16,362. RUDIMENTS, pt.1.303

 RUDIMENTS, pt.1,303 

(the shakedown was in the kitchen)

I've long lived without certain things; 

items I've always disliked and avoided.

'Sweats', for example. Those loose, saggy

sack-pants that so many like to stay in, for

days at a time. Pretty gross, to me. Shorts

too. In my adult life, I've never worn shorts,

and won't. I don't like the feel of them, and

that Etonian, British boys-school thing that

goes with them, was never me. Anyway, 

back when, riding a motorcycle in shorts

just seemed a terrible travesty. 

-

I co-existed with lots of things I disliked:

schools, church, various cares and palliatives.

TV. Some music, and all those short-end of

life things that can really ruin a day. Most of 

my life was spent 'undirected'  -  I pretty

much roamed, at will, and came and went

as I chose. It was funny, in its way, because

after a few years of seminary training and

discipline, I took off like my own Huck Finn,

once all of those rigors were removed. 

Procedures and process, be damned.

- 

Good or bad, I don't really know. At home, 

my parents seemed more confused, or feared, 

of me, than anything else. Nothing was ever

instilled; advice was nil. It was a busy family,

and I just stayed away and then was gone

(again); given nothing, and taking nothing.

It was an empty, quiet, life, which I liked, and

my rigors of self-training and book-learning,

after all that had gone before, were gracious 

to me, and important to me too.

-

Nothing held much meaning to me;

holidays and celebrations without any merit.

I ignored them all  -  if I wasn't laughing

in someone's face over their 4th of July

ridicule, I was throwing a firecracker

on my way out. Demon-trouble lookalike,

but I knew my ways.

-

After a while it all appeared simple; the

family dichotomy was was : Father represented

brute force, anger. Mother represented a

soft, feminine (in those days) passivity

and some sort of drag-line by which she

has pulled along by kids, family, stove and

home. 'Too much confusion; I couldn't

get no relief'  -  to paraphrase.

-

I found out, after some time, that things

that don't start out correctly never end

correctly either - call it Destiny; call it

Fate. Your choice.