RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,297
(a one of a time place)
I can usually tell, right off, by the
voice, what sort of person anyone
is. I think that any Human sensibility
is set up for that - whether it's an
ancient tribal trait, or an environmental
reaction going back to when people
used to be itinerants, wandering the
plains; self-preservation; safety.
Come to think of it, it's still like
that, in the manner of groups liking
others of their same ilk. The strange
nearly ignorant prattle of the lower
classes, romping through their
discontents over absolutely stupid
issues and demands.
-
The cool thing about Tompkins Square
Park was that, as a sort-of ground zero
landing area for the Post-War sorrows,
the place was filled with silence. A numbing
silence of sadness and hurt, but a sadness
nonetheless. Mostly, it seemed to be Jews,
from Kiev-Rus (that was once a large
Kingdom within old Russia, based in
Kiev - a sort of empire with an empire,
of Jewish pale and settlements. Devastated
by 1950, for sure. Ukrainians and Poles,
as well, suffered the same fates of bad
memories and lost places. They all took
to the benches as if glued in place.
There was once a 1980's maybe, Jewish
comedy and or film star, named Gene
Wilder. He made free use of two
characters of his own making - 'Mr.
and Mrs. Bialystok.' Now, Bialystock
had ben a real place, in Poland or some
eastern Euro place, and it was home to
many Jews. On the lower eastside NYC
there was even a Bialystok Synagogue.
Only a Jew, withering from the same
sufferings, would be able to get away,
as Wilder did, with the ridicule and the
at the same time, they managed to work
out a way where only THEY could
laugh at themselves. Therapeutic?
-
It's funny, but now, nearly 60 years
later, I live in and at the fringe areas
of the old Borscht Belt / Catskill
camp and resort zones which, through
the 1940's and 1950's [and before],
postwar-recovery world, were steadily
thriving and filled with streams of
Jewish vacationers, Summer-residents,
and comedy and entertainment clubs.
One after the other, there were racetracks,
lakes, boating, resorts, etc., and very
many 'big-name' entertainers earned
their stripes while performing and
coming up through these miserable
ranks of people, just and only-barely,
learning to smile again. It's pretty
much (and thankfully) nothing but
ruins - unfiltered ruins, crumbling
and falling down, unused and all
abandoned. It kind of has to be seen
to be believed, for there are no actual
'human' words to encompass what must,
in some cosmic and essential way, still
be a vast Human sadness. It seems as
if everything 'gave out' here about the
same time as did the 1970's. Air-travel
and much finer vacations replaced the
sedate simplicity of gorging on food
and laughing at sit-down ethnic comics.
It seems to take about 35 years for a
large, crazy, house to crumble; and
there are, hereabouts, plenty of them.
Roofs and porches seem to same and
drop first; then stairways and roof
corners. The oddball little access-drives
and/or roads and paths get grown over
to a sometimes treachery. Low-cars
beware! Bottoms crumble!!
-
Looked at one way, any large, crumbling,
old boarding house or family house can
be viewed as a sad scene - though it
doesn't necessarily have to be. I often
just gaze and imagine the family or all
the family members who much have
come up though that house, the
adventures and memories the house
harbors, the ways and the means of how
it slowly started its long demise. Where
have those people gone? Are family
members still extant who could tell of
or share there stories and adventure?
Art there still deeds and taxes on record
for such places? [As I write this, an
eagle is soaring overhead, swooping
and sailing the wind over the lake and
pond nearby I wish I could see that
view as well. It's all perspective].
-
It's all cumulative. As much as is an
electric bill, one switched-on light
after another adding up to a monthly
broad-sweep figure. Memory, presence,
and place are like that too. They build
and accumulate and eventually amass
into an over-riding presence with which
one can make up their character. It's kind
of crazy, sure, but look at all those mostly
frivolous home-town sites online, 'If you
grew up in Buttermilk Falls, do you
remember.....? It's a flag of sorts, a marker,
though now mostly affiliated with the
frivolous, the useless, and the gone.
Yet, people never stop, and in fact, they
actually avoid the samenesses of all
these memories.
-
I don't know at what point it all comes
together as one party or place - the
memories, nonetheless, remain. For
myself, some sort of dumb luck had
a lot to do with it. I hit the town just
at the moment (and place) when all
these things were coalesced into one
visible and identifiable attribute to
what that 'old' NY version right then
meant. It was a one of a time place.
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