RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,375
(where am I going, where have I been? pt. 6)
I never held that whipping against
anyone; in fact I couldn't have cared
less. There are certain invariable
ways NOT to get into a young guy's
head with some kind of lesson -
one of which is NOT to make a big
deal over a simple issue. It becomes
an over-played joke, and that joke
is on them, not you. The fact that a
6-foot religious guy had to resort to
such means over a piddling infraction
just weakened him. Not me.
-
The seminary was also a farm, with
farmland around it. No big-deal
agribusiness kind of stuff, just a few
open fields. Campbell Soup Company
was in Camden - maybe 20 miles
away - and one or two years 'we', or
the seminary - I had nothing to do with
it - leased two fields to them for peppers.
It was pretty cool. I watched the pepper
plants mature much of that season, and
when they had ripened for the season,
in the evenings, thought nothing of
walking along a row and picking a
green pepper to eat like an apple. They
were fresh, and wet, and not bad at all.
What was the coolest thing was this:
In many respects the 1963 seminary
was old-line Southern. The cook-staff,
and their boss, the real 'Cook' had a
Spanish style, large, home in which
they lived: nice architecture, and
even a Spanish-style red tile roof.
The Chief Cook was some interesting,
swarthy-type, maybe Cuban, and his
staff was black. All sorts of blacks,
thin, big, short, heavy. Some male,
some female. Our dining fare was
all Southern food, chitlins, scrapple,
maple syrup on everything, corn-pone
and corn muffin stuff, flapjacks, and
more, all southern stuff. Each table
had a large, chrome metal coffee pot,
and we binged on coffee. I used to
think of that as strange, wiring up
already-wired kids by mainlining
them, coffee - but maybe that's
how they got us to 10pm study
halls (for whippings).
-
The kitchen staff, all of it, was behind
us as we dined, in the cooking area - the
clanging of big pots, and milk machines
clean up carts. We never consciously left
a mess, but I guess it was a mess left
behind no matter. The Chef's name was,
I think, Sal - greased up 1950's Cuban
hair, a cool hipster stance, and he too
smoked a lot. Smoking was pretty
prevalent back then, and it was seen
everywhere.
-
Those pepper fields once again, they
were a mainstay of my fantasy-world.
The soup company would send black
(just like some weird southern-black
field hands, need I say 2-dollar an
hour wage slaves?), workers on a
flat bed truck They'd come riding in in
the morning, maybe 10 of them, on the
back of the truck, with all their bushels
and picking baskets, and spend their
good portion of the day walking the
fields with sacks, picking peppers.
The truck would slowly move
along with them, and they'd load it
up, leaving an area for themselves
on a return trip, or some other farm
truck would come. I loved it. There
was laughter and talk, and singing,
and call-and-answer songs and
entreaties sounding across the fields.
Bandanas and rags about their
sometimes sweaty foreheads. One
day I was mesmerized by one of the
field girls - she had on a faint linen
work-dress sort of thing, and in the
sunlit it shone. Her body was framed
and outlined by light. I watched her
for the longest time, smitten with my
own boy-lust.
-
All those priests and brothers I've
been mentioning were not all the same.
Two of them, older men by far, were
in fact quite reclusive and seldom seen
One of them, Brother Isadore, ran the
farm and the barn. It was a regular,
large-format American-style barn, with
some cows and the usual assortment
of farm animals. He never spoke much
at all, was very short-of-stature, perhaps
5-feet, and always wore the same khaki
farms clothes though he was one of the
staff-religious-personnel. He was the
'camp-farmer' as it was. A big, flowing
gray beard he had, as well. The other
'Brother' was Brother Cornelius. If I saw
them side by side right now, other than
their height difference, I'd be hard to
tell them one from the other. The word
'taciturn' comes to mind to describe their
'maybe' personalities. Somehow, and I
forget how, I got to know them both.
