RUDIMENTS

RUDIMENTS, pt. 549 ('of thee I sing') I want to backtrack a little here and remark some more on my ocean-going vessel father. Of whom I wrote about: the days fishing, the fish, and the crabs,  and the rowboats and the deep sea and the outboard motors. In the days around 1960, he  was maybe 35-38 years old. Full of energy and ready to go. We would get to these small spots of isolated beach and sand that he knew of, pitch the boat, and spend some  time on these little beaches. Perhaps I'd swim while he surf-fished. As we did this, most of the time there would be five, six, ten other people doing the same thing, or pretty much the same. Some kids, lots of adults. I made do with passing the time as I would. - One day we were there, on one  of these sand outposts, and among the people fishing was a young kid, a boy, maybe 12 or 14. I'm just guessing. I still don't know how it happened, in one of those casti...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 548 (the whole world seemed coated in ice) All a'thwart, and arms a'kimbo! Whatever that was, it sure caught my attention, or my eye, or my interest. How do you get from something outside to something within? At 12 years old, I figure most things are supposed to be seamless, but this never was. I got to places, but only in my head. My own major endeavor, at that time, proved to be fairly useless. All the seminary stuff was just a silly joke. Boys, and guys after boys, hiding behind the garb of religious while they caterwauled with crosses. Now, what, only 50 years later, give or take, it's all coming home to roost and finally a lot of those creepy bastards, if not already dead, are going down. Nothing out of the ordinary for them. (That's a double-tiered joke, because there's a part of the catholic Mass called the 'Ordinary,' and going down, well that's pretty apparent. - The troub...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 547 (haulin' and trawlin' on the wine-dark sea) I kind of always hated the ocean even though I went there often enough; thanks to my father and his incessant need for the sea. He had an Evinrude outboard motor, 6 or 8 horsepower, and many were the Saturdays he'd put it in the rear of the station  wagon and drive, with me along, not that often by choice, just more like a chore, to some 'Captain Bob's 'or something place where he'd rent a  -   believe this  -  a rowboat for the day and strap the motor onto the rear. Without fail, it was always the same; 8 hours  out on the open water, bobbing around with a small outboard  and some gas, humming through  the little waves and rises of the sea, maybe sometimes a mile  or two out. Many more than once we had a coast guard ship come out to us and someone on  a megaphone screaming at us to get back in towards shore; we we...