RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,342
(mud slide slim, and the blue horizon)
I never much liked music people who
call themselves 'Slim'. And there are
plenty of them - usually naming
themselves in a lowly fashion, after
maybe the town they live in. Cranford
Slim, or Highway Slim. Something
fairly stupid like that. Long about
sometime in the early 70's, James
Taylor had an album out entitled
Mudslide Slim and the Blue Horizon.
Whenever it was - and I'm not
even sure any longer when it was -
we'd already moved to Elmira. I
think. But all that title, and maybe
that song too, if it was one, reminded
me ever of was my old dirt road. The
road we got when we bought that
house - it was dirt, for sure, and it
led right out to our place. There was
a mailbox, and an outhouse - a
three-seater, in fact. But, the real
connection for all this Mudslide Slim
stuff, to me, was that April of every
year, you could bet your bottom outhouse
butt, that roadway would thaw out and
turn into 8-12 inches of tar-like and
pure mud. Mud puree, in fact! I'd
come home from Elmira at the end
of a workday and have to drive with
one side of the car off the roadway
and into the side rubble/weeds, for
traction, while the other side of the
car barely then managed to negotiate
the mud that kept drawing it in. It
was so like quicksand at those times
that if I dared to exit the car to check
the wheels or whatever and made a
mis-step, the mud/muck would suck
and hold fast my shoe or boot, and if
it was a shoe, would hold it fast and
take it right off my foot with the
mud-suction resulting. No was way
this ever fun. It went on for the entire
thaw season - usually like late March
THRU April, and sometimes more. I
never managed to get truly 'stuck' or
mired, but often the calls were close.
There was enough something there
that I always figured any Mud Slime
this or that would readily recognize
the scene if his 'name' was worth
anything at all.
-
It was all part of the fun of that house -
selected perfectly, remember by both
Dad and myself - a sort of Devil's
agreement between two distant but
somehow yet allied souls. I truly think
we each saw different things when we
viewed that house; each satisfying his
own vision of something, whatever it
was. My father and I stayed in the house
a few (chilly) nights. When he realized
the paucity of the heating system, he
freaked and then switched to a serios
concern. It was shot. It had NO fan
system built into itself, by which the
'warmed' air would be blown through
the house and ductwork. It was a mere
'gravity' system of hot-air rising, and
the unit itself was just an old, converted
coal-stove with - now - an oil-burning
and feed nozzle built into it. At least it
was able to ignite and make some heat.
I had no idea how 'cold' the cold could
actually be, and that foolish and antiquated
system of heating was just not going to
cut the Nov - April deep-freeze temps
and snows. So, we immediately knew
a revised system was a necessity. The
kitchen area, in turn, was a post WWII
rubble-pile. A new floor and a new
stove were needed. So, I could see the
needs arising by which I was to be
saddled and roped into expenses I'd
not foreseen. Employment and 'work'
raised their monstrous heads and began
shouting at me.
-
To my father, it was all still a sort of
adventure and interesting outing. He
was way into whatever needed to be
done, while I was already shying away -
knowing I was sunk enough by then
by my new 'situation.' So we stayed
there two nights, sleeping in our
jackets and clothing on an old couch,
and some bedding. The couch was
left here, and it wasn't bad (my father
slept there). I had a bunch of car and
furniture blankets, (from his upholstery
work and his auto), which I made into
a nice enough, stop-gap, floor-bed.
It dawned on me that I faced an entire
new raft of problems I'd not really
foreseen. Perhaps - I thought - this
home-ownership thing was all it was
cracked up to be, rural here or not.
Delmore Schwartz had a short story
entitled, 'In Dreams Begin Responsibilities'
and that title was cracking my up the
side of my head very suddenly. ('Oh
to be on Sugar Mountain, with the
barkers and the colored balloons.
You can be 20, on Sugar Mountain,
though you're thinking that you're
leaving there too soon, leaving there
too soon.' That too rang in my head,
an early Neil Young tune). I couldn't
'share' any of these things with my
father - no connection there with
literature or early Neil Young either.
