11,787. RUDIMENTS, pt. 698

RUDIMENTS, pt. 698

(possibilities are never endless)

Weatherstripping, insulation,

storm windows, fencing, curbs,

edging, hedges, a cellar entrance,

lawn-mowing, dogwood trees, more

hedges (rear), a huge clothes-pole,

a wooden shed, scrap lumber,

bicycles, a dog house, a black

hairy dog named Rinny (from

Rin-Tin-Tin), a small treehouse,

a swing-set from Dooley's, a

water spigot installed outside

on the back wall, for the long

green hose to reach the large

rear yard with spray water,

and  -  lastly for now  -  a

hand-made-by-Dad, (oversized)

picnic table with attached seats,

and redwood stain. Craziest!

-

Those are some of the enumerated

things I can recall from my first

year in Avenel, or at least in that

'new' house. The change of the

complete environment, and my

being 5, made everything new

anyway, but so many things

stand out. The road was still

rubble, and not macadamed

until 1963, maybe, Until then

it was loose pebble type stones

on a bed of tar that had been

sprayed down. The pebbles sort

of stayed in place; until they

didn't. Then they'd all begin a

slow shift over to the gutters on

each side, and eventually there'd

be town workers with a new

layer of tar, and a re-spreading

of new and older pebbles. It was

noisy, as a road surface too,

because each time a car sped

over it (and they did; nothing 
cooler than seeing a '54 DeSoto 
burning pebbles on a huff run up
to Rt. One) the pebbles would get

all kicked up and spread about as

you'd hear them hitting metal,

and the rest of the underbodies.

A kid's flying football-tackle type

leap onto them, as well, could

really scrape up the bloodied

knees, and tear pants too. That

never stopped anyone  -  none of

my friends were ballet dancers.

-

Of course, there were the mosquito

spray trucks. They came all Summer

long, little jeeps with spray-cannons

at the rear pushing out a huge, heavy,

oily white cloud of, I guess, some

sort of DDT (back then). It was

pungent and probably deadly or

poisonous, though none of us

died nor became asthmatic from

wadding through it, riding behind

the jeep, slamming into the moist

cloud of white, and deep-breathing

our bicycle breaths with the dense

toxin of mosquito-kill. Rachel

Carson to the rescue! (She wrote

'Silent Spring,' an expose of this

death-to-Nature movement the

municipalities and governments

were underway with). [Years later

it dawned on me that we should,

by rights call them 'Covertments'

and not 'Governments' because

they DON'T govern, just secretly

control, and by covert means, never

tell us a thing, nor the truth]. As

it was, these deep-breathing

exercises ended up as great fun,

with the woods down at the end

of the block - on both sides then  -

which led to the junkyards and the

trailer camp. I still have dreams

of that with the most reality ever,

way before it was paved. The

pebble street that I was just

writing about simply stopped

at the last house (Mulligan's

in one side, and Wolchansky's

on the other). After that, and

out to Rt. One, it was just a

muddied up dreckhole, potted

and jagged, with puddles and

deep gouges. The surprise for 
cars and drivers  was that you 
needed to slow down almost 
immediately once the pebbly 
surface ended, or  face then the 
the bumpy consequences on the
car's suspension. In my dreams,

everything is perfectly true to

life as it was then; I can place

and recall the large puddle spots,

and the visualization of cars

and people going slowly 'around'

those deeper pits still rings true.

In fact  -  and odd as any of this

may be  -  it one of those places

that consistently calls me back.

I want to be there. I want to

see again and sense and feel

every hole and rut, each out

of place rock and stone.

-

Possibilities like that are endless,

well, not really  -  more likely

endlessly impossible. I'll never

see that place again; ever.

-

It was Springtime, 1954, when 

I arrived to live at Avenel,

(I never liked that name, by

the way; something about the

juxtaposed 'V' and 'A' never

set right, and neither did I

like the 'e's or the last, ending, 

'l'). And as I think back on it all

now, lots of things from that

time remain in my mind. For

one thing, I can remember the

moving truck and the moving

crew guys, off-loading and

carrying things in. My parents

had ordered in, for them as a

lunch I guess, a large platter

of prepared deli-food, which

was delivered and laid out on

a countertop in the kitchen area.

It was impressive  -  sandwiches,

pickles, salads, drinks, etc., and

I can remember everything stopping

and everyone sitting around to eat.

What's a little kid know of what 

he's seeing? I can remember the

pickles. Impressive? I can also

remember with awe the mounds

and piles of dirt and rubble to the

rear of the houses  -  they'd not yet

been grated, re-soiled, leveled, or

even cleared and cleaned rightly.

