RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,105
(like living high on the hog?)
It's funny how things stay in
your mind. Sometime in the
mid-1970's, I can remember
(I think) a show that was
called 'Fernwood Tonight.'
The name Louise Lasser
comes to mind, as a star of
it. I don't remember much,
except that maybe along
with Martin Mull (another
long-lost name) they'd
combined to make one of
those 'breakthrough' shows
of the sort that used to get
everyone so apoplectic. It
was sort of a leftover hippie,
or hip anyway, approach
to reality - the kind that
people, amidst all the
turmoil, were not really
used to nor happy with at
all. Ironic, self-aware, and
a touch of put-on too. But,
anyway, that was how it
was. A confusing time which
sort of fell between cracks,
I often though of that 'show'
as one of the last moments
of what had previously pass
as 'America.' To me, anyway.
I believe, at this time, I was
in Elmira - but even that's
now hazy and unsure to me.
Maybe it was Columbia
Crossroads - all I recall
is watching it, when I did,
on some pipsqueak-sized
9-inch plastic TV with a
fuzzy picture. That was in
the time before my father
in law visited and bought us
a new color 'Quasar' by
Motorola; a big-deal name
in color TV's at the time.
He wished to see that year's
Word Series - which actually
was the motivation behind the
purchase. For those days, it
was a big-screen too, something
like 16 inches, or so.
-
Funny how things churn and
turn, and half the time now
I can't even clearly recall the
incidentals. That famed
'retrospective' view being
20/20 is really a crock with
some frilly underpinnings. I
was enmeshed in another sort
of reality, and all it did to me
was make the falsity and the
preponderances of falsehood
and stupidity stand out more.
It began to hurt. In that hurt,
my self-awarenesses grew,
instead of withered. When a
person - especially one of my
nature and age at that time -
begins 'feeling' that hurt about
things and seeing behind facades,
it's not too far off from nursing
either anger or insanity - out
of which period most criminals
and outlandish fakers grow.
I had been seeking peace, and
had thought I found it - farm,
cows, distance, and separation.
Louise Lasser somehow turned
into Mrs. O'Leary's cow, and
suddenly my metaphoric 'Chicago'
was burning down around me,
all over again. When that happens,
if the person to whom it is
happening can retain some form
of self-possession, all that can be
done is to take stock and start
all over again. And I mean again.
This time I had a kid, a wife, a
house, and a stinking, normal,
job. When the fallen fall some
more, it's said here's not much
more distance to 'down,' yet,
for me, it was a big drop, and
it was staring me in the face.
-
My little bank there was Chemung
County Savings and Loan. They
held my mortgage, and next to it,
back then, was Marine Midland.
That was another bank, which
name I really dug, for some
reason. So I opened an account
there. It was down the street,
up the street actually, from the
old Mark Twain Hotel - which
at that time was just about on its
last legs, since the glory days of
that old-style manner of travel
and lodging had faded, to be
replaced by strings of highway
motels with faux-regal names.
Route 17, at Elmira, was struck
with a few of them, quickly.
Coachman; Ramada; and Holiday
Inn too. A real bunch of nothing.
Dunkin' Donuts moved in too.
For a decaying joint like that
area of Elmira, off to the highway
side of 'Downtown,' all that stuff
became a big deal, and a likely
place of employ for the previously
unemployed - chambermaids,
waiters, maintenance people and
whatever else. At the same time
the fabled and long-historied
multi-story Mark Twain Hotel,
at the city-center, adjacent to the
fabled Beecher church of Abolitionist
fame, and the old site of the Mark
Twain Elmira Mansion too (which
location had become a strip-mall
set at am angle to the street), had
been relegated to an auction and
a liquidation sale of its contents.
We went in; everything you could
imagine, of 150 years of hotel
use, was priced-marked and sold
off. We got a few measly things;
mostly marked with the Mark
Twain Hotel name - like the
creamers from the restaurant table,
and some other (cheap) items.
Back then, 2 bucks was a big
deal to throw at something of
such inconsequence.
-
The guy at marine Midland,
funny as it was, looked at my
accounts and situation and said,
'I don't know how you're doing
it (meaning our frugal resources),
but it's enough to make it work.'
Strangely paradoxical statement,
I thought. And then - piece
de resistance!' - he comes at me
with the 'latest' thing. A Marine
Midland Mastercard (actually at
that time they were called 'Master
Charge,' not yet the new named
'Mastercard,' which effectively
shields the idea of incurring debt
to the user). Credit cards, up there,
were a new deal than, and he
presented this one to us as a
life-saver and a likely God-send.
Of course, we bit. Got the card,
and sallied off. Never before
had living been so easy. I
wanted to go back to the Mark
Twain Hotel and start buying
(charging) everything I saw.
No comments:
Post a Comment