RUDIMENTS

RUDIMENTS, pt 850 (catch as catch can) I used to think I had it made; and then it went away. I haven't felt that way in 45 years, I'd bet. Now I never approach things in that light. I just figure that, even as bad as it all gets, if I just keep screwing people to the ground, eventually the screws become permanent and hit into something that holds it there. Pay dirt. Solid meat. That 'got it, there,' feel. For myself, I accelerated a lot of things - got sex out of the way early, while other kids were still struggling over all that. The same with romancing, having a kid, buying a house. I was done early on. It sounds stupid now, but it got me to able to move along with other things. Getting scrunched by a train at age 8 really moves things along, I guess. My fortitude was splendid, in face of all the other bum things that transpired. - I saw some real misery 'round: in the country, Pennsylvania, Elm

RUDIMENTS, pt. 849 (the carryover rings of Mars) It wasn't curiosity that killed the cat, but a simple lack of follow-up that did it in...When I used to visit my friend Jeff, at w87th street, I most often also stopped in this little place called The Mysterious Book Shop. It was just a hole in the wall really, but famed and prestigious too - all the sorts of things I'd never have thought about for mystery books. I never even liked, and seldom read, mysteries. They were too foolish for me, carrying no real content except for the miserly 'squirm-factor' which those sorts of readers sought. We used to joke that every other person who went in there was probably a murderer slinking about, or a person who knew how to evade capture; a real 'mystery' person. I think the place is still around, at some other location. They made a few moves over the years. As I recall, the logo for this one was a very simple, b

RUDIMENTS, pt. 848 (way more surprising than ever) I always feel like my country is gone; that land we used to have in grade school. There used to be a Thanksgiving picture each year, I can recall, posted for decoration and all, of some Pilgrims in their pilgrim dress, and a few tame Indians, walking along through the snow, with a couple of dead turkeys and things hanging down as the people in the photo were supposedly trekking to their first Thanksgiving. That stark narrative is seldom heard any more, and everything else has overtaken it. America of that ilk is like an old burnt match; a stick left, maybe, but the top is all spent and burned. No one talks much of that, it all having been supplanted by football and beer and calories and desserts - every well fed American now knows more about their local supermarket then about about anything historical or old. 'Finland? Isn't that the fish department at Shop-Rit

RUDIMENTS, pt. 847 (what is this mass sickness?) It's always weird for me to realize that in Woodbridge, here, where most everyone gets their family groceries and the rest, was once the thriving, local, 1957 version of the Drive-In Theater. Right about where the actual 'Shop-Rite' is was the screen, and before it, in the near-to- the-building parking area, was both the 'snack' pavilion and a small kiddie-playground. Yes, kids used to play and ride swings and all that park stuff while waiting for the movie to begin, or darkness to arrive, or however it went; parents waiting in the seclusion of the car. I don't know how any of that make-out stuff went, or if parents even did that, but this was perhaps 'warm-up' time for them. Eventually, in another hour anyway, those same kids were probably fast asleep on the back seat and none of it mattered anyway. - Over to the left of the movie place was Woodbridge Ford, a dealership, on gravel stones, with used cars