RUDIMENTS 607.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 607

(ain't nature grand!')

I always liked walking;

I never had a problem

with a good walk.There

was a writer once, I forget

the rest about it, who titled

his book about the game

of golf - 'A Good Walk,

Spoiled.' That was always

pretty simple to understand,

whatever the heck else golf

was about. He hit it pretty

good. Just a bundle of funny-

pants guys jabbering away

while they hit a little ball,

they hoped, into a cup.

Total. Something there is

about golf anyway - it's

just like a dumb sport for

business people; as if they

needed this imaginary open

space and particular form

of ritual, with everything

neutralized, so they could

bluster and bloviate over

their silly-ass business

stuff. It's always the same,

even out in the middle of

nowhere. Just west of

Towanda, where the big

Sylvania factory used to

be (for light bulbs, etc.,

manufacture), sure enough

there was the whole shebang,

like it was Boca Raton or

something : some chicken-

scratch country club and

dining-room clubhouse and

restaurant, and a full-deal

18-hole golf course. This,

among local people who'd 

rather rub the balls of a bull for

entertainment than play 'golf.'

You knew it was just some

usual corporate crap for the

executives posted by Sylvania

to the Towanda plant for a two

year or so stint. They just had

to have their little old golf

course. Funny thing was, there

were seemingly two tiers of

things underway in the area

at all times - the generations

of locals and farmers, who

knew each other and whose

families too, if not intertwined

or inter-married somewhere

back there, knew each other

all very well. They kept to

their old ways - old trucks

and vehicles and habits and

places and ways of being,

mostly unchanged. That was

the fabric of the carpet of the

local lands. They were the

backbone of the place and the

people you had to get to know 

and learn from. They held the 

keys. They had local meaning. 

These corporate drop-ins were

just temporaries, consumers of 

something; even they didn't know

know what it was. They were

from the corporations, what

few of them there were - like

Sylvania - that would post

people here, for a while, for

corporate reasons. They were

outsiders, different people

doing entirely different things.

They operated, in their ways,

along a whole other track.They

had kids - curious as it was - 

in those same bedraggled

local school systems as did

the farm folk, and by their

high school years those kids

fairly-well had been changed

over or engulfed into the

local culture - which was

like borderline Ozarks. It

was pretty funny sometimes

to see. Cinderella, and her

pumpkin too, in one fell

swoop.

-

There was always some sort of

in-between world I stayed in. It

kept me out of the fray a little

bit - all that stuff I came not

to understand. I still had my 

late evenings, and I had my

books. We'd brought maybe

200 with us. There weren't any

bookcases or anything, it was

all too 'utilitarian' for that, so

they were just nicely piled on

the floor in one section of

one of the rooms. There was

a bunch of rooms, more than

I'd ever had before, ever, and 

three levels of them too! The

problem was we had no money,

nothing to spare - it would have

been nice to have thrown some

furniture around and made the

place look homey, but we did OK

with the three rooms we inhabited

and we left the rest just as it went,

as space. So I got lots of, especially

in Winter, personal time to use to

read or try writing and things - 

nothing I'd want the locals to 

know about, mind you, because

it went too far against the

local grain of how things were

out there. Maybe I could have

built some shelves and stuff,

but I didn't have the yen for 

doing that either. Most people

hung a dead deer head - or some

other trophy animal they'd shot -

for decoration on their walls.

I showed my Mark Twains

and let it go at that. 

-

The guy up the hill to the side

from me was an older guy named 

Jenkins - last name, and that was

really the only name I knew him

by. He was some sort of retired

fellow, and drove around in his

truck to here or there so that I'd

occasionally see him passing

along. Nod and a wave stuff.

Sometimes there was wife in 

the truck with him. One day

that first Spring, when the

weather had opened up, things

were blooming, it had gotten

warmer out, and green, I looked

out across the noon field and

there was this girl on a horse.

