RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,354
(nothing to brag about, but that's how it went
A lot of things take a lot of time to gel.
Some things just never do - my country
and rural life in Columbia Crossroads,
after about three+ years, started to feel
a little thin and out of it. Country life is
cool and all, even at the meager level
I was at, but there had always been,
inside me, a core of being to which I'd
always given attention. All the things
that went on up there had sidelined all
that, and it began bursting out; maybe
even as a pain or an impatience that
I'd not had before. Maybe some people
can sideline all that, but I couldn't; and
I realized that I had been grooming a
part of me that wasn't really me. Farmer
stuff, all the time. Cows and barns and
grumpy older guys. It was just always
the same, and no one understood much
about what my concerns were or had
always been. Even as I had left it, or
abandoned, the country itself was still
reeling and most of these Crossroad
hicks hadn't a clue - about change or
Vietnam or any of that stuff. Nixon's
big re-election night took place when
I weas still commuting to Elmira. I on
the car radio, to and from work, 30
minutes maybe, each way. I was far
away from anything, but it didn't feel
right, then things I was hearing. Then
came the flood, (Hurricane Agnes)
and all that stopped. I was, instead,
farming all day. Tractors, cows,
livestock and planting and harvesting.
It all had its own pace and rhythm.
-
Inside the barn, while we milked cows,
Warren had, often enough, the radio on.
Daniel Ellsberg, the Plumbers, Nixon
de-linking the dollar from the price of
gold, everyday some different and dumb
dramas would be crept along by lame
reporters all caught up in the story and
taking their sides. The Pentagon Papers.
Supreme Court rulings. Price Controls.
I never knew if Warren 'got' this stuff, or
just listened. He never spoke about it,
and it was all just background noise.
Farmers always had safes in their homes,
and often big ones. They always had an
economic interest in rates, and farm
subsidies, and he mercantile exchange
prices of commodities and all that.
Small-scale dairy farming, like these
guys did, was always diminishing and
under threat. Now, 50 years later, I can
see more 'remains' of old dairy farms
and the ruins of others, in ten minutes
than I can in an hour of looking for
still-working farms. (I exaggerate
some, but I'm making a point by
broadening the field).
-
Farming - of any sort - is one of
the most heavily-subsidized 'industries'
in this country - lobbyists abound for
everything agricultural - and good ones.
Hearing rooms, negotiations, and all that
are closely controlled and managed by
farming interests and the 'votes' they
can deliver. I daresay that if the average
American realized how much farm
subsidy monies they lay out yearly in
order to sustain the farmer, his equipment,
and the prices of corn, milk, eggs and
butter, etc, let alone cattle and beef
slaughter, they'd revolt. Probably they'd
starve too, but while they revolted
-
So, after a while and before too long,
I was getting back to my old tricks.
Once we discovered Ithaca and Cornell,
it was pretty much all over. It just captured
all our attention : bookstores, university
libraries, departments, agronomy, art
museums, geology, history. It just went
on. Even Elmira College paled by far.
I still attended classes, and kept my
work up but - as I said -my interests
had, first, wavered, and then changed.
Soon I was back to my old ways. First
thing I did - oddly enough - was pull
out my old Kafka books and re-read.
The Trial. America. Metamorphosis.
The Penal Colony. The Hunger Artist.
It was like old home week, and after
two or three months I was back on
my old footing. After too long, we
just upped and moved to Elmira - an
old and dying, small but presentable,
(mostly), industrial town - which
meant back to streets and curbs, light
posts and parking spots. Old houses
all in a row. A downtown, and stores.
It all worked out, and to this day I'm
not sure how I did it. I remember,
after work one day, back at the Elmira
print-shop job, finding this house for
sale on some MLS listings we were
printing, and I left about an hour early
to meet the realtor at the house. A
good inspection of it, and some talk,
and I made the deal. Kathy hadn't
even seen it yet, but she'd said 'do
it.' She didn't want our young son
to have to start schooling with the
farmer bumpkins. I didn't fight that,
though maybe a large part of me
wished we weren't leaving. So, we
ended up in Elmira, one convenient
block in from the college and the
college library and lounge rooms
and art studios. I met a lot of cool
people there, even two famous
enough old beats, living as artist
in residence, and teaching art,
(Gandy Brody), and poet Kenneth
Koch. You can look them up. I
won't go on. It was all to the good.
-
Life gets into its own transitions. A
person either fights it, or rides along.
For me it was all a cool adventure
that I enjoyed. That house in Elmira
turned out perfect : we both bought
new Schwinns, and, with a kid-rider
seat on the back of hers, Kathy and
Jay did all their stuff (little grocery
marts, stores, banks and parks) all
day on the bicycle, while I either
worked, down on 1st Street, or
attended college classes at Elmira,
around the block (I walked it).
There were any number of cool
things around, and by Saturday
we'd be in Ithaca once again.
All good. Occasionally, as in the
farmhouse in Columbia Crossroads,
New Jersey friends would visit. We
had a spare bedroom, and it was
set up nicely as a guest quarters.
NYC friends would come, and they
were usually put off by one thing
or another - the archaic old-town
Americana stillness of the local
fire-houses, people on their porches,
kids and bicycles. I could always
tell when the pressure-valve was
getting too pent-up (they were sorts
who did not enjoyed that 'Americana'
stuff), and I'd take the inveterate
New Yorkers off to Cornell and the
University (upper-town) portions
of Ithaca, which cosmopolitanism
much better suited them. We'd return,
after bookstores, coffee-shops, and
new Johnson Art Museum on campus.
-
I never minded anything, the whole
time. After all the brusqueness I'd
gone through, the transformation
from NYC lower east-side radical
and trouble-maker to farm-boy 250
miles away to - lastly - a half-formed
rural university landsman with a
house and family, held no bother
for me at all. I had local friends,
professor friends at the college, and
I kept writing and prodding on in
my half-frenzied quest for a form
of accomplishment (which never
did occur). Little did I know that
in the next 3 years, my path would
include San Francisco and environs
and a return to Elmira, an aborted
house sale for a supposed move
to the San Francisco area, and -
most oddly and most importantly -
a return again to the rickety home
confines of the very town we'd
grown up in. Woodbridge, NJ.
1978. Nothing to brag about,
but that's how it went.
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