RUDIMENTS 608.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 608

(camptown races, doo dah, doo dah)

I might have tried twenty

different things, but I kept

getting stuck on one. The

one that I stayed with was

mostly in line with George

Washington's farewell

address : 'Keep away from

foreign entanglements.' It

was as good as anything

else I'd ever heard.

-

And up there, it sure was

easy - seeing as how I'd

blown in from another land

entirely : The hide-bound

attainment of the isle of the

Manhattoes. Where everyone

wanted a piece of you, or at

least wished to sleep with you.

I'd never been exposed to that

before (I was really a sheltered

soul) and found it exhilarating

to see in action. Everyone in

NY was always underway with

something - an angle, a copious

alliance to some underhanded

deal or connection. Besides

envelopes of counterfeit

hundreds, I'd been asked to

run guns, and steal groceries

to work in a theft/delivery

ring, which was more really

just a way to get inside people's

apartments and spec out the

spaces and entries. In both

those last cases, I declined,

but I did run hundreds for a

trip or three until I got warned

off by someone else higher in

the ring. I'll relate the story

later.

-

I never knew better which

was the more 'real' American

simplicity of which we were

supposed to be descended

and allied. The raw, push-push

squib of the New York City

business and pressure type,

or the faraway and hands-off

singular individuality of those

northeastern PA mountain

dwellers. They both had and

held bedrock values, but they

were so adamantly different

too; both the people and the

values espoused. What

bothered me more than a

little at first was that I could

see myself favoring both.

Or either. Or one, and the

other too. That left me

nowhere; was I supposed

to just jettison one at the

expense of the other? That

seemed too absolute, and

too much like the either/or

of religion.

-

The great Free-Soiler David

Wilmot was from, and was

celebrated in, Towanda. Not

much else ever came out of

or happened in Towanda, yet

it had an interesting visual

attraction. It was, otherwise,

just a sleepy, old burg out

along Rt. 6. I got interested,

by it, in Wilmot, abolition,

the slavery issue as it played

out through these hills, the

factions and the sides during

the Civil War. The Free Soilers

were all about Missouri, and

keeping things unfettered (yes,

including people). There was

another guy too, Redpath or

Redfern, I forget, who was

actually from Missouri and

heavily involved with the

Free Soil movement. So I

often imagined him there,

strolling through Towanda

and past some of those grand,

old homes. The Athens Institute

was not far off either - that

was a music school run by the

brother of Stephen Foster, who

also had a presence all over

these hills. Foster wrote many

of his songs and tunes right

there, and was celebrated along

the roadways with signs and

plaques. Camptown Races was

the most famous of all these,

with a big sign and location of

the old racetrack, etc., along

the high rocks of Wyalusing.

Between these three guys, and

with Twain in Elmira and all

the rest, I felt pretty rich. What

I felt was - sort of in the air -

a strain of all this past that was

still running around. But, like

the New York City aspect of

that too, that old, less fevered

and more eerie and odd OLD

America was gone. Long gone.

It had been killed off somewhere

between the Sullivan Expedition

of murdering all those hundreds

of thousands, and electricity. It

was in between there somewhere

that we'd lost everything. I could

sense it. The people up there, of

course, they themselves knew

little of it; had no clue. Their 

own lives were clustered in 

the present, with lights and 

labor-saving devices, cars and 

pumps and electric washing 

machines and dryers too. 

Anything that could be done 

or used to steer towards 

alleviating the 'burden' 

of that old farm life, they 

bit at, chomped, and ran 

with. The old was dead 

and forgotten. The only 

thing the hills held was 

a tired, old leftover echo 

that maybe, every once in 

a while, some freaky soul 

like me would claim to be 

hearing still. 

-

Now, I'm going to be taking a

moment here to set you up for the

next chapter, since I only feel

it's right to let you know ahead of

time, and to clear my own name too,

that the adventure submitted here

is a complete telling of the truth

though a name or two have been 

changed. It's a long time ago, but

I'd still like to die a natural death

and any one of these guys could

still be lurking. Not that they'd

read this, necessarily, nor be able to

come at me from their wheelchair

oxygen tank set-up; but, still. The

story's in the story, yes, but it needs

some back-up. As you'll see, one of

the perps here warned me, right up 

front, to get out, and get out then

and quick and right there, because

sooner or later it would get me nailed 

or killed. OK. So I never went back.

There was a time when the distribution

of counterfeit one-hundred dollar

bills was one of the largest and

most nefarious and wide-spread of

of the Soviet Union's (then, now

'Russia's again) operations to

undermine the USA. In fact, it got

so bad and so widespread that it

became the reason, back in the 

early 1990's for all the changed

designs of the paper currency. The 

fake Russian 100's were perfect, 

and widespread. In fact, again, the 

design of 100's was changed a 

SECOND time about 15 or 20 years 

later again, because they once more 

had to protect the currency (security 

bars, and holograms) because

the Russky's had bested them 

again. Paper money designs and

re-tools are not done lightly, nor

for frivolous reasons. One of the best

best, and attainable, ways to ruin a

country is to successfully degenerate

its useful currency. This operation

was a simple infiltration, in small

batches, maybe 2000-3000 100's

at a time, to have money (the fake

money) entered and brought into

the light commerce of the piers and

dock districts of lower Manhattan.

That's what the story recounts.