It was borderline, somehow,

between a strange moonscape

(unknown actually, then) and a

bomb-site still wrecked. And

then, even a bigger surprise, in

fact a surprise two-deep, behind

all that were railroad tracks, and

with great, heaving engines that

at first billowed more clouds of

smoke, which we'd chase until

they dispersed, and the particulate

matter that came down too. Until

about 1958 or '9, there were

complaints and wails from parents

and adults  - claims that their car

finished were being ruined, pitted,

pockmarked and more, from whatever

was landing on them. It was true;

each passing train laid down a

great broil of smoke and cinder.

And the surprise behind even that

was  -  across the tracks  -  an actual,

working farm. The prison farm!

There were tractors, corn crops,

animals, paths, rows of crop walks

and plowing paths, harvesting sites,

and even a rail siding at which feed

and supply cars were uncoupled and

left. One Easter vacation week, I

well remember Jim Yacullo and 

myself breaking into a boxcar or

two (snapping the security tags),

and entering cars fill with 50 or

100 pound bags of flour, mash,

oats and rice. We managed, with

our pen-knives and some stealth,

to slit open a hundred or so sacks,

grain bags, and canvas, and just

watch them all pour out onto

the ground and box-car spaces.

Crime of the century, I guess,

but we never got caught.

11,786. PAST THINGS, THRIVING STILL

PAST THINGS, THRIVING STILL

There's a car in the driveway

of somebody new. I didn't put

it there and it wasn't for you.

So, forgive the lapse in judgement,

and if I ask who? All I can see

now anyway are shadows.

-

I once had intentions of remaking

the world  -  shithouse to shtetl, my

new flag unfurled. I went off with

a swagger and carrying a sword.

It all came to nothing. It's over.

-

My lord!

11,785. RUDIMENTS, pt. 697

RUDIMENTS, pt. 697

(handmaidens and louses)

The first words of Richard

Nixon's autobiography are:

'I was born in a house my 

father built.' There probably

aren't too many Nixon fans, 

and that's understandable.

In fact though, I wonder

how many people there are

who actually even know the 

name. No matter; for the lame

they make walkers. That opening

sentence always hit me good;

it has an understated, almost, 

elegance of the sort little found

these days. Most people would

end up saying, if they say

anything, 'I was born in a

local hospital and taken home

to one of the development

homes all in a row and pretty

much alike alike, built by the

'Founders Acres Land Mill

Group,' an investment-builder

firm.' Something like that  -  

and whatever it would be would

be a far cry from the home your

father built. Everything's changed.

-

I don't even know what that would

feel like  -  to be able to say that

phrase and have it possess a

meaning for me, for anyone.

Any bit of that older Americana 

stuff has been sent away. We've 

fought wars, as a nation, with

some form of solidarity, to defend 

such ideals. Intrinsic ideas, as they

are, to the dedicated premises of

the Nation's defining: work, place,

and individual responsibility, and

at the same time we've lost it all.

I said what I wanted to say about

that in the previous chapter, and

all I'll do here is add this coda:

We've diluted and given away all

of that. Because it was impossible.

Wave after wave of ethnic and

problem group has swarmed in.

If there had even been anything

solid as a basic underpinning to

the land (I guess the 'people'

would have been the original 

WASP Scots/English who ended

up as the Tidewater and Tennessee

kind of mountain folk and hillbilly

sorts still in all those uplands and

out through the Ozarks and all).

That, and the Connecticut WASPY

blue-blood types, are probably 

the real core of what founded 

the land. Except they bring with

them now all sorts of racial problems 

and attitudes of real trouble these

days. As for myself, I can't talk

because I was never any part of

that arrival crowd. Ever. I've got

no roots anywhere  -  being as

Unearthly as I am  - and lay no

claim to any of that. With my own

'forebears' and since, I guess, what

has come into this country is wave

after wave of debris. Basic junk.

Like a virus attacking a hard-drive

brain. People give more attention

to protecting their computers from

viruses than does anyone any longer

do the same about what washes up or

creeps in to these shores and borders.

-

The world, in that sense, is pretty

much over, and all the defining

characteristics of it can now just

be called the 'bad past.' The two

largest, devious, and troublesome

things right now are China and 

Russia; and no one wishes to

give them any attention, nor 

counter their moves. We, on the

other hand, as a country, are

dead meat  - our own horde of

whiners and complainers is

dismantling us from within.

The current swarms of energetic

refugees holding supposed claim

to all this are the worst. And they

have all the obsequious deviants

working for them, from within

here. It's over, Ken and Jane 

and Bob and Ted and Alice.

