RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,290
(things to remember)
I cast my lot, a long time
back, with a scarlet cloak.
A Scarlet Letter, even. The
first few days I was placed
into the last days of what
would become my 'time'
in Woodbridge High School,
the cool kids were all doing
the same thing: Hawthorne,
Emerson, even Melville and
the Transcendentalists. By
the most exquisite of titles,
'The Maypole of Merrymount'
too. That was pretty interesting
to a seminary transplant like
me. The other kids, as robust
and energetic as they were,
simply seemed to blow it all
off as if it was nothing. Crazy
as it seemed, the lessons went
from that, with only a quick
seque, to 'Lines Written Above
Tintern Abbey.' English lessons
had taken an odd precedence, and
I was shocked too by seeing the
mundane reactions they had to
such stuff. If learning couldn't
be connected to anything practical,
no one wanted it around.
-
Not only was it a quick switch
(seque), but it was sort of backwards
in time as well. I said nothing, as
being totally 'new' to this idea of
public high schooling - which
I found to more akin to plain
socializing and conditioning than
learning, or education - I wasn't
sure if part of it also included just
making things up, switching times
and continents around. Tintern Abbey
to Walden Pond, in an easy instant?
As I said, to the other kids everything
was always warm and fluffy, gentle
and giving. I found that to be no way
to be schooled, and no way to learn
either. Akin to, maybe, studying
WWII and just dwelling on what
all those good gents did for others
during the deployments, and leaving
out the guns and the bombs, and
Hiroshima, Dresden, and Nagasaki
too. An empty drumbeat on a
hollow tube.
-
I realized right off that this would
not work. I had nowhere to meld to,
no 'niche' of students to be part of,
or even to take comfort from. I was
a nervous, off-sides, stand-offish
kid. Most of the junk they were
wrongly learning made never-no
mind to me. All it worked for was
blandness and general agreement,
which is all anyone seemed to care
about anyway. The boys were useless
to me - a general tribe of go-getter
wannabees already in thrall to their
plain notions of success, money, and
achievement. Maybe that was the way
it was supposed to go, but it wasn't
for me. The military side of things
too, that took precedence. It was a
point of honor, somehow, for the
school to present it's new crops of
enlistees : razor-headed guys off
to shoot and kill in Vietnam so as
to protect and buttress those ever
loving and revered Freedoms and
Rights that were always being
blabbed about. To me it was weird
too, in that it was totally secular.
As if a God didn't exist, never had,
and was owed no allegiance unless
that too was connected with the
military might and prowess of the
USA, which mostly just burned
through things without even thinking.
Its own young boys included.
-
My failures were just beginning.
They start when you're out of
step initially, and then every skip
or double step meant to get you
back in sync just makes it all
worse. I became, for sure, a
solitary walker, and one with
my own step. It was as if I saw
a glimpse, long ahead of time,
a leading glimpse, of the wreckage
and ruination I'd end up with. I
accepted that, for at least my
fidelity to self, at that point, was
strong enough to keep me on my
own fixed path. I was no 17-year
old, to be sure. I was an ancient.
-
Like a gambler, at table and holding
a hand, I was both protective and
anxious - I watched my 'tells', being
sure I wasn't putting any out. My hand
ws going to be my own - no slinking
co-ed would have a way in to peek,
no roustabout sports guys either. The
biggest complaint I had was this Art
Teacher guy, Frank Gubernat. Instead
of an Art Teacher, he was nothing
more than a 'Hall Nazi,' who got his
DaVinci kicks from pulling kid like
me out of line, to report to the Office,
mostly to be sent home (again) for
the day - too long the hair, too grubby
the clothes, wrong kind of shoes, all
that rot. At face-down value, Art meant
nothing to him either except the same
old rules, regulation, control, and
fierce adherence to a real asshole
discipline. It was at about that point
when I really and solidly gave up on
on most things. If this 'school' system
had nothing better to do than throw
up the low-quality for this guy to
represent and speak for Art and
Creatvity, they could all go suck
pipe. Guess what? After his
death now, (long back) they've
named and dedicated a street to
him in nearby South Plainfield.
'Gubernat Way' - ain't that a killer.
-
I made my decision to just chuck it all;
them and their formalized strictures
could all go to Hell on the last frazzle
boat to the horizon. I cast my lot with
Plotinus, who had said to his followers
long, long ago in Rome: "The search
for truth or reality behind appearance
would lead, step by step, toward a
recognition of a Spiritual 'One' beyond
all physical things, and to communion
with that supreme force."
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