RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,280
(Princeton/Labyrinth, pt. TWO)
One of my friends, later on in
Princeton - a guy I'd see each
morning as we passed along -
used to tell me about how his
grandfather, in Princeton, had
been one of the carpentry and
construction crew that built
the Princeton University Library.
It was all local stone, quarried
nearby. In all, there were a few
quarries in and around Princeton,
and there are still one or two with
their big, gaping holes in the ground
and their fenced off area and truck
inclines, out of which the huge and
heavy dump trucks still roll each
day, mostly using old Rt. 27, or
something stupidly called 'Promenade'
Boulevard, which cuts over to cross
Route One, through a large area of
sterile condos. It was nice to be able
to connect a present and local story
to the activities of old, because many
of these University buildings seemed
so massive and old that it was hard to
visualize the steam and shovel days
of a hundred years back cutting and
transporting and erecting things like
this. His grandfather was buried in
the Catholic Cemetary behind a church
there, along Nassau Street; the same
cemetery where in Nobel Prize winner
John Nash, and his wife, are buried.
In high contrast, they were both killed
after being splattered all over the NJ
Turnpike, about 2015 or so, as they
were returning to Princeton from some
other place they'd been for a speech or
an award, as their taxi was involved in
a spectacular Turnpike crash with a truck,
and they were ejected and went flying
from the taxi. I used to see John riding
the little train from Princeton to Princeton
Junction, where he and his wife lived.
He was a nice man, and we'd occasionally
have a chat.
-
If you take a moment and think about
'space' (not 'outer' space, I mean this
space, represented by the world), your
mind can flip around and do somersaults
trying to realize, at one and the same time,
space's fixedness and, at the same time,
fluidity. It can be changed in an instant,
and it's done all the time. Even though,
by rule and dimensions, space is 'fixed
in place,' the Human animal, in one of its
most primal urges, has learned, by means
of 'engineering' and explosives, as well,
to pretty much alter that space at will.
We sort of live with all that tucked away
in our brains as the image of a solid life,
yet, as these rocks and quarries foretell,
our powers of tools and intent alter all
things at will.
-
I made that trip, daily, to Millwood for
about 3 months. I remember the outside
lunches and the early morning times when
I'd arrive early and sit, instead, at one or
the other of the little cafes and coffee spots
along the way, to use up time. It was a kind
of nice, low-country landscape, but the thing
that used to bug me were all the tree-cutting
trucks and units going by, even on the twisty
and back roads. Boom trucks, with their
high, extension sections for the treetops,
the chipper wagons being towed behind, etc.
They always had stupid names too, like
'Busy Beaver Tree Service' and stuff like
that. Everything, it seems, has to be of a
childish nature, like the beaver reference.
These guys would stop for coffee (and the
inevitable donut or whatever), and indulge,
after putting about 14 pounds of sugar in
their coffees as well. All tanked up and
nowhere to go, as it were. They had their
8 hours of tree-slaughter ahead of them.
I began to view them as nothing more
than marginally employed Nature terrorists,
ripping, cutting, and shredding whatever was
in their way so that some nitwit could have
their open land for their estate, home, or
still another sterile corporate-shit plaza.
Life goes on, I guess, even when it doesn't.
-
Of course, celebrating Nature (Earth Day),
local history, (narrated by Authority with
a smile), and local-fiefdom parades, would
also bring the same people out. When you
stop to think about it, every place started out
as some wild outpost in the midst of little.
The Amer-Indians, our very own class of
aborigines and original residents, at least
had a system/non-system of maintaining
and supervising their living within the lands
and areas they softly inhabited respecting
all those stones, streams and mountains we
so cheerily piss upon. All that we 'forget' now
merely gets turned into pro-System and
status-quo propaganda, so why bother?
Go visit history? It's a joke. Rather
just live in the present rightly enough.
-
Pleasantville (quaint name) and Chappaqua,
and, yes, even Millwood shared much of the
same space - old lands, ripe with old Indian
lore, and with all those imaginings endlessly
ignored. For a profit of, say, 70 cents a book,
I was to be newly-employed peddling vats
of books that this Great Jones guy bought by
the unknown skid-load, called a 'Gaylord' in
the book industry, and then re-defined and
re-labeled as a turn-able commerce. With no
real effort except a certain form of clerkship
and salesmanship on this part, his gimmick
had been found, enough to last a lifetime!
-
Back in Princeton, the new store was coming
along, close enough to a completion anyway
that we were then relocated to a Princeton
University workspace, doing the same thing
but in the more final stages. As the physical
store (that old 'bricks and mortar' stage that
was a current phrase back then as Internet
Commerce was just getting started) came
close to completion, the next task was to be
the finalization and shipping to Princeton
of the 16 million 427 books we'd just already
handled [facetious number]. The store needed
the shelving yet put in place, the basement and
lower level receiving areas needed yet to be
installed for coursebooks, and all of the
University books and materials that would
be coming in. We were finally given a Boro
of Princeton Certificate of Occupancy, and
all the work started. Our tech guy, a
wonderful fellow named Jon, stayed
with us through all of this, fine-tuning
the myriad computer connections, powers,
and links needed. To me it all seemed
endless, especially Jon's part - the tech
stuff was as foreign to me as surfing is to
an elephant. People came and went, hiring
and staffing was going on, here and there
were small, group-meetings and chats of
people soon to be close-quartered and
working together. Once more, I was out
of my element, and aware of it. This was
most certainly not a Clark, NJ Barnes &
Noble environment. Even lunch would take
these people 20 minutes of deliberation and
cross-consultation to be decided upon. The
local eateries were both slipshod and just
as expensive. The slum-spot was some
University sub or hoagie shop frequented
mostly by the local roustabouts, visitors,
or alcohol, late night, early-morning foragers
(students) from the University, mostly lost
in study-space and whacked out of their
brains to boot. It was called, by 'official'
title, 'Hoagie Haven.' The threat there was
slipping in the oil and grease on the ground
out front where the benches were. Next to
Hoagie Haven, one of the people I was with
had something to do with one of those
church-connected rehab and detox houses.
Bethany House, or something like that.
He was pretty cool, and for a short time I
got to know him. Black guy, with some
interesting points of view. And then he was
gone. I never found out what happened to
him. The thing about Princeton, often left
unsaid, was its historical racism. A black,
servant class originally had inhabited the
Witherspoon' section, down below and
behind the historic Princeton Cemetery.
There were some remnants of it left; old
Baptist and Zion churches, tiny little white
clapboard structures left standing. Here and
there rows of occasional rooming houses
or small apts., in a row. Back in the old days,
Princeton University, during the days of, say,
Woodrow Wilson's tenancy here, was often
called the 'Northernmost Southern University.'
Without scratching too deeply, that meant
slaves, and slavery, servants and indenture.
Got that, OK?
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