RUDIMENTS 905.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 905

('Les Bicyclettes De Belsize')

Up in Pennsylvania, there

wasn't much use for a

bicycle. The dirt roads

were nasty and rutted,

mostly went nowhere

anyway, and they all

ended up on the sort of

tree'd and pleasant land

that bicycles never seemed

part of. I often used to wonder

about kids and bicycles, as

Christmas gifts and all that.

I'd imagine that cut them

right out of that picture; nor did

I ever see a bicycle store up

there. I guess you can't sell

what people aren't buying.

It always confused me, that

idea of bicycles and the country.

In the way that you always see

old-time America personified

through genteel sorts of folk on

bicycles, I figured it only worked

for those old-timey villages with

a town square and streets and

paved walks and all that. Doctors'

and preachers' offices, the jail

and the undertaker (Were those

two ever in competition, I wonder,

or did they always work together,

the hangman having an alliance

with the undertaker?). Banks at

the corner - and all this even

before gas stations and the corner

sweet shops. Teens in puppy love

swaddling each other in ice cream

malteds. The most innocent

curdlings of sex in the world.

In reality, if you go back just

a little deeper into old time,

there really wasn't any need

for the 'bicycle' at all, in the

really, intended and actual rural

world of America. It took a certain

form of necessary infrastructure

first. I can remember my father

going on to me, as we were driving

along and entered Washington, NJ,

up by Clinton, etc. He said to me,

a complete surprise at the time,

that he remembered coming there

often, as a teen, working for some

company as a helper on a truck

that delivered bundles of newspapers.

One of the stops was Washington,

NJ, a very rural town, and he said

what he remembered most about it

was that it had wooden sidewalks.

That was cool to me; Washington

being, from Bayonne, probably 60

miles at least (guessing) and my

father, born in 1924, being say 14,

at the time of that day-work, would

have it be, say, 1937 or '38. It

was a glittering image to me, all

that - old and rural and isolated,

small time America just then

breaking out into its other pattern.

Wooden sidewalks? I imagined

planks and boardwalks, like in

an old western film, with probably

horse-tie-up posts and fences still

lining the street. Every so often

my father piped up with some

grand tales.

-

So, the picture painted of old time

America, how true was all that?

The Magnificent Ambersons? The

Chicago of Theodore Drieser?

Where to begin - chemists and

pharmacies, with those colorful

globes in the windows, each

filled with....something? Pills.

Elixirs? Circus freak alcohol?

Railroad cars (have you BEEN

on a rail car lately? It's a horrid

circus of the ignorant with the

non-stop looters of the language

of losers, food smells, and pigs,

What was once pleasant has

become the most uncomfortable

form of simple travel ever).

Was this country crazy right

from day one? I was fairly certain

that the entire country was nuts,

without a doubt. It still goes on

to this day, and I just scratch my

head trying to balance all of what

I've seen and learned against the

very rank stupidity of the people

now running things; just outside

my hedges, for goodness sake.

When one person is crazy, that

person is called crazy. When his

slate of dogs on council and on

school boards are crazy, MAYBE

they're called crazy as a group.

BUT, when that craziness takes

over, and everyone else acquiesces,

such craziness becomes the norm

and is accepted and the 'others' (like

me) get called crazy instead. Been

there, done that. Tyrants come in

soft clothing, often wearing the

gentle pajamas of sentiment and

treacle - and idiot people just

accept it all. I've never seen a

more dastardly, useless bunch.

-

Let's hear it for cops (and firemen)

in schools! Much like vaccines today,

when organized schooling was first

undertaken in the US, all those

systems of mandatory taking of

people's kids and the rest of it, met

with great opposition. Strong and

vile opposition - those not wishing

for the State to take their children,

those opposed to a coercive and

systemized education, the streamlining

of thought into decided-upon and

accepted ends an conclusions. It

all went down hard. Compulsory

education, the Blair Education Bill,

they were as adamantly fought

over and discussed as is today

NAFTA or Brexit. There were,

in those pleasing, back-then,

farm days, specific types of kids,

'never sent to school or church.'

Society fought against all that,

and society won, that black strap

of rigor, falsity, and regimentation

won out. You have to figure the

difference between worlds: that

one and the one we LIVE now, or

have been forced to live. Childhood

itself differed vastly; forget bicycles.

One in six children didn't live to

the age of five. One in six labored,

at work, long, dirty hours, each day.

In NYC, what were called 'trundle-bed

trash' - the destitute and immigrant

poor, many of them didn't know

their own birthdays. Preteens, all

around, were already experienced

smokers, swearers, gamblers, and

what teachers there were felt obliged

to wear firearms in order to maintain

'order.' By the late 1870's, in the

cities, New York, Boston, Philadelphia

and elsewhere, the idea that kids

shared, or could share, a common

culture was in ascendance. It began

to be accepted that children were

'expected' to go to school, play in

their free time, get toys, and do

better than their parents. Slowly

the changed ideas filtered through.

Public playgrounds began to be

built; a 'child study' movement

began. People began regarding

public schooling as the essential

revolution in the life of children.

Schools, and schooling, began

changing as it became mandatory

to attend; desks were bolted into

place, and often there were parceled

out out 30 or 40 per a room. The

better towns would spend 30 or so

dollars per pupil, annually, and

insist on college degrees for the

teachers. Regimented institutions

began making children stand to

give answers, wave their hands

for orderly calling out, answer

question with proper one or two

word answers, or proper sentences,

and the idea of what was called

'adolescence' - some middle ground

between childhood and adulthood -

took hold, in books and programs.

(1904, Clark University's G. Stanley

Hall published 'Adolescence,' and

today's idea of the 'teenager' took

hold). There's lots more, but I

won't go on but to say that the

decades after the Civil War

saw the vast societal changes

take hold and enter the era of

the 'sweet,' what we now know

of as that age, when we think

of the bicycle and the 'surrey

with the fringe on top.' By 1890,

27 states had imposed mandatory

schooling laws - for 'control'

more than anything, though it

most often couched in terms

of 'enlightened' efforts to

school and mend.

-

That's what we've gotten to today, or

the offshoots of it anyway. Schools

with locked doors, passway alarms,

controlled entry, police cars posted

outside. I see it daily, all around me.

There's a frilly councilman in this

town who said to me, in his guise

as 'Fire Official' with a siren car

and marked cruiser, that there's

'no better sound in the world' for

him than to enter a school (school 5)

and hear children yell out, 'Fireman

Cory!' Regimentation sits in the

same seat-row as order, coercion,

and supposed learning. I think

that's about all schools teach

kids today anyway.

-

On the corner of east 11th, when

I was living there, the noises from a

large schoolyard (city-style anyway)

were always resounding. The Avenue

was right there, it was a busy, local

corner. The kids were always active

and frantic.The gates were always

open, the pace was playful and

anarchic. Life was still in that

over-flow period before things

became truly psychotic. I enjoyed

it all, in my passing, 1967 - when

the hammer was set, but hadn't quite

yet slammed down. You could still

find a smidgen of good sense.