherwise used
to, and any immigrant ought to
know that, immediately. Did you
ever wonder why we allow junk
to slip and slide over our nation's
streets and avenues, and not
quality people instead? So liberal
as to be liable for libel? Would
any slum-gullion even know?
-
Least-common-denominator
culture and politics seemed somehow
to have no place atop Mount Tabor.
It always reminded me, being there,
of the time I spent in Vermont.
Most or it had to do with the earnest
silence, the geography, and the odd
houses. In Vermont you'd see them,
either suddenly, or from afar, as they
were perched amidst trees and on
the little ledges atop the dug-out
roadways beneath. Everything
seemed a bit subterranean, in that
the car-roads we live with now -
even the snakiest and most small
one and a half lane, byways - had
not started out that way but had
rather been trails and wagon ways
existing in a prime and perfect
silence, all through the 1800's
and before, and only ending up
as widened, dug-out, and paved
byways, with houses purely
secondary, much later on, into
the 1920's. And with Government
approval and funding too. All
that 'employer of last resort' stuff.
Like war, when the only solution
to unemployment is to start a
war-skirmish somewhere so there's
a place to send the excess and the
idle young men (and now women)
who'd otherwise languish. no
resources? Let's cut and pave the
roads....or better yet, let's start
a war. It's good for the numbers.
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