RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,233
(progressively befuddled)
I had a lot of those Jersey
towns all mixed up in my
head; many of them being
almost the same, and my
head a mixed travel-rubble
as well. I'd by this time
been through all of deep
rural PA, Vermont, and
some places of New York
State as well, in addition to
most every cavalier pit-stop
and hell-hole NYC offered.
On the trail here, of Thomas
Edison, through the Oranges,
from Menlo Park, and more,
I got progressively befuddled.
He used to take, by wagon,
back then, (I think maybe it's
Valley Road now) daily
work trips to an old northern
mining town called Ogdensburg,
NJ, where he had an encampment
investigating various plants and
fibers for 'filaments' for the new
electronic lightbulbs. Most of
what he'd come up with always
burned out too quickly, and his
madman quest of that time
was for some other fiber or
something that would last; so
he used his iron-mine there for
that purpose too. Like I said,
madman.
-
It's hard to imagine how both
he - and Henry Ford - changed
our world, probably stupidly and
unwittingly. Somehow, they've
both been regaled as heroes.
Edison also took many trips
to Florida - plantation-stuff,
seeking plants and ferns and
artificial rubber sources, etc.,
for many of his inventions. I
never understood how he did
tht either - travel was difficult.
There were no 'highways; not
even cars. I guess maybe trains?
Horses and wagons? Back and
forth to Florida sure puts back
and forth to Ogdensburg to
shame, yes. That mine, by the
way, in Ogdensburg - in the
Summer months it's open for
visitors; you can visit, and go
inside, and even descend to
the underworld (as it were),
the wet caves and subterranean
sections. It used to be said
that, like some sorcerer, Mr.
Edison ruled all that.
-
"A scientific hermit, shut up
in a cavern in a small New
Jersey village, holding little
or no intercourse with the
outside world, working like an
alchemist of old in the dead of
the night, with musty books and
curious chemicals, and having
for his immediate companions
persons as weird and mysterious
as himself. Invisible agents are
at his beck and call. He dwells
in a cave, and around it are skulls
and skeletons, and strange phials
filled with mystic fluids whereof
he gives the inquirer to drink. He
has a furnace and a caldron, and
above him as he sits swings a
quaint old silver lamp that lights
up the deep-lined and inscrutable
face of the Wizard of Menlo
Park. The furnace glows, and
small, eerie, sprits dance among
the flames." Yes, that was Menlo
Park. I grew up right near there.
-
Edison and his first wife bombed;
they divorced early on. The name
was Stilwell, and, in Iselin, I used
to drink with a guy named Mark
Stilwell, who bore some lineage
to all that but was mostly just a
sot with too much booze in him
to realize. In fact, in those days,
late 1980's and early 90's, most
of my drinking buddies were
local lost souls, many of whom
came from those very laboratory
streets where Edison once lived
and worked (Monmouth Street,
Christie, Philip Street, Dellwood,
etc.). Those places didn't exist
for Edison, but after he'd moved
to West Orange with his works,
the area was developed by houses
and streets. The only reason any
of this existed anyway was because
of the 'countryside' of 1880, and
the small rail-access station that
at-once attracted Thomas Edison
to the bucolic isolation and
nothingness of - whatever it
was all eventually called: Edison,
Iselin, Menlo Park. The place
itself was utterly so useless that
naming it was seen as a task, and
after Thomas Edison, honoring
it was even worse : a large boulder
at the side of the highway, when it
was country, still, and an almost
monument to place, person, and
time - managing to say and to
honor nothing much anyway.
A prophet is not without honor,
except in his own home. As Jesus
put it. Now there's someone who
knew about carrying fire, and
wizardry too. Edison be damned.
-
Most of Humankind lives its days
under the commands of false respect.
I could never get past the damages
of that : things presented wrongly,
conclusions used for entrapment.
n fact, everything about this world
is just like that - 'things presented
wrongly,' etc. Government. Church.
School. Family. It's wonder we can't
get things straight.
-
New Jersey's weird too, in other ways:
The only President from NJ, Grover
Cleveland? You can't find a thing about
him anywhere (he's buried in Princeton);
there's his little boyhood home, up along
that Valley Road area somewhere. Edison
probably passed it 500 times, but nothing
else. There's no town named Cleveland,
or Grover, or any of that. A pure cloak
of invisibility.
-
I have more to go on here, and will be
continuing this, BUT, that same day
as we were leaving Montclair - after
that Eckelburg guy and the rest - we
were walking. Having turned the corner
from the main shopping street into a
small plaza-like area - cafe, gift shops,
small storefronts, and a department
store front - (there was a Rolls Royce
dealership too, for some reason, and
oddly) - we came upon a scene of
sadness. A woman, perhaps 80, had
fallen to the ground; her head was
bleeding and she was dazed, propped
up in her daughter's arms, apparently.
The daughter was hysterical, calling
for help, crying. People were scurrying
about, and both a Santa and a store
guard were present, waiting for cops
or an ambulance. The ladies forehead
was split, and blood was streaming
down her face. It was a very sad scene.
And an improper ending, I thought, to
an otherwise mostly auspicious day
in a land far from home and a distance
away from my usual thinking.
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