RUDIMENTS 487.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 487

(time's up) [stop making sense, pt. 2]

Peculiar things riled me up.

Like just before (well, in the

previous chapter)  -  lairs

and liars. That juxtaposition

was striking to me. A lair

then had to be the place

liars hide out in, assorting

their dissimilarities into one

congealed story. In the same

way, what does a liar rely on?

The liar 'relies' on telling the

same false story over and over

so as not to mix it up. The word

astride always struck me too.

It means one is atop a horse,

'as to ride' it. That was damned

close to astride, to me. And

if Elliot Ness has a daughter,

and they named her Zany,

what would her character

be most like, if not zaniness?

I used to do these things all

the time, like the one I've

previously mentioned, some

time back, about dogs teaching

school. If they could, what

grades would they teach?

Why, K-9, of course. Maybe

all this was a well-tempered

skill. As I saw it (skilsaw?)

it was. So much like the

rest of life too  -  'as I saw

it, it was'.....

-

Speaking of which, I didn't

have a skill-set of my own.

It had always been stressed,

all through regular school  - 

not in the seminary, where only

one end was assumed (no, that's

not some weird gay joke) that

a person's responsibility to

their self was to properly find

and educate that part of them

which was their 'best' and

most-skilled part. Interest. I

never really had that. Nothing

especially interested me. I

mean, I saw the sky, and knew

certain of the planets and the

ways of the moon and all,

and the movement of stars

over the course of a year,

(from watching a fixed-point

oak tree I'd established as a

reference to the sky year after

year as a kid. Yet that never

made me wish to be an

astronomer or space scientist,

or even an astronaut. That

stuff, in its tedious aspects,

bored me. Creativity right

out the capsule window; a

cool thing like space travel,

stripped of any wonder and

mystery and just turned into

engineering feats and angles

and slide rule calculations

and thrusters and boosters,

payloads and re-entry. What

ever had happened to wonder

and awe and myth and religion?

We'd been robbed of all that

by eaters of Klondike Bars.

I enjoyed cops and robbers

and all that, but I never

sought to 'be' either one. I

disliked sleuthing and stealth

and violence. Although I did

once write a letter to Mr. J.

Edgar Hoover  -  and I did

even get a 'personal' response  - 

about what it took or would

take in the future, for me to

be an FBI agent. His, probably

boilerplate, response was stern

and pointed, and filled with,

already, the rigors of training

and discipline that would be

needed to join this fine force

of men upholding American

values. OK. Good. Later on

all the air went out of that

idea when I learned the J.

Edgar enjoyed cross-dressing

and that the good old USA

was neither really that good,

nor that old. And it had a toll

free number too, after about

1965 : 1-800-Vietnam. It

never helped me, either,

that my expected military

service as a GI would, of

course, very nicely correspond

with my own initials  -  G.I. 

I'll pass, thanks.

-

My father, back in his own

ancient school days, once

told a teacher, upon being

asked, what he wanted to

be, replying that he wanted

to be an an engineer. The

teacher was all pleased and

happy, and, he said, began

going on about the wonders

of engineering and how things

get built, how engineers build

communities and roads and

bridges. My father piped

up, saying, no no he meant

a train engineer, on the

railroad. Another balloon

with air going out, as the

teacher wilted. Railroad

guys must have really had

a stigma, even back then.

-

I used to wonder if one could

have an astigmatism, or if 

there was a stigma attached 

to that too. I was never too

optimistic when going to the

optometrist either, to find out.

In my St. George Press years,

one of my customers was an

optician, or optometrist or

whatever it was  -  Dr. Norbert

Kastner, in Iselin. Then he 

retired, and his son Bruce took

the practice over. Bruce and I

never saw eye-to-eye. His 

father, Norbert, used to say 

how he was having such 

trouble with his long-term

clients (patients?) because

few of them wished to change

over to the son, Bruce's care.

He was only a little fearful

that, in a few years, his old

practice would die. 'From

optician to mortician, huh,'

I sort of smiled, saying that.

-

Anyway, probably my whole

life, the best thing that I could

say about it is, 'You had to be

there.' Which I most certainly

was. By this time, now, of

Life's slow downturning, all

I really have to say is I can do

a mean crossword puzzle,

quickly, and in ink too. That

always amazes people, that

I do them in ink. Fact of the

matter is, it makes no damned

difference at all. Mistakes 

still get made, and you write 

over  the error heavier. Who 

the heck would make the 

pencil distinction? Back in

the Barnes & Noble years I

used to bet the kids that I

could do a crossword puzzle

in six minutes. A buck here,

a buck there. I won't say I

won every time, but I will

say I won 48 times out of 50.

And there are 365 days in a

year. Not a bad living. Back

in the late 60's there was a

big-selling book out by some

Dr. Rubin guy, entitled,

'Everything You Wanted To

Know About Sex But Were

Afraid To Ask.' In it, he said

the quickest time for a complete

sex act, intercourse and all, was

7 minutes. I never tested that

fact out exactly, but I had him

beat by one minute on crossword

puzzles. I've waited in lines

longer than that to have my

car inspected!