RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,199
(how then did they get home?)
I've learned lots of things
over time. Some stayed with
me, others of them are forgotten.
I'm always amused (somehow)
by people who get things and
then insist on keeping them
as if brand-new forever. You
must know what I mean, the
endless car-washers and car
polishers, who need the pristine
mirror-finish to remain forever.
There was a play, and a movie,
once, titled 'Equus' which
touched a bit on this idea,
maybe using the horse instead
as the stand-in for the car; but
it all gets twisted and perverted,
and the crux of the play is about
the dead horse. Used as the
target of obsession? How isn't
life like that? Richard Burton
notwithstanding. Which too
reminds me: How that name
Richard so often gets turned
into 'Dick' instead. That would
drive me batty. We have a place
out here, in Honesdale somewhere,
named Dick Palmer's - auto
repair or something. How would
you like to go through life with
the name 'Dick Palmer?' He's
also got a brother in business
around here too, named 'Rusty
Palmer.' Keep at it Rusty, you'll
get the hang....
-
Back in Elmira, in the mid-70's
there was a lot of that 'local' stuff;
kind of naive, actually. Car dealerships
and local stores with the funny names
of the proprietors or whomever. It
got to the point of funny, especially
on the two local radio stations, where
you heard this crap over and over.
No one seemed aware of how funny
it all sounded. Mr. Panosian's Shoe
Store, for instance. The name
Panosian is kind of funny, but to
hear it over and over and then within
the context of 'ads' purporting to
show how stylish and advanced the
shoe selection of urbane Mr. Panosian
was, got to be hilarious. Same with a
local broadcaster whose name was
Vince Murphy. Almira then had two
channels that broadcast locally, on
both radio and TV. WELM and
WENY (which went by the acronym
'Weenie'). Vince was the daily TV
weather broadcaster, and like 6pm
and 11pm. In addition, he drove a
local bus route, back and forth, a
few times a day, between Elmira
and Binghamton (75 miles each
way). Then he'd do these ridiculous
broadcasts; dumb like a brick. He
looked like Broderick Crawford, and
talked that way too. If it was going
to be cold out overnight, he'd say
weird things like 'Snuggy-Bun
time,' and he was always going
on about 'Lake Effect snow' -
which was supposed to refer to
crystallized air-water (snow?)
from the Great lakes and Buffalo,
or the Finger Lakes or somewhere.
I always expected him to start
talking about the weather in
some fantasy-place he'd been to,
old farm country stuff, called
'Ginghamton.' He finally got
the boot, when they fired him
for, after the flood and Hurricane
Agnes, he started going on all
the time about how he'd seen
Jesus in the cloud formations
while he was driving his bus,
telling him all would be well,
soon.
-
I always wished to say, 'Hey,
Vince, don't I know the feeling!
Yes, I walk in the same daze and
fog as you do! The trick is to keep
quiet about it. You goofed, man.
No one wants to hear about Jesus
in the clouds.' I saw him a few
times (Vince, not Jesus). He was
a big, sloppy grumbling hulk
of a man, and - as I said - sort
of a cross between Broderick
Crawford, Jackie Gleason, Fred
Flinstone, and Babe Ruth, all
smashed together, if it could
be done. It was always something
about what people wanted, to me.
All of Elmira was, in fact; every
threadbare, crazy moment of it.
The blaze was ablaze with its
own slow death, as it slowly
backed its way out of the modern
and turning world and, instead,
tried settling peacefully into some
backwater, broken palm-desert of
another day, a past era. in fact,
the American LaFrance fire-engine
company, a large, old-line employer
in Elmira, which eventually too
closed, had their montly company
newsletter (which we printed)
entitled 'Blazes.' What could be
more fitting? Their cute idea was
of it to mean 'What in the blazes
was going on in American LaFrance?'
(employees, births, events, graduations
and vacations, and the rest of the
usual, general, employee info mixed
in with some company stories, tales
of the past, and curious observations).
I always felt it more fitting to be about
the fires of the present day consuming
the past.
-]
American LaFrance (No, they did NOT
have a fire-engine model named The
Mark Twain), had this cool thing they
did where if a municipality bought, or
had built, a fire engine, they would
deliver it. So, say, when Hampton
Roads, Virginia, bought an engine
you'd see it all decaled up and ID'd
for town and such, whether it was
to Missouri, Idaho, or Maine, and
departing town on its 'delivery' run.
Yes, LaFrance even had a driver and
delivery crew for these operations,
which, of course, I always wanted
to be a part of but never got hired.
Chevrolet used to have an ad campaign
of' See the USA, in your Chevrolet.'
I wanted this to be 'See your world
of chance, in an American LaFrance.'
(I never did find out how these guys
got home).
-
Elmira was pretty good for a lot
of tricks. Speaking of which, I
knew one or two girls who turned
them, mostly out of that same bus
terminal in the old middle of downtown
from where Vince Murphy and his
bus often came and went. In the cold,
early-morning, hours before work,
if I'd gotten there early from Columbia
Crossroads, I'd park and wait at the
bus terminal. When I say 'cold,' I
mean in Elmira terms, like 12 below
until maybe 10am). I'd see Vince
occasionally, yes, coming or going
or whatever he did at 7:15 am. The
waiting area had these plastic benches,
in a row, maybe 20 of them, arrayed,
and the left hand side of each had
an attached little television. For a
quarter in the slot you could watch
a half-hour of TV. (I said that to one
of the girls there who 'frequented' the
place, but it came out all wrong and
she acted accused. I guess I've always
been a bad comedian at heart). Like
truck-stop whores, I guess bus stations
get that way too. Usually it was just
a few bums, one or two girls, a
traveler or two, and some fool out
on business for industry or the local
college nipping a bus ride, usually
east). it was a life, but I loved it.
-
Another cool episode was this: There
was a huge, city-large, pile of stone
and granite, right across from the
bus station. That was the city Post
Office. In its heydey, if Elmira was
really humming, I suppose it managed
enough business and mail to need
such a large, imposing post office;
more like a Greek Temple. By the
mid-70's it was reduced maybe to
one or two customer windows, instead
of the 16 or 20 once there, some large
postal tables, pens and forms, in an
oversized echo-chamber of a space.
Instead of window-service that had
some recently-introduced stamp
machines. They worked OK. I forget
how it went, you put a dollar or two
in the slide, and got your stamps, and
any change due you, in coins. One
morning I went in there, mailing a
few bills and letters, and purchasing
some stamps. It was early, and I was
alone. I detected quickly that the stamp
machine was awry. For every dollar
you put in the change-slide, instead of
getting a dollar's worth of change it was
dispensing three times that amount. I
had maybe 10 or 12 singles in my wallet,
and immediately jumped at this chance
for a 3-for-1 exchange rate. 10 bucks
got me 30, in change - which, yes,
became a problem in and of itself,
but I managed. I then went across the
street, got a bag for the money, and,
by buying some cheap-crap candy-bar,
managed change again for a ten, for
which I asked for singles - and went
right back across the street. To me,
it was like God's Lottery, and the
poor boy had finally won!
-
At my lunch break I went
back again, but all had been
returned to order.
No comments:
Post a Comment