RUDIMENTS 947.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 947
(those guys were like nails)
You know, people talk a lot
about nostalgia, and all those
dear old days they remember.
All that's good, as it goes, but
there has to be more substance
to memories too. Just alone,
a memory really isn't worth
much. It's only when a memory
gets ingrained, within the psyche,
that it too begins producing its
own force-field, a sort-of playback
into the present time and space.
Usually, the predictable dullards
will step to the fore and say that
anything will leave a memory,
and kids today will just have a
'different' memory of things.
Yeah, I guess….and it works
like that if you're an idiot. Of
course they'll say that, because
they're making money off
the changes, now.
-
One interesting thing I ran across,
in a book by someone else, ('Body
Leaping Backward - Memoir of a
Delinquent Girlhood') - and used
as the opening dedication-quote,
is by Bruce Springsteen, of all
people. It's not the most clear
image, nor said in the best way,
but maybe it bears some thought:
"The first eighteen years really
shape you forever. It's like a
glass of water filled with mud.
You can pour clear water in it
until it appears clear, but there's
still mud there." So, I guess it
carries something, but the thing
that baffles me, often enough,
and here now too in the town I
live in (major-domo hell-hole) is:
They're to be in the process of
removing from the 'town' center,
(which isn't really that any more at
all, since everything is dead and
abandoned and moved out to the
sameness of the highways - motel
truckers living right next door to
welfare loafers, next to a CVS tucked
inside a Walgreens tucked inside
a liquor store, next to a TD Bank
tucked inside a Chase bank), the
two schoolhouses that have been
in place forever. Moving them for
the usual bogus and crap reasons,
but anyway. They're being moved
out to the lower swamps, next to
the prison and a state facility; real
crappy area, Authority pouncing
everywhere, sex-offenders,
behavioral modification centers,
etc. and in the flat-ass middle of
nothing good at all. And let's
not forget the 83 million dollars
needed (bond issue) after the tax
giveaways and come-ons extended
to the sleaze-projects in the first
place as 30-year tax exemptions.
Something stinks in Denmark, and
it isn't Hamlet the Dane.
-
In any case, whenever anyone talks
about their growing-years' memories
of Avenel, it eventually usually does
always come back to those 2 school
structures and the small wall that
fronted them at the street. Now they're
even taking that away and the kids are
going to have absolutely no sense of
place and being. They're going to be
schooled in a concentration camp,
locked and closed up, environment.
All they're going to remember
is that their parents threw them to
the dogs, in the middle of nowhere.
Cop cars and prison vans. That's the
stupidest sort of 'Adult' thought I ever
heard of. But at least it's near to an
'Adult' correctional facility. Most all
else around there is gone or broken
up, to the extent that the new people
gagging around are clueless about
even where they are. In addition,
they couldn't care less. The same
authorities however, who lug their
big butts around bragging over
legacy and lineage and history,
and local stuff - intent as they are
on thievery and not preservation -
will go about squandering still
more and unaccountable tax dollars
to erect a 'Museum' for all this
echoing and long-ago-lost crud.
And the locals lap it up like Maypo
in the morning. If idiots ran races
here, we'd be having a brass-band
double-marathon. We stupidly
celebrate the past while offering
them crap for their future; not even
noticing the difference, we tell them
we're the adults here.
-
Funny how, in ancient Greece, the
word idiot meant 'One who does
not partake of public life/events.'
Now it means just the opposite.
It's Greek to me.
-
It's funny about memories anyway;
they come from all over the place,
if you know how to catch them, and
they are the most human of things.
They hang by a hair, and in dying
give birth to a dandruff - it's that
dandruff that gets us. Names running
back to sources. Reverberating like
spun harps. Tears that fall on warm
fruit, and make waterfalls far away.
Another of the problems around here
and one that's way overlooked, is
that there really never was anything
here to begin with. The great houses
and knowledge, they all followed
the great crops : tobacco, cotton,
sugar, apples. Nothing here, Charley
Brown. Nothing at all except fast
food, doctor's offices, car shops,
drive-ins and drive-outs and that
sweet smell of excess, everywhere.
-
I walked through lots of trees in
my day, and every tree'd lane was
filled, as well, with memories. When
I was in my seminary days there was
a tree'd walkway for the Stations of
the Cross, outdoors, a sort of circular
path for the pious to walk; it never
made much sense to me, and I
never saw anyone walking it anyhow,
but it was suffused - and I knew it -
with the sweat and labor of slaves.
Before all this religious stuff, the
place had been a south Jersey
plantation, and there was no denying
that. The tar-paper-shacks of those
who used to work the fields, they
still stood, dilapidated and sad,
out that long dirt road running
rearward. There wasn't anything
there then, in my day, but a retreat
house and the garbage dump the
local town had made for their
trucks to drop stuff. That's what
people think of their own damn
places. Pretty disgusting. The
retreat house was another anomaly
in the midst of a sandy wilderness -
all these suburban NJ church types
would come down in buses, and stay
5 or 6 days, on their parish 'retreats.'
To sort of get right with themselves
and their God-concept, before they
went back to the usual pillage, and
plunder, and abusive tactics for
another year. Like a Day of
Atonement, but a week's worth.
-
That's the kind of genial nastiness
(there's a paradox for you) that's
now everywhere. I noticed, as I
went along and as politics progressed,
starting with the NYC draft creeps
pulling me off the street, that once
Authority wises up they realize that
they can do the same sorts of control
tactics that dictators and communists
and all those others they were always
warning us about and fighting off do
but if it's done softly and smartly, the
captive folks don't even notice and,
in fact, they welcome and enjoy it.
That was real apparent to me, just
the way it was being done - the
entertainment and pastime goons,
the Legion Halls and veterans clubs,
the sorts of boosterism places running
strong, they all brought the people
together in 'cause.' Mouthing crap
and all thinking the same stuff. It
wasn't any different than East
Germany, the Soviet Union, or
even China today, in the present.
It's a massive fraud. I knew a guy
once, a prison guy, there, and he
said to me to 'watch out for the
softness. When the hard edges
are gone and only the soft
approaches are left, that's when
you know they've got you.' He
told me to stay harsh and swift,
never slow. Old-timer already,
and armed, he sat there, free, in
the waterside shack telling me
shit I'd never heard. Prison stuff.
Sex. He was drinking black
coffee that he'd made, and
sharing it right there, with his
dog. He said, too, a prisoner
has no sex, he is God's own
private eunuch. No one's ever
going to throw open the door
and serve you a naked woman
on a platter. Then he winked,
and said 'whatever you do,
always keep that in mind.'
That was down at the west
docks, right by where there
used to be a boat, or a floating
classroom set-up for something
that used to be called the
'Maritime High School,' right
there. I, myself, had just recently,
in 1967, gotten done with what
I considered the most miserable
high school experience ever, and
by contrast this thing looked like
a dream, but I never got the gist
of it, never saw much activity,
and never learned how you get
in. Going to school to be a sailor
or deckhand or whatever it was,
that seemed like the coolest thing
in the world. Those guy were
all like nails. Ah, but's that a
history, of another day.