Just ambling along, slow horse

gait. I'd never seen her before,

and was startled. She waved 

out and slowly ambled over

still on her horse. It seemed

as if she was maybe 30, at 

most, and she started talking

about how she was the Jenkins

girl, the daughter who had 

lived and grown 'over there' -

pointing in the direction of 

the Jenkins place. All of which

I understood right well; I think

here name was Janet. Memory.

She lived somewhere else, but

occasionally still trailered her 

horse over, for a ride around 

the old places. I guess she maybe 

meant the horse remembered 

them too - but I didn't ask. It 

was pretty cool. The thing I did get

to realize after a while was how

all these people I'd get to meet, like

her, they all had their own local

stories about and from this place

and the local area, and it all

stretched back - way before me,

and I had no inclusion in any

of it. Being an interloper is odd.

Not much else transpired; none

of that deep digging about 'who

are you, where'd you move from, 

what do you do?' etc. For which

I was glad; not having to go

over all that stuff. We saw her

maybe 5 or 6 more times that

first Summer, and then I never

remember seeing her again.

-

It was weird; what made it so,

was that this was all new to me,

and us. Once that first Winter

melted away, we began seeing 

the ground, the dirt, and the vistas

that, all Winter, had mostly just

been a white blur. Remember, we

came in with the first of that year,

January, and so by April, when

things were clearing up, we were

still seeing things for the first time.

That covered the surprise of just

suddenly seeing a horse and rider

in the open field where before

there'd been nothing. It was a

real surprise - all of this. One

of the surprises, with all the

snow melt, was how heavy and

swift with energy the little creeks

and rivulets had become. They

immediately went into a full

'stream' mode, running heavy,

and with gurgling noises that

we'd hear all the time. By

mid-Summer that was all back

down to a trickle, but at least

we knew about it. There were

all of a sudden as well, a billion

bugs and flies, everywhere. It

was as if all these things I'd

never given a thought to had

suddenly arisen to life to smack

me in my forgetfulness. Bugs

were legion. Our rear-yard grass,

I can't tell you, was, of a sudden,

profuse with huge blue-black

bodied flies - to the extent that

each step through the grass rose

500 of them up. Totally in truth.

We figured they were just all

and at once, in the bright new

sunlight, warming up from fly

larvae to real life, or whatever

flies do. They do make noise.

Real buzz noise. Times thousands.

And then, maybe by the first of

or mid June, they were gone.

That strange nightmare had 

passed - while we still really

had no idea what we would do

for the rest of the summer if 

they hadn't disappeared. Then 

there were 'face-bugs,' as the

locals called them - sort of

like gnats, but more too like

black dust. Evidently attracted

to breath and vapor, they hovered

in swarms at a person's face. You

could swat them away, yes, but

they came back. They never did

really leave and seemed a constant

there - much like that hoar-frost

snow thing all Winter, in the air.

One replaced the other. There

were ground bugs, gigantic beetles

and things, Mantises, and then,in all

the waters and ponds, newts and

whatever that pre-frog-frog thing is

called. Salamanders? It looks like

a bullet. Then it grows into legs, 

lizardy legs, and then various 

shapes happen and it becomes 

whatever it was they (it) each

were meant to be. We had 

croakers, bullfrogs, and pond 

noises of some real mystery all

through the night. A big, exciting

time of year each year too, about

the second week maybe, of March,

was the new sound of the 'peepers'.

They made a racket, evenings, etc.

They're tiny little tree frogs that

awaken and climb the tree trucks

upward - making a cicada-like

noise that is heard constantly,

day after day. It's the most 

welcome, fresh sign of Spring

you'd ever imagine and, up there,

could just set the heart to soaring.

The thing about them, I learned

from the farmers, was that they

froze three times, and then Spring 

was here. It never failed. Once

you began hearing them, there 

were three more little frost-nights

coming, whether that took two 

weeks or three days. Then they

were gone too. No more noise,

and the weather changed. Never

failed. Ain't Nature grand!