13,323. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,116

 RUDIMENTS, pt.1,116

(this only person on earth. No, not solipsism.)

It was never easy-coasting for

me, though maybe sometimes

as I write about now I make

it seem that way. I was always

getting hung-up on one or another

seeming 'technicality' that never

appeared to bother anyone else.

Throughout the years 1966 - 1976,

I was a blasted conundrum;

everywhere and nowhere at all.

At one time I did think Vermont

could be my way out, but once I

tried it, it fizzled too. I had no

money, and even though houses

were 'cheap' (I use both the words

'houses' and 'cheap' selectively),

and I received the Strout Catalogue

steadily, I got nowhere. That catalogue,

by the way, was so cool we began

referring to rundown or bedraggled,

needy homes, as 'Strout Specials,'

wishing we could get one. We

finally did, yes, get 12 acres and

a pond, barn, etc., in Columbia

Crossroads, PA, but for sure that

wasn't Vermont. That one cost us

$17,900  -  a down payment for 

which was paid for with my train 

accident money from 1958 (12

years previous), and which had

been in trust until came of age.

But I still needed my father's co-sign

(which caused a little bit of trouble),

and a second mortgage too, for 83

bucks a month  -  besides the bank

mortgage. The local farmer from whom

I was buying the place covered the

unmet difference on the side mortgage, 

no interest. I was able to pay him

that sum back off in about a year

and a half. The bank payment was, I

forget exactly, something like 170,

for 10 years. Columbia Crossroads

was a farmland nothing; Vermont,

by contrast, had all the sizzle of

higher-breeding, some money, grand

looking girls everywhere (guys too,

I guess), but the cool thing was how

it embodied that old, ancestral idea

of the 'charm' of old America. I

had to face it; that place was ideal.

Things about it, in every direction,

caught my eye  -  the way the roads

along the country byways were all

sort of 'dug-out,' with the homes and

houses, seemingly, all just 6 or 20 feet

up above, on the road. I always felt

it was odd, for such a snowy place,

to do that  -  inviting the snow in,

as it were, to pile up. Slow, crawly

driveway entrances, flowered and

bushy road-sidings, let to grow wild

and rich, both led one's eye pleasantly

up to, AND brought one up to the

driveway, as well  -  without any of

that ransacked lawn and trimming

for views and entries that most places

had. It was crazy, lush, and rural. The

hillsides and mountains were dotted 

with the winding dirt-roads which

led up to each farm and village. Roads

were yet unpaved in most of those

farther-flung places. It was like that

too, a bit, in Bradford County, PA, 

but they meant business there, and the

farms never gave a second thought to

what scene they presented or how nice,

or not, they looked. It was all pure

utility, from Wyalusing and Towanda

on out. By the time one got to the area

of Troy and Springfield, at Columbia

Crossroads, the land was in use, for

farms....the heck with scenery and

beauty. You had to appreciate the

land and its beauty for what it was,

a natural workshop, instead of that

more-lofty, higher-ambitioned, 

magazine quality of Vermont.

-

I was never in any position to

complain  -  for any number of

reasons, money being only one.

I was on the run, watching for the 

law, worried about NYC catching 

up to me, keeping tabs with one 

eye on what new developments 

reared their  heads, what with the

Vietnam protests, the bombings, 

the eluding, and the dead and crime 

too. I had simply made myself

disappear, willing myself, as it

were, into non-existence. Speaking

of eluding, I had eluded myself.

I won't belabor the point here, but

somewhere, much earlier in these

endlessly numbered series of chapters,

that old saga about myself and my

'new' me is told. I was reborn.

-

Just in time for Nixon and Kissinger.

Just in time for the Christmas bombings

of Cambodia, while 'we' entered ever

more deeply and destructively into that

'war' Nixon had extemporaneously (all

liars are extemporaneous) said we'd be

'exiting' from. Pure bullshit, like caramel

creme. I had to watch all that, quartered

like a dray horse, seething that I was

no longer a part of any resistance. 

Which had all turned to shit anyway.

-

Thank God for the countryside, I always

said  -  whether Pennsylvania or Vermont,

either one was far better for me. At that

point of my life, the turnover was brutal,

and I ended up sitting around reading

oddball things like 'The Greening of

America,' and 'Future Shock,' trying to

figure out what I'd just left and what in

the world was going on. Charles Reich?

Alvin Toffler? Noam Chomsky? Eric

Ericson? B.F.Skinner? Saved my life,

I suppose.

-

Having to be one thing but act another

never set well with me  -  just like the

bakery work, I couldn't get my round

hole to admit that square peg  -  and I

knew it and I knew, as well, that the

mission of the rest of my life was most

probably to be how to get around that

deep divergence between things. A bit

like dream and reality. Strife. Archetypal

strangeness that I could only answer with

a wild, careening creativity, one that most

people couldn't handle nor come close to

understanding. Like being the only person

on Earth who spoke the language I spoke.