RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,115
(young, and stupid enough, too)
The first night in the Bennington
Hotel was warm and cozy; the
steam units hissed and pinged
all night, and the temperature
had to be a steady 72 or 74.
Nothing to be done about it,
so I cracked open a window;
just a bit. I slept soundly, and
remember dozing off, with Jerry
Lewis on the TV. He had grown
a beard! Those hippie days sure
were unpredictable, what with
all the Hollywood guys suddenly
all hip and in Nehru Jackets and
the height of cool. It had gotten
funny enough - so to see goofballs
like those Rat Pack guys, and Sammy
Davis, Jr., all of a sudden with their
hipster sides up, cracking lewd
jokes, jiving about dope, and
suddenly appearing around in
terribly up-to-date clothing, looked
really foolish but gave no one a
second thought. The world had
somehow turned. I half expected
Dick Nixon to be 'toking' with
Henry Kissinger while they called
out the B-52's over Cambodia.
-
The next morning was awesomely
cold. It was 12 below, at about 8am.
My old Jaguar wasn't having any of
it, and the slow crank of attempted
turnovers made me know enough to
hold off at least until the temperature
had risen by sunlight to something
reasonable, plus I did NOT want to
kill the battery. I went around for
coffee, walked a bit, freezing, and
the went back into the hotel lobby and
sat around, looking at magazines and
the Bennington girls for a while
(Bennington College was still female
only, and that was OK by me), as they
came and went, for whatever reason.
I was told a lot of guest lecturers,
speakers, and other visitors, stayed
there. Parents, visiting, too. The golf
ball forehead guy was there, at the
desk, the whole time, signing people
up, ringing that little bell for baggage
service, and calling people with
messages and scheduled notifications,
etc. Newspapers. Magazines. Traveling
salesmen types, everywhere. I didn't
think I saw any call girls or hookers
about, but, whatever. Maybe Bennington
was too proper for that sort of stuff,
but I doubted it; just didn't see any.
-
Funny how, years later, I'd think of that
scene and lobby when I was in Georgia,
in a small motel off the Interstate and just
north of Savannah - on my way back
up to Jersey. It was about 8pm, and the
knock at the door brought me, upon
opening it, a slight, only half-attractive,
black girl. She was actually 'asking' if
I'd like her to return later on and if I'd
like to 'party' that night! My wife was
in the other small room, but I didn't let
on, and just said 'No, thanks.' My wife
asked, 'What was that, who was at the
door?' I said, 'Damndest thing! This
rinky-dink, two-bit motel has door to
door, by request, prostitute service!'
She didn't believe me, but it was true.
I figured either management got a cut,
and told this girl of the night's arrivals,
or she just slung around the outside
doorways from out back, plying her
trade. I did, and still do, wonder what
she charged.
-
The car finally loosened up and started
about 1pm, just about in time for the
whole descending temperatures and
re-freeze for the evening to start all
over. I decided to give it a run. I can't
recall the distance, nor how 'wide'
Vermont is (it's 59 minutes, and
41 miles, Google says), but I
decided to just take Rt 9 due east,
over to Brattleboro. It was a cool ride.
I couldn't really open the Jaguar
up - twisty and cumbersome to
drive such a heavy beast in a sport
fashion up there. When I got to
Brattleboro, I pulled over for gas.
The guy (kid) in the gas station
wasn't much older than me, and
somehow we got to talking while
the fill went on, about the change
I had that was Canadian money.
He said, 'Sure no problem around
here, we take it. Up here there's no
real difference, it's all the same -
lots of Canadians come through here.
Money's all the same.' I thought that
was pretty cool; all these odd coins
with little Queen Elizbeths or
whoever it was, on them. In
another hour it was dark again,
and just as cold, and I was back in
Bennington for another night. Another
cool thing about Bennington, back then -
I don't know if any of that is still there,
the place has been totally changed,
and new buildings, plazas, and even
layouts, are in place, was this operation
just out of town, I guess at the north
end, called Stengel Pottery. I went there
the next day; I'd been there before too.
It's not really 'pottery' like you'd think;
it was actually pretty fancy dinnerware
sets, high- end dishes and glasses, vases
and all that crap. Nothing raw or rugged
like you'd think an artisan 'potter' would
make on a turnwheel and all that. This
was heavy-glazed, and heavily-colored
stuff. Expensive, yeah, but they had a
nice basement or underground section
where they'd sold, well-discounted and
cheap - the seconds. Flawed. Badly
colored. Crooked. Or chipped or cracked,
slightly. It was a good place to find
cheap little things like cruets or
pitchers, saucers and cups. I forget
what I got, but I bought my girlfriend
a few things and brought them back'
home with me when I left.
-
That was my last time going east
across Vermont. I never did that again;
in the years after that it was always
north, to Rutland, or Proctor or Lake
Bomoseen, or Florence. Proctor Marble
Works was cool, these huge slabs of
marble coming out of the ground,
getting chopped off and then finished,
in great slabs - for architectural use
on big NYC buildings, and churches,
etc. Guys would polish them up, and
then the finished, sized and cut slabs
would get strapped onto these huge
flatbead trucks, for the slow roll down
to the NYC sites where they were
needed. I always imagined, a hundred
years previous, how they'd probably
have been brought by horse, or wagon,
or sledded with horse, west towards
Albany, so as to be floated down
the mighty Hudson for the same
end result. Real heavy-duty work.
I got a job once too, by mail!, at
a publishing and printing place
called 'Tuttle Printing.' At that time
they were actually IN Rutland, but
they later moved out to some nearby
location called Airport Industrial Plaza.
It never worked out that I took the
job, and I just sent them back a letter
in which I declined then offer - dumb
enough, actually, since I was the one
who'd initiated the job request. The
crap you do when you're as 'young
and stupid,' as they say.
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