But to me they arose as 'markers' for
the uncharted territory I was about
to be launched into. With a 6-month
son and a wife, and now a monstrous
need for care and maintenance of a
house and a home, 12 acres, various
forms of rubble all around (the yard
was cluttered with old vehicles, a
crane, an ancient snow plow and
truck that had long ago settled some
6 inches into the ground and had
'Elmira, NY Road Dept. decals
still barely discernable on the old
doors. It was perhaps a 1950 model
work truck), I knew on which side
my proverbial goose was cooked.
These 'pressing' needs were to be
immediately addressed. Why?
Because there would be no choice,
and they had to be taken care of.
-
The first thing I did was buy and
install a Franklin Stove - venting
it properly too, through the chimney
which ran up the center of the house.
(There was no fireplace). I situated
it at the end of the hallway, where the
hall meet the kitchen and another room
that was a sitting area, etc., which
room soon enough was also used as
the room where we all slept, and the
'baby's room/crib, etc. The central
location necessitated it, and from the
hub the heat radiated nicely enough.
Within five or six weeks we were
situated and installed. It was, by
then, January, 1971. We barely
made it through that first Winter.
But we did. Here's a synopsis:
-
It a seemed to snow every day, or
overnight anyway - crystalized
particles of snow, or hung in
the air almost all the time. When a
few 'big' snowstorms came, that was
all different - winds and raging and
drifted/blown accumulations had to
be dealt with. My one vehicle had to
be tunneled out from the garage area.
Another vicious undertaken, aided by
the neighboring farmer, Warren, and
his tractors and chains, as needed.
January was the very worst, and then
for a few days in the second week or
so of Feb., everything lightened up
and it warmed too. Jenkins, another
farmer guy up the hill by the cemetery,
came over to check on us and he called
it the 'January thaw' - though it was
February - warning us that it would
only last a few days and then Winter
would come raging back. He was
right. The temperature stayed near
12 degrees for days on end.
-
Every day was a struggle. Wood to
burn. I'd get pea-coal in little canvas
bags from 'Kennedy's Country Store'
for three or four dollars, as I recall.
Kennedy's was a sort of hardware
and farm supply jumble shop, over
towards East Smithfield, about 8 miles
away on some hilly, rickety road that
passed a large, local cemetery, and
rows of dairy farms. It too was
ramshackle, but did its job well:
fuel, foods, blankets, gran and feeds,
barn needs, shovels, hammers, and
all the rest. Sort of an Agway or a
Tractor Supply Co., long before the
day of them. By April of that year
they had hundreds of chicks, ducklings,
and other small Spring animals for
sale as well. I'd never seen a commerce
for that before. It was neat place to
experience.
-
Snows turned to mud (Hello, Slim!!)
and a somewhat better sunlight. The
angles changed and the world slowly
warmed up. Once the ground was no
longer encased in white snow, I began
traipsing around the land, to see what
it actually was I'd purchased. 12 acres
of what? Most of it had once been
pasture, and along the back ran a
wooded area. In that area, from the
1930's, apparently, there had once
been a dump, or a dumping-off place
anyway. It was a rubble heap and it
filled a large hole in the ground, which
was filled with old and rusted things.
It was pretty amazing and that first
Spring I was there often - old lanterns,
milk buckets, can and bottles, blue
elixir bottles, green medicine bottles,
old car mounted headlamps, like those
units you'd see on vehicles from the
1930's and before; chains, barrels,
pieces of steel and metal, old wooden
tractor and wagon wheels, License
plates, tools and cranks, generators,
cages; I won't go on, but there was an
entire heap of cool history there. And,
to boot, inside the old barn were piles
of old Arizona Highways magazines
(in the upstairs barn bathroom, which
was actually installed there, and which
functioned and flushed!), shelves of
wild debris and interesting things.
And a wall calendar, still set to
April 1957!
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