Your new neighbors' names are

probably, on one side, the

Miranda-Patels, and on the

other, the Ming-Petrovs.

-

What I'm saying is that old solid

America did use to have a form,

a recognizable shape, that's been

whittled away, chipped down and

smoothed; most resembling, I'd 

suppose, the United States of

Dildo, but I don't know how

good that would look on maps.

-

My own father, a rugged landslide

of not much at all, had a massive

pride in is ethnicity. A pride I

never understood. As it went, he

never even was really sure about

where he originated and with 

whom. Just goes to show. My

father might have had 'some'

Italian in his blood, but I always

swore him to Albania, jut across 

the water down in that bottom

section. Those blue-eyed sea bums

running back and forth between

Bari and Tirana. That's my blood.

Probably, if my father could have,

he would have loved to have built his

own house  -  and God the Builder,

I hope, would have extended all 

the help in the world, or out of it,

because by all other design categories

my father's sense of proportion and

construction was so off-the-wall

wrong that the entire thing would

have been leaning, and monster-sized

to boot. Everything my father ever

built  -  probably including dreams

and aspirations  -  was too big for the

space it was going to. You should'a

seen  -  shelves, closets, brackets,

and such.

-

If the Devil ever had a handmaiden,

and I suppose the Devil did, it would

have been, here, in this country, the

haggard wife of Uncle Sam. Always

wanting more and better, pushing old

Sam along, even when Sam was nasty

and bored and tired and achy. Maybe

the word I seek is 'harradin.' I'm not

sure. But there's some essential quality

that's wrecked this place, and it's

still running hot and heavy, like a

Henry Ford Thomas Edison Alexander

Graham Bell Robert Fulton P. T.

Barnum, Bill gates, Elon Musk

Halloween critter. There's probably,

and better for my sake, thirty female

names I should put there too, but I ain't.

I was born as the louse my father built?

11,784. NEEDLEPOINT LAPIERRE

NEEDLEPOINT LAPIERRE

The guy was a dungeon, and I hoped

he'd never come over to me and start

talking like that. I could whomp him

like Muhammed Ali. And I would, too.

Time and circumstance and want had

conspired to  give me now once a

forceful set of what they call cojones

down at the gym. They talk big there

because there aren't any ladies around.

Then when their wives come in,

they all shut up.

11,783. AMERICAN FILM STUDIOS

AMERICAN FILM STUDIOS

I'd signed up just the other day, and 

they gave me two thousand dollars

for doing so. Then I walked to the 

curtained lounge where they served

their lunches and coffees and sat me

down. I was part of the big-deal now.

A film star in my on little right. They

told me I should shine; the fat guy said

if I was a turtle it was time to take off

my shell. What? I wondered if that was

the manner in which they always spoke.

It's not the case, I thought I'd hope.

11,782. FIVE CARDS OUT OF THE BOX

FIVE CARDS OUT OF THE BOX

I knew you when a straight-edge

wasn't straight and the air-tight

container wasn't yet air-tight. This

much is for sure, and ain't that right!

My magnificent soliloquies, which

I'd practiced for so long, came across

OK, but yet when I got to you, I could

not speak and just stood there gaping.

There was a line at your register, while

other people waited : discount cards

and gift cards, Jeez, they take forever.

Or was that perhaps some new kind 

of time-wand you were handling?

I was sure I did see something I'd

not seen before. Scanner bars and

ID tags from another, newer law.

11,781. RUDIMENTS, pt. 696

RUDIMENTS, pt. 696

(zombies)

There was never much of a

difference between 'doing'

and 'not doing' once I got

involved, almost foolishly,

with the workaday world. In

whatever I was doing, it was

the same as not doing. The

things I had to start to do made

no sense to me at all. Yes, and

believe me, I tried. Working

made no claim on me; I never

could keep my mind on it,

disliked it, could never figure

out why people would do it

for 'money' or pay. I found

no value in it  -  not in the

dealings with others; not in

the lame use of language and

instructional words (a worse

use of verbiage, I've never seen,

except perhaps in politics).

Concepts, evasions, misrepresenting

things, different ends from the

originated intentions  -  and all

that for the search of a few measly

bucks to make a salary. The

business world hated me, and I

hated it. Yet, there I was, thrown

like a lamb to the large-mawed

lion staring me down. The most

perfect parallel to the 'business'

of the business world was the

very misuse of the world right

around me. As I said previously,

the old buildings were falling away,

construction and new places were

covering up the old. Right there.

I mentioned already the Blue Bird

Inn, which was right across the

road. There was also, starting

from the near corner, Frystock

Motors  -  which was an old-line

car dealership; never very large

or vibrant, but it was in place

for many years, with its own

used-car lot across the street too;

now a bank, 'Investors Savings'

or something. Frystock had a

number of iterations over the year.

