RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,281
(only imagine : 'head shots hanging from poles')
I've always found that the quality of a
town can be found by checking to see
whether or not they have those stupid,
military-service banners on poles in
the town - head shots of local guys
who've served, been injured, or died.
I'm quite serious when I say it's the
most dumb-assed thing I've ever seen,
and definitely reflects the economic
level, and the quality level, of the
town. If I were to tell you, as used
to be told back in the cold-war days,
that the Commies in the Soviet Union,
or in Red China, had patriotic posters
of their militaristic and war-dead heroes
in every town, plaster on poles and on
walls and buildings, you'd merely say,
(or my 6th grade teacher, Joe Ziccardi,
for sure, would say) that it merely
confirmed the miserable, status-quo
quality of Soviet and Chinese militaristic
living. Ha! Joe! It's done here now all
over the place, and the more miserable
the location, the more there are. It's a
fact that Amerika never owns up to its
own reality, but rather just points to
others, erroneously.
-
Princeton versus Clark, in this regard?
No contest. Woodbridge versus (maybe)
Westfield? I'd say no contest, and, in this
regard, I'd put Woodbridge right down
there with Plainfield in its faux worship
of the war-dead. Anyway, how much of
that crap can any one place take? There's
a spot, right in the center of the campus,
the older part, behind Nassau Hall, of
Princeton University, that used to be
called the Cloaca Maxima. It was gone
by 1905, but from 1861(see photo) 'til
then, it was a hold in the ground, huge,
with communal latrines for the students
to use. It was made of marble and stone,
so the student-pranksters would stop
burning it down. That same area now is
a well-revered and central lawn, called,
as I recall, 'Cannon Green', or close by
to it anyway. No one much makes any
mention of the past. That's just how it goes.
-
I'd been going back and forth to Princeton
from about 1967 on, as a diversion. It was
then a males-only school. Douglass College,
in seedy New Brunswick (yes, it probably has
hanging-photos of the military dead). In 1969,
I think it was, they began taking in females.
My friend's girlfriend, Amy, had gotten an
'invitation,' at Douglass, to attend the inaugural
festivities for the arrival of females to Princeton.
My friend Frank (her 'boyfriend') said to Kathy
and me, 'C'mon, let's go! It'll be fun!' So, we went.
Many Douglass girls were also there, as for them
it kind of meant the end of their being the local
dating and sex pool for the Princeton guys. Oh
well. For us? It meant hanging out with rich the
college guys, being scared and in a strange
environment, and having alcohol freely poured.
The 'new' Princeton girls had been set up,
temporarily in some converted dorm/old house
structure (to which probably every guy there
had a key), and that alcohol was surely flowing!
I got to see drunken college guys in action,
trying out their schticks and dicks!
-
It all quieted down, quickly, as far as I ever
heard, and I don't really know how the 1969
crew of both male and female Princetonians
fared. The 'dormitory' situation, with the next
year, was worked out, though I don't recall the
when and how of the coed-dorm stuff.
-
Now, in 2006/7, it was near 40 years later,
and there I was, on that same street (Nassau),
fronting the campus, near PJ's (an eatery we
often frequented), the Woolworth's was gone
now, and in that revamped place I worked for
the next 11 years. None of my old Princeton
tales held any water to the people I was
working with; nor did I. They'd all come
from far different backgrounds, with most
of them already reeking of 'privilege'. It
took me no more than a few days to realize
the real reason I was hired : Not for any
discernable intellectual category but more
just for the sweat and brawn they needed
in that position. I admit, upon first seeing
the basement work area I'd be ruling
over, I was nonplussed and disappointed.
It was bunker-like, dark, and chilly. I
had not yet 'met' my crew, but within a
week I'd already been blasted away. My
Huckleberry Finn like competitor came
breezing in one day, quite breezily. I
wasn't even sure if it was a boy or a girl,
frankly, as it carried characteristics of both;
along with a sly smile and some suspicious
quality I yet couldn't fathom. I soon did,
and it all went south and down the tubes
for me, but I quickly determined to bear
up and withstand it all. It was a 'girls' club,
in some ways, and in manners of 'girls' I
never fathom nor could be included in.
Oh well.
-
It was a struggle, but 'she' turned out to be
cool enough. More adept at me in quick
computer use, a whiz with numbers and
data input, and retention too. There was
no way to fight it, and it was only a few
years later - after a few things of a real
negative quality had surfaced - the female
parts of the ownership of this place did
actually apologize and say she was sorry
that she could have been so wrong and
missed all of what I was saying and
experiencing. Whatever, and that's
that. A few years later, after this, she,
(Huck Finn), having moved to Ohio
with another girl - from the store
and whom I also worked with - asked
me (paid for us, room and lodging too)
- to consider driving out and filming
and photographing their wedding. I said
OK, and Kathy and I went, driving grandly,
and had a real cool few days in Yellow
Springs, and Urbana, Ohio. Yellow Springs
is home to Antioch University. Things do
always level out, and sometimes work out
too, and getting all huffed and fired up
over such matters usually 'ain't worth shit.'
We all are what we each are. I was archaic.
She was cutting edge. I just didn't realize it.
-
That was the days of Trump's election, actually,
and all we kept seeing as were drove west,
across PA, a piece of West Virginia, and then
a good length into Ohio, were huge Trump
signs on huge farm fields and lawns. I said
to myself 'Whoa! Something's going on here.'
Kathy noticed the same thing, (we also had
Sam the dog with us. She did NOT notice).
By the time we arrived home, the election
had taken place and Donald Trump had
been declared winner! I felt as if I'd just
driven through two definitely different
countries. The combination of all these
events, in retrospect, amounted to some
propellant, or secret fueling, to a newer
situation. 2016 was portentous. I'd been
a witness to a complete and veritable new
tableaux of people and events at Princeton.
It all seemed curiously amazing to me, as I
recollected the reverential way, that January
afternoon of 2008, when Obama was being
inaugurated, everyone in the store, all staff,
except me, closed up and walked over to the
Princeton Library, where the inauguration was
being live-broadcast; the reverential suppliance
was amazing. These folks were figuratively bowing
at his feet, already. Real Americans were never
supposed to do that. It was at that point that I
sort of 'realized that these 'Marxist intellectuals'
for whom I was working, with all their liberalisms
and supposed 'free-thinking' were more rattled,
strapped-in, and controlled than any Commie I'd
ever meet. It was all so bogus I wanted to puke.
-
Head-shots hanging from poles?
If you would only imagine!
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