RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,346
(mmm, long & hard, just like I like 'em)
I was never able to understand
- and I still don't - how people
were able to fritter their time away
over innocuous and dumb things
like holidays, vacation journeys
without any real purpose, or, and
most importantly, probably, how
they could immerse themselves
in things that had no intellectual
value or validity other than in the
realm of pop-naivete. What could
possibly have been, and still be,
the attraction? At least, by being
in the deep country, we got away
from that stuff. There were no little
Santas or reindeer or sleds messing
up properties in most of the area.
Thank goodness for that. Of course,
that was 1971, in Bradford County.
Here, today, where I live now, some
100 miles east of all that, it's just
starting some weird creep towards
the same sort of plebian Christmas
decorations crap - the beginnings
of colored light and blow-up doll
Santas and reindeer and all the usual
crud. Even the churches are beginning
to outdo each other with manger-mania.
It's too bad 'culture' has followed that
downward trajectory enough to even
hit here, now, in the highlands. I saw
the other day, some really pathetic
Woodbridge Township NJ fire-dept
Christmas bullshit parade, with the
tax-payer's trucks all done up and on
parade - decorated with Christmas
lights, wreaths, Santas and whoops
and whistles. Except, like most
government entities these days, they
don't even have the balls to call it
'Christmas' - they just say Winter
Festival, or some such crap. Well,
out here there are any number of
hidden-in-the-woods sorts of vacation
communities. There's one near here
called Tink Wik or something, and -
damn it all - they had the very same
firetruck and lights parade crap the
other night. The same snookered
Christmas Everyman Cranium
Disease has hit here, or at least in
these faux communities of idlers
and Jersey vacationer types. They
name and drape these weird vacation
communities in old native Indian
names and think they've really got
something. Then they muck it up
the crap of Christmas.
-
None of that happened, ever, in
1971, nor in Columbia Crossroads.
Too busy with snow and preparations.
In fact, once established out there I
never even made the connection
between snow and Christmas, nor
any of that Bing Crosby schlock.
Made-up shenanigans anyway. The
reality of pleasure there came only
through a total awareness of both
place and time. You had to be always
careful of that 'mousetrap' in your
hand. I hated to see crap as it
infiltrated the country. What was
cool, and which had to be kept
hidden as well, was that in my
reading I was able to find an
answer to just about everything.
In the same manner as the local
Baptist preacher, Rev. Wallace
McKnight, would taunt forward
his congregants with ridiculously
childish sermons and garner for
them answers for the congregants
about their lives and realities, so
too I could find answers, one phrase
after the other, but they'd never
understand.
-
I liked Rev. McKnight, but he
annoyed me. His church was tiny,
and it was 'Baptist' not 'Southern
Baptist' - which for some reason
he liked explaining about. How
'Baptist' churches, as he put it,
resisted black congregants, etc.,
from slavery days, who then
broke away and formed their
own 'Southern Baptist Convention'
for their own kind. It was all, to
me, a coded and meaningless way
of him just boasting about not
wanting black people around -
which was not a problem, Godly
or not, because there just were
none up there. Actually, I didn't
care either way, but I thought
it was a rather un-Christian
approach for and by a 'Christian'
minister. He mostly liked ladies
and little kids, and that was how
he preached, as if he was talking
to a bunch of 9-year olds. The
most simple lessons, animal
stories and all that stuff. He'd
come around sometimes, to
socials and to where the farm-men
were working, and try to stand
around and talk or impart a
preaching. None of us really
ever had time for him, but we
put annoyance aside and just let
him babble on and then do his
little prayer thing. It was nice,
blessing animals and cows too.
He was a little guy, maybe 5 feet
2 inches, and elfin-like; usually
always in a loose-fitting dark suit
and a white shirt, most often with
a tie, loosed or not. He drove a
1954 Chevy, still in tall, good
shape. I think then, later, he got
a '59 Ford, also black, which
didn't fit him at all.
-
One time, through him, a group of
missionaries, white Baptists, came
through, seeking donations and
support for their mission work.
They had a short film and a
bunch of slides of their place
out in the African bush, and
each of them talked and took
questions about themselves and
their work. They were basically
on the circuit, in America, to
gather money to go back to their
mission with - for new buildings,
or sanitation stuff, or huts. They
handed trinkets and cheap stuff,
in return for donations. I'd always
had an interest in that stuff, so
I listened carefully, having once
sought to do missionary work
myself (seminary incentive stuff).
By the end of the long Sunday
afternoon, the Ladies Aid Society
(which included my goodly wife
Kathy), dished out food - a big
sit-down meal at long tables around
which the 4 or 5 missionary people
had been dispersed.
-
This caused a big, ugly scene,
amongst the ladies and between
friends. Afterwards, my farmer-guy
friend and boss told me to never
bring it up again with the ladies,
because the rift was so severe and
they'd all sworn off ever talking to
this one lady ever again. That was
the Guthrie lady, wife of one of the
local mechanic-crazy guys who lived
in Columbia Crossroads. She was
always a loose cannon with a stray
mouth too, and the platter of cruellers
got passed around and she blatted out,
as she reached for the largest one,
'Mmm, long and hard, just like I like
'em!' Needless to say, it was all
downhill from there, even with
the kind missionary people still
about. You learn a lot of things
in the country, and sometimes
tact isn't one of them.
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