RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,224
(gone gold, the gold is gone)
A pattern develops: these little,
nowhere towns seem to pile up,
one upon another, all the way
along the occasional rural-highway
outpass. Once past the constricting
coastal confines of those endless
east-coast disaster towns, exiting
the foolish confines of all those
New Jersey gold-plated towers
with their fluted faux-columns
and extensively networked
suburban pretentions, lawns,
'facsimiles' of' this or that mad
throwback to some more classic
norm now shoveled shoveled
into the same manure pack as
a hundred swimming pools,
fences, SUV's on parade, lots,
acres, and shopping plazas for
parking and 'people,' one enters
- at a more stately pace perhaps,
but not always - the dotted
mishaps of rural places where
most often the older 'town' and
'village' uses are long gone - the
tanneries, small factories, lumber
and grain mills, grange halls,
and other practical use places.
One is left now with the ghosts
of old America. Maybe a village
square, a band-shell, a few old
churches white with steeple. But
for the most part that past is dead,
and what lingers outside of memory
and the local graveyards are the
thoughts of all the squirming
which once went into 'progress'
and 'growth' and in whatever way
that once went. All those bankers
and barkers are dead now. The
towns themselves, processed,
grown out, and deadened, are
ringed instead by convenience
stores, soda and beer retailers,
box stores, and, again, the
trebled inconvenience of more
convenience stores for those
always in need : breadcigarettes
candycupcakesbatteriesmilk,
all at extended and almost lethal,
prices. Gone gold, the gold is gone.
-
I've been to small places, and I've
been to large. I've been to faint and
rural outposts of neglect and ruin,
and I've seen all the grubby and
fatuous in-betweens of town and
suburb and community in which
the rabble tend to themselves
between their bouts of work, toil,
and tending to the concerns of those
above them. Midland industrialists.
Stupid businesspeople. Clerks and
counters. Repairmen and pale
doctors. It's all the same, and it's
all different too - from Roanoke
to Castle Hill to Port Jervis to
Castelton, Augusta, San Francisco
and San Juan too.
-
So, what was this 'Troy' Pennsylvania
I write of? Merely an example of
what was, in 1972, simply another
wayward town on the way to the
next, along fabled old Route 6, in
Bradford County. Farmlands, old
farms and barns, rural roads and
pathways, small bridges over
streams and gullies, with culverts
and sidings. Agway and other
sorts of farm stores, equipment
places, and the usual assortment
too of 'recreational' equipment
adjacent to tractor and implement
dealers : Case, Ford, Oliver,
Massey-Fergusen, and of course,
Allis Chalmers and John Deere.
(I fully expected to see Jack
Daniels!). Those are old names,
old American, industrial names.
Only today do we see Kubota
and other Chinese and Korean
implement names. That hadn't
really started yet, back in the
1970's). A funny thing, too,
was, back then Ford made a
smaller-size tractor, good and
useful too, and worthy of the
big-boys as well, named
'Fordson'. Old Henry Ford
had named the agricultural
brand, at that level, after his
son, though not expressly by
birth name. Shades of the old
car he also produced, called
the 'Henry J'. [NO! Not really.
The Henry J was made by the
Kaiser company, and named
after himself, by Henry J.
Kaiser in person!]...
-
Troy PA held its own. I've
already described the bank,
the nervous, skinny lawyer
guy, the Ben Franklin store,
and the Troy Hotel. There
was also a small, open at
9am, hospital there, next
to the police station. Nothing
much ever happened, I guess.
I went there once and had to
wait nearly three hours for
them to open before I could
get three or four stitches in
my head from an injury
sustained at the Troy Hotel
at one of those Hunter's Only
nights. I walked around with
a shirt wrapped around my
head until they opened.
Also, back when I drove
the school-bus route, the
poverty in those parts was
so bad that, at the Troy Hotel,
I occasionally had a high
school senior - a beautiful,
blond girl - who, during
certain times of the year
and during hunting seasons -
would let on to me that she
was going to stay on the bus
to the end of the route and,
at the Troy Hotel, get out.
As she explained, certain
times arose which necessitated
her making some extra money
for their support. I never
winced, and I never said no.
I'd simply stop near the stop
sign at the corner, and she'd
get out. Never quite understood,
as I said previously, that 'No
Women' sign.
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