There were 8 or 9 pigs, good sized
porkers, the farm kept also. They
were about a half-mile back, along a
sandy path lined with fir trees (pine
barrens here, remember), in a nicely
fenced 'pig-sty' and I somehow got
the evening job, one nice Spring, of
carting the food scrapes from the school
refectory to the pig-sty. Sometimes I
had another guy with me. After the 5pm
dinner, we'd get an hour and a half of
free time - some guys did sports - there
were tennis courts, pole-vaulting, baseball
and softball games, and in the gymnasium,
a nice basketball court, full sized and well
equipped, showers and sports-lockers too.
And of course the ever-present vending
machines. Each guy, or little groups, did
what they wanted, but you had to come
back by 7, properly showered, not sweated
up, and again rightly dressed like any Mr.
Bixby from the sales office, to finish out
the night in that study-hall session until
10pm, in the same classrooms we'd use
all day. Some guys were always tired and
beat, others always raring to go, no matter
what sport they had just played. It was that
period of time when I'd push the slops cart
to the pig-sty field. The porkers would come
running and snorting to the trough. I'd be
just outside the opening in the fence, where
I'd flip the wheel cart over and up-end it
into their feeding trough. There was some
splash, but I mostly always stayed clear.
It was fun to watch them gorge themselves,
basically on OUR leftovers, plate scrapings,
trimming and kitchen scrap. After a while
they got to know me ! and appreciate my
deliverings of their food. At least someone
was on my good side.
-
Then there was the evening and night study
hall. I guess it was meant to be the equivalent
of homework time, if you were at home. This
was mostly intense, and most often Latin
and History. Those were the two biggest
subjects, and English of course. With papers
due, lessons to be learned, and facts and
dates memorized. It was all, in the end,
a good education, though a bit skimpy
here and there. The emphasis towards
mathematics, algebra, arithmetic, etc., was
very weak. As were the Sciences, though
there was a Biology class, with Lab. Also, an
outside, secular, layman, music teacher
came in once a week, as I recall, and we
learned 'music', as it was simply termed.
Our 'Reading was controlled. You could get
in some good trouble if found reading
something outside of code. I remember,
about 1964, a big hoo-hah going on
because someone had been found out
reading 'The Catcher In the Rye.' It had
about a 20 word, non-commital hooker
scene in it, and noses got bent.
Idiots.
-
I mentioned Leo Benjamin, in the first
chapter of this section of seminary postings.
He never came back after the Summer break
of the first year. (We were given some Summertime
off, to go home. Some guys just stayed, too distant
was home, or they just didn't want to (there were
a fair share of unhappy home lives being fled). I
always went the 80 miles back home, usually taking
a bus to New Brunswick, for about 4 dollars, where
my father would pick me up. And another trip
back, in a few weeks or a month. Leo, I missed. His
absence was really noted, leaving a gap. I never
heard from him again. He and I used to walk
the sandy paths that wove all through the pine
barrens, and we'd talk about things.
-
Leo claimed to be - in his 'Maine' way,
already sexually experienced, with girls. It
was weird for me, because he'd begin his
spiels about sex, and I'd be already lost.
But I learned a lot, I guess, that was stored
for later use (Ha!). It was also weird, since
I thought that was the last place sexual matters
would be talked about (NO, we had no Health or
Hygiene class). All I learned, I learned on
the fly. Hey! Good joke!
-
I'll close here, for now, with one last Leo story.
I don't know how he learned this information,
but out in the woods one day he turned and asked
if I wanted to see the stash of pornography kept
by the upperclassmen - who, he said, came out
to the woods to 'jerk off' over them. (You had to
hear it with his Maine accent. 'Jerk Off' was actually
funny). Knowing little, I shrugged and said 'Sure',
not knowing what to expect and worrying about
'what if they were there, doing that?' I don't
know how he did it, but he got us to the low,
thickly-tree'd section, bent down, moved a
pile of twigs, and then moved a pallet that was
there on the ground, shoved aside some dirt, and,
Voila! (he knew Maine French) bent down and
came back up with a metal, magazine-sized box,
and in it were 15 or so porno mags! It was amazing,
and I've never forgotten that scene.
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