"cement, clay and glass"

When was it? the year 2000 maybe, the month of August... driving around Colorado looking for a place to stay for the autumn, holed up in the meanwhile in some motor lodge in Broomfield, a really bleak place, a stop on the side of the freeway, it could have been there or it could have been anywhere else, as pale and grim as any given point in eastern Colorado.

One afternoon we stumbled onto this place a minute away from the dying crooked heart of Boulder. Sick of the lodge and a string of bad luck it had to do. 'Jojo' lived there before us, evidently he was quite a trip, he left holes in the wall and unpaid rent.

"We'll have to repaint the place first, boys," Gerry said.

"Well alright, but, you know, if you want, we can do for it cheap." That's exactly the news that Gerry and his wife Norma wanted to hear, another monkey off their back. And good news for us too, the incessant going was becoming a bore, even a bed on the floor was at this point a step up if it meant you didn't have to move if you didn't want to.

So we painted the place, and did a pretty good job too. At some point during the monotony the blessed sound of the New Riders came ringing through the air. At that point I had not heard the New Riders before. And while I don't listen to the New Riders very often, since then whenever I've tried to whiten things up, you know, push the stink out, I listen to the New Riders. I was doing this very thing last Sunday and have had 'cement, clay and glass' playing over and over again in my head. And, I've been lauging all week. If something's got to do it it may as well be this.....

Cement, clay and glass

I live by the side of rolling oaks road
tract 25 just like the man showed it to me
nothin' to hide it, nothin' beisde it
I really can't fight it, the whole place is blighted with
cement, clay and glass.

Trees away, contractor's pay
no delay, 10 units today
of cement, clay and glass.

Trees green, none to be seen
you cut down the hills but you pay higher bills
for your cement, clay and glass
cement, clay and glass.

I live by the side of rolling oaks road
tract 25 just like the man showed it to me.
there's nothin' to hide it, nothin' beisde it
I really can't fight it, the whole place is blighted with
cement, clay and glass.
cement, clay and glass.

the fidgeter

I was a big fidgeter when I was a kid, and added to this was I always touching things, you know, sticking my feet and fingers in places where they didn't belong. My father had tried to correct this what he saw as invasive and unnecessary behaviour.

Once when I was really young and I was going to pick up my skates from Moe the skate sharpener at the Fort Edward Mall, I hoped out of the car and walked over to this lonely soda can standing on its end in the middle of the parking lot.

My father saw what was coming, "don't do it" he said, but by this time I had already pulled my leg really far back, all poised to give this can a big kick (I wouldn't have listened anway), and wham my little toes connect with the thing, I hit nice and low, you know, but not too low, I want to pop the thing up, but really send it sailing as well, and 'wham' I hit it alright, but although the pop was topped the can sure wasn't empty, it was filled with orange soda. My father dosen't lecture me. We pick up the skates and drive home, he washes my pants.

Today I was walking home the long way, and although it was cold it was bright and I was dressed for the weather. On the road home I see this fluffy ball of snow, about the size of a soccer ball, that's some good kicking snow I thought, so just like I did twenty four years ago I pull my leg real far back, ready to let it loose to send this ball of snow flying, I even had this fence post in my mind's eye as a good target. And, wham, the thing was white alright but it sure wasn't snow, it was a big chunk of ice that only looked white because it was covered by the morning mist. I'm walking around now with a sore toe.

I don't know if I've ever listened, I sure haven't learned a thing. This whole sad tragedy is bound to repeat itself in innumerable ways, many of which do not involve kicking.

here comes the new season

So this is how it begins. I wake up one day and the world has changed from the night before. The big freeze has set in. It'll be 5 months before I see the river again, it's all ice now. There's a foot of snow on the ground and a foot more is blowing in on that cold north wind, to look out the window is enough to make you shiver.

It is pretty though, all crisp and clear, with the moon peeking through, and the street lights bouncing off all the white, I could mistake this midnight hour for dusk. And then there's the sound... yes, I can hear the noise of frosty feet and tires come tumbling down the snowy tunnel of old Westiminster and float right up to my window... I've maybe three months before the cold rubs the shine off it all. I'll miss this time of year when it passes.

I was thinking the other day that cities or towns might well have favourite times of year just as us parasites do, why not? Well, I can think of a hundred arguments against this, many of which are painfully intellectual, so I will dismiss them on those grounds alone. In which case I would guess that November is Winnipeg's favorite time of year, and Windsor's is June, Fredericton's is late August early September (I list these others to dispell any notion of seasonal bias - if I've biases they are of a different order).

... So this it, eh, three weeks before dull death sets in. Before dull death sets in me. And, it's going to happen too, just like this, like the changing seasons, it ends. And afterwards, after I'm dead, somebody might say, hey, do you remember that guy, just as I'll dumbly say in a few weeks, hey, you remember that autumn. But even now, before any of this, I'm sitting here frightened, afraid of the impending winter, afraid of dying, and, in spite of all I had said, I am not at all clear on why (I couldn't make a list, for instance).

saturday afternoon

I love waking up in the late afternoon. I like the collective lull, when all the rest are in between, coming down from the afternoon and up to the night. The feel makes me happy.

It's 4:00 pm and the sun has almost been buried by the rosey dust of Saskatchewan. It's cold outside too, but I've my window open anyway, I like the sound of the wheels whipping across the pavement, the muffled conversations and the touch of the dry November air.

... and now to head into it all, I'm going to put on some pants, a coat, and walk down to the corner for some cigarettes and a can of soda. I've nothing to