Nash, Rambler, American Motors,

Mitsubishi, Renault, and finally

Jeep, which was their line when

it all ended. That location, and

the building once next to it, is

now a waste-of-space Walgreens.

When those 'drugstore' chains

began spreading all around, like

Walgreen's, CVS, Rite Aid,

Eckhardt's, and such, it was by

then already apparent, and too

late. The 'dependency' industry

had taken over. The medical

industry and the pharmaceutical

industry ('Big Pharma') had

achieved their cheesy ends  -

having most of America hooked

on prescription medicines, toxic

lab-chemical-cares and palliatives

of all sorts. It's only gotten worse

now. When you reach the point of

'medical' as the only growth

industry in a country, you know

it's bad. First off, all they do is

throw up junk buildings  -   the

most spare and skeletal structures

holding nothing but open space

in a sort of idle, warehouse, walk

through format. They start out strong,

and over time their selections and

inventories begin dwindling, as

they carry fewer and fewer items.

Go inside a Walgreen's someday, and

just gaze around : a bunch of crap

metal shelves, candy, make-up rows,

toothpaste, school supplies, even

remaindered books at bargain bins,

and more. They can't even successfully

keep a themed inventory of what

they're 'about'. Instead, if they can

sell you anything at all, they will,

in a smaller and smaller form of

choice (to lower their overhead).

The game is profit, and if they can

convince you that you're ill, or in

need of some medicine, their local

pharmacy counter  -  way at the

rear of the store  -  will take you

over; and you have to wade through

their diminished rows of other

things to get to it. That, my friends,

is not living, and neither is it

caring for the land or place that

you churn up and destroy to make

your own junk palace, in addition

to all the others too. And these

places, by those old names I've

already listed, did it over and over,

and usually at near corners to each

other, in a hideous redundancy to

chase a cheap profit. Do that

crud enough times and you've

got yourself a St. Georges Avenue

of the sort that runs right through

here for about 6 or 7 towns along

the way; repeated, over and over,

the same wasteful formula.

-

At some internal level I felt I'd

betrayed myself, and I realized

it, and it was painful. Yet, there

was nothing else, or little else,

I could do   -  family, and my

home-owning, had boxed me

into a space I couldn't leave. I

was ready to do my duty, figuring,

or hoping, that somewhere down

the line my chance or exposure

would occur. Fat chance. Nice try.

That's when people get worn down,

burned out, locked in, and ruined.

When you're in the throes of

something, it's difficult to think

clearly, and many options are

just missed, or, actually avoided.

When people begin talking about

the treasure that life is, I think

most of that is a pure idealism at

work. Life is a hard slog, with

many things that just fall by the

wayside. Unfortunately, the way

we've situated society, we've 

allowed economics and some 

sick delusion of money to take 

it over, to rule it and all that we 

do. What that does is give a false 

pre-eminence to the station you're 

born into  -  what resources you

have or get, the family you're in.

I had nothing, and that was my 

box. You can be the wisest, 

smartest, most ingenious person 

in the world (I'm not), yet

sometimes  -  not always, but 

sometimes  - that same box 

remains sealed and hides you

within it, or keeps you hid 

anyway. It's like a jogger : have 

you ever thought, whatever are 

they running to? Or are they

just tediously running 'away' 

from something and needlessly

'into' something else again? All 

the while, going nowhere, they

do the same thing every day.

-

I'd see all this, and still do, most

everywhere I went, and it was 

all betrayal to me,  -  a world

ruined, waters turned brown, 

dead men in suits and ties, the

endless wrangle for lucre  -  and 

it is so even moreso now. I'm 

sorry, but I'm a thinking man.

I may be a Neanderthal in my

historic, original outlook, but 

when I see and saw the descending 

scale of all around me, I could 

only wince, draw back in, fester 

my anger, and removed myself 

from the fearsome lot of the

Humankind around me. It's still 

like that now. If it were legal, I'd 

gladly act the Jack the Ripper role, 

for both sexes. Historicism for me 

had always meant  a stern sense of 

self-reliant activity, a resourcefulness 

from within, based upon a willingness 

to learn, pick up ideas, and improve 

from within as well. Not with the 

sickening sense of dependency

and entitlement I see so much 

of today. I owe you nothing. 

I take from you less. Not only are 

we, and have we been, underway 

with the destruction and ruination 

of land and property, but we've,

as well, taken the minds of children

and blustered them with negative

fantasies and stanchions of passivity

upon which to tie and abandon their

egos. Parents now take pride in

growing up zombies.