RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,351
(have mercy, or was there never none?)
Back in those 1970's days, as I'd
drive along Route 6, rolling out
of Scranton into those sparser and
wilder farmlands and crazy places
to Wyalusing Rocks and French
Azilum (Asylum), I'd pass the same
things - and I got to know them.
One of the cool things was passing
any number of multi-story and
surprising large chicken coops, more
like large, production centers, for
65-100+ chickens, easy. They was
always of wood, cared for OK,
pained and sometimes a bit leaning
or askew. They had conveyors and
belts, windows and cool shapes. A
surrounding chicken yard too. Back
then the world hadn't much heard
anything about 'free range' chickens
nor derogatory things about confined
and penned to production chickens.
These birds were kept to produce eggs,
and maybe later to be broilers. Period.
This was a factory-chicken industrialzation.
I always remembered these chicken
structures, because I'd never been
exposed to them before, and because
I liked their shapes. Pretty simple, yes.
-
I learned later that these chicken-farm
guys were most all part of a collective;
some chicken and egg farmer cooperative
that policed itself, watched its own chemicals
and growth rates, and sold eggs and chickens
by volume, cooperatively, through some
combine network they had. It was an
industrialized form of chicken-rearing
and the small an individual armers with
but 12-20 chicken maybe pecking around
and running loose in their yards, were
out of that loop. It's funny now how
- today - all those old chicken-factory
buildings are abandoned and sagging,
50 years later, and the guys with 12-20
loose chickens flapping and pecking
around their yards are still at it, selling
eggs by the dozen from roadside stands,
in the good-weather months anyway.
Everything's cool if you just let it be.
-
It went the same way with barns and silos
and out-buildings. Most everything was going
though slow stages of decay. The only thing
ever really 'new' were perhaps the big blue
Harvestore silos that were getting popular
about then and which were 'cropping' up on
the better and more monied farms. Cars
and tractors and old trucks still piled up
in old yards, places with sagging porches
and almost-detached Winter shelters and
entrances. Most houses were just hanging
on, and the more 'west' you went the more
the common denominator was running
downward. Towanda, and Troy, maybe,
still held on to something - an old core,
although with a grouping too of decaying
houses also running down.
-
I took it all in and just got used to it all.
I never used to much comment on anything,
always wary of that 'outsider' status amongst
others - didn't want any word put out about
me or my ideas or ways. Having a little family
was good for that too - the 'infant' and the
wife, the homestead and the place. It kept the
light off me.
-
Like I've mentioned before, over time I somehow
became a 'hit' with the local kids, the high-schooler
kids. I wasn't really that much older than them anyway,
maybe 5 years, and they began coming around. Not
everyone had a stereo or a record player even, so
my LP collection and stereo was considered pretty
hip. I had these farm boys, over time, digging into
Neil Young, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob Dylan
too. I never knew what was good or bad for them
nd I don't know how much of that influence they
took home with them, but, whatever. The ones, too,
who were into cars began bringing cars over to work
on. I had plenty of barn space, and I liked working
on stuff too, best I could. One of the kids had a
nice, step-through Honda 50 which I always
enjoyed riding around on - he'd let me go off with
it whenever they were doing something at the barn.
Small beans, but at least it had two wheels.
-
I always managed some sort of solitary fun - on
the days these guys would bother me, I'd just run
off on the 50cc, and trounce on the hardtop - no
helmet, and not much caution either. I was free!
There was nothing around me but cows, barns,
chicken coops, corn bins, and silos. What more
could I want? Everything was always interesting
and substantial too. I was able to look anywhere
I chose I'd find something cool.
-
Pickups were the most normal rides around the
area - like everyone had one. A lot of late 1950's
Fords and Chevies. My friend, the Guthrie guy,
had a truck-yard with GMC's, maybe 3 or 4. He
called them Jimmies, and said they were better
built that Chevies and other GM stuff, even though
they still used the General Motors name. That
kind of confused me and I think a lot of these
guys were just brand-biased by likes and dislikes.
Me? I didn't care what it was as long as it ran.
A lot of the trucks had 'EZRider Rifle Racks'
across the back windows, and some guys would
drive around with three rifles, stacked. It was
cool, because the rifle racks came for one, two
or two rifles. The real big timers would get the
three stack and have them all showing off, like
it was Dodge City or something (no., not a
truck-name pun). Nothing ever really got shot
at, except, I saw, possums, ground hogs and, of
course, deer by the gallon. Random animal
killing was real sport up there. Even me, I
lost two dogs over those years, and that was
one thing that really pissed me off. Nothing
worse than losing a mongrel dog that you
loved more than anything, and finding out
it was probably just one of those truck-driving
assholes with their rifle-rack trophy cases
out having fun. My dogs always ran free.
until some bastard-goon shot them. Actually
did lose a runway Siamese cat that way - one
that I'd bought the previous Valentine's Day,
in Hazlet, along Rt. 35 by the bridge, for my
wife. We transplanted the cat to PA, and it got
all confused and sort of ran off. I found it the
next day, pocked up with bullet-holes. Have
mercy, or was there never none?
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