RUDIMENTS 902.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 902

(don't assume?)

One of the things that always

bugged me, back about 1965,

was a song or movie or something

called 'Cat Ballou.' I never even

got the bottom of what it or who it

was supposing to be, but I think

it was some female movie role

played by some of another of the

many dim-witted, appropriately

breasted, starlets of that era. It

hardly now matters because I

still probably care even less.

There was also some jerky

pre-vert singer type whose

signature version of the song

seemed to be everywhere. I

don't really remember the year,

if it was Summer, or whatever.

I just remember the distinctly

precise and predictable stupidity

of the guy's face - Scottish or

Welsh, I think, who sang it

always with some weird grin.

The melody and the tonal

quality was gross, and the way

the 'let's all sing and grin this

happy-together' kept flying

around the nation really made

me sick of things. Guys were

coming home, remember too,

stiff, and in boxes. Tan Son

Nhut Air Base - kinda'

catchy too!

-

I don't know how this country

ever did come to such a pass as

that, but it sure stuck; had the

clinking capacity of some

real expensive fly-paper, I'd

say. Guys walked out their

front doors, and just never

came back - believing they

were fighting for some vague

yet noble cause that their Papas

would surely understand and

their girlfriends surely never

would. I can remember three

or four such cases, people

of my own acquaintances,

where fathers and mothers

and/or left behind young

wives or intendeds, wound

up selling dead Billy's

Camaro or Chevelle or

Charger from off the blocks

it still rested on in the garage

that no one could bear to

enter anymore. Thank you,

Tom Jones, and thank you

Cat Ballou.

-

It's always sorta' like things

go bad and just stay that way.

Memories turn sour as they

age, and what one thinks

occurred many times didn't

actually occur at all - or if

it did it was in some other,

quite different, way. I've had

a lot of dross to drag through

in my days, and - for others -

I in turn have presented to them

the same sort of junk right

back. Perhaps it's all evened

out now, perhaps not - but

there no way of knowing and

nothing I can do. Making

amends is merely a style,

and it's not mine

-

Wordsworth said that it was

early memories that mattered

most, because they 'come from

a period when one is most alive

or awake, and because they

concern individuals who had

not yet been pressed into shape

by the forces of modern life.'

That's works pretty well, yes.

I'd sometimes rather have said

the 'forceps of modern life,'

but that was just my joking

ill-profound wit. As I thought

of it - all those uncles and

'young deads' I once knew - it

was true that most of them, as

I was 9, they were themselves

barely into their late-20's.

Unfinished, I'd say, yes, and

raw, and powerful and bold

and naive too. They all walked

head-first into their assumptions

as mistakes, and any number

of them were walking shrapnel

scars of war-wounds. But, I also

felt, for all that, there wasn't anything

opened to them, except perhaps

to their own, shared, age-level,

peers, like their own jury, of

each other. As a kid, maybe

I just saw it all differently.

But, but, but...yet - there

was never anything crazy or

wild about any of them. They

were somewhat just 'settled'

and pliant, ready to find that

job, work at it, and stay at it. I

never saw any of that 42nd-street

penny-arcade jungle about any

of them - of the sort I'd see

later in New York City; those

wild-strange, the over-the-cliff

types always ready on the next

bizarre dare. They were NOT

literary, in any way - and that's

what I thought was missing, and

profoundly so. No wit, no weird

glint of humor about the scene.

Rattlings of pinballs, shootings

of arcade guns? Side-show freaks

on the edge? Not them. That was

all missing. They were the fallen,

not the fighting. Inman Avenues

a thousand times everywhere

held these in droves, all over

the nation - America was a

rapacious foul ball, and it had

already consumed them, a sideways

foul-pop off the line, and they'd

all gone chasing it; hoping to

make the catch, I guess. But the

magical glove was always to

remain empty: There was

nothing to catch. Sooner or

later, they'd crash into the fence,

and shatter - and the cheers they'd

hear weren't for the catch, or the

try, or their effort. It was for

the crashing to witness. There

was nothing in America that

you couldn't sell, or be sold.

Nothing too weird to bring to

market and found a fortune on.

I guess everyone just assumed

it all could work.

-

As a youngster, I spent a lot

of time with my father - in his

endless station wagons, schlepping

furniture around, back and forth,

to his upholstery customers, or on

any of those endless fishing and

boating trips to the Jersey shore.

Just along for the rides, company,

to help. Whenever we got up Bayonne

way, almost without fail, he'd take

me through for one of three things,

or all three - to drive past Bayonne

High School, so he could show me

the school he 'quit from' to join the

war-Navy, lying about his age;

The house he grew up in, and,

once it was torn down, the sad

empty hole where it had been;

and thirdly, and with the most

pride, the church he and my

mother were married in.

'Assumption' Church.

He never caught on.