RUDIMENTS

RUDIMENTS, pt. 788 (the rise of the waltz) I was the inquisitive type. In Second Grade my teacher was a lady named Mrs. Schur. I'm not really sure (not a pun) about the Mrs. or Miss, but it makes no difference. On the back of my report card, in a comments section, by 'Deportment'  -  which I only later found out about, for its meaning and all; it was a very scary word to me, calling forth nothing but trouble  - she'd written, 'Gary has a problem with questions.' I never had any idea, even as a second grader, what in the heck that was meant to get across, but my Mother saw it and went nuts on me (as if she knew what it meant?). The fact of the matter was, I had no problem at all with questions; I just asked them and, apparently, this teacher had a problem with answers  -  to which she was unwilling to own up and instead ripped it back onto some poor little snipe of a kid, (me) calling him out. From ...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 787 (colossal impressions) You never want to be the kind to go to a wedding just so others can see you  dance. That's fairly obvious, yet for many that's considered a big opportunity. Up in the hills where I was, I never needed concerning about  any of that  -  unless a polecat was in my family and it was marrying a heifer. At that point I'd suppose there would have been a  bridge even I would have had to decide about crossing  or not. I was so far off from anything, right then, that the people in my broader family, back home, were by this  time getting married and  all having kids of their own. I wound up never knowing names nor who was who. Most often, I still don't  -  weirdly enough I guess. - We were switching engines on my '62 VW once, and I'd called in a friend from over Canton way  -  a mechanic guy name Jim. Truly a wild man, but he knew ...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 786 (without any paddle too) Mostly, I rambled - even when I stayed in place my mind was roving. Looking out for the past - in ways that were totally difficult to explain to others - I also kept an eye for the future, or what the 'Future' at any one time, seemed to be. There are any number of meanings to what the 'past' is - you can find car-guys along every Main Street around, on their 'Cruise Night' outings. To them the past is old cars, or trucks, or motorcycles. To others it's old music, or retro fashions and costumes. To the pen and paper person, maybe it's just 'History' - the wars and battles and strategies that went into the great surges of military and social progress they'll swear to. To me, the Past was always rather just a sound in my head - a pure, ringing tone; something to do with rightness (different than righteousness) - much of the time it w...