RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,339
(25 days for searchin')
Over the course of my life I've
read and studied and written a
lot. Some say for useless ends,
others not. Or 'not so sure'. The
ends never justify the means,
except maybe if you're an
explosives expert. I tried telling
that to the clowns on W11th street,
back in '69 or whenever that was,
but the house blew up anyway.
There's a bit of a story there, but
we'll let it go...and that's pretty
much how I ended up anyway in
Columbia Crossroads (crossroads
of nothing, but the capitol of
Nowheresville too. Thankfully).
It was a good, solid 5 hours west,
out of Joisey - straight along old
Route 6 (Grand Army Of the
Republic Highway', all the old
country-signs proclaimed; that
usage now is pretty much forgotten).
In 1971, people still remembered
their heritage and had some pride
in the now-hidden roots of post
Civil War America. The country
folk even used to get a little bit
top-heavy on the Franklin Roosevelt
stuff too. Secular Savior of the country
and all that. All those old guys, back
then, used to go on about how he
(Roosevelt) saved their asses with
road-building, paving, and rock-wall
jobs. Got them a paycheck for family
and kin to survive on. One old guy
used to regale me with his stories of
how they'd have brooms and shovels,
5 or 6 guys at a time, and would walk
slowly behind the truck which dropped
the hot tar, liquid, onto the dirt road,
and how they'd have to quickly shovel
and disperse it for full coverage so it
could dry evenly and flat. He said that
was 'primitive' road building at its best,
and that some of it was still there and
in use. This old fellow was the father
of Warren's wife, the farmer I used to
work with (adjacent homesteads). He'd
stay at their house sometimes, and start
railing at the 5 kids for having the TV
always on - his point was 'Anything
that makes heat, like that TV, feel the
back of it, gobbles up electricity like
a cow laps water. "Electricity ain't
cheap! Turn the damned thing off if
you ain't watchin' it!" He was right,
and had a point; but it was, by then,
a different world, and you couldn't
walk behind a tar-truck if you tried,
for pay or not.
-
Yesiree, times was a'changin' by
then and with little to be done
about it. The big, old Nixon '72
landslide re-election took place
and the whole thing was over in
a flash. The poor grub got caught
with his tricks and eventually had
to resign. It was all of a moment.
Farmers and farmer-wives seemed
to not too much care about it; it
sort of meant nothing to them.
The only matter to them was the
price of their raw milk at the local
creamery; economics be damned.
-
Elmira was a mere echo to them too.
For them oddly enough, it represented
the 'big city', little as it actually was.
God forbid any of these farm people
ever made it to NYC. Every so often
Barbara Gustin (the farm-wife whose
father that was), would go into Elmira
for supplies or whatever, and come
back railing about traffic and congestion
and all that. It was funny. It was also
a difficult mix, trying to explain to
the farmer folk what urban living
(and suburban too) was like. Lawns
and paved driveways? Built-in sprinkler
systems? Dishwashers?
-
Time was funny, back in the 70's - hard
as it is to think through, it was really
more than anything else the ending of
all else before the changeover to 'modern.'
Any period where an old-timer could yet
recall Depression-era road work had to be.
I remember my own grandmother (born
1900) telling me tales and stories of her
days - 20 in 1920, etc., so she witnessed
a lot). It was always fascinating to hear
and hard to fathom that world - horses,
old roads, stores and houses still isolated
and alone, flappers, crazy tunes and
celebrations, and, of course, the TWO
world wars, and the Depression era.
There always came a point where she'd
start crying (I think I've got that trait too)
-
Once I got to the country, regardless of
all else, I stayed away- as much as I could -
from any reports of where or what I'd been
doing before. It was part a combination of
not wishing to be 'outed' as it were, but also
the realization of how little of my previous
days would be understood. NYC was a
foreign kingdom to all these guys, something
laughable and queer, the people were all
of a sort - quirky and maladjusted city
folk - and anyone in 1971 who lived in
Columbia Crossroads (maybe 40 people)
had never had any dealings with urban
stuff except for what they saw on their
local TV - riots, protests, bombings and
freaks. I didn't wish to get mixed in with
that crowd, to them. I did manage to
remain pure and isolated, that oddball
guy living in the old Parmenter house.
Actually, they never said 'guy' - to all
those fellows I was a 'kid'.
-
I have a lot to cover here, with limited
time, so I'll get to work on this right off.
Columbia Crossroads? How'd I end up
there. Fact of the matter is, I looked at a
Pennsylvania map one day, and found the
area that had the most space and the
fewest town names - empty areas. One
of them was Troy, PA, and Columbia
Crossroads. Off I went. I met this realtor
guy, James Jankowski. He sold local
area homes, from a little shed-type
place that was his heated office in
the yard where he lived. Turned out
he was a nice guy. He took me all
around, in his 1968 Oldsmobile
Vista-Cruiser station wagon, looking
at houses, farms, and whatever was
for sale within like 30 miles. I had
1900 bucks for my down payment
(money from the train accident). The
bank demanded a co-sign, so next trip
out a dragged dear old Dad with me.
He loved it all, and just about went
crazy over the possibilities, and he
and Jim bonded like brothers. Next
chapter I'll tell some more about
how it all went down and what
transpired. That was about the early
days of September, 1970. I couldn't
do a thing until I turned 21, at the
end of that month, so there were
some 25 days to keep searchin'.
No comments:
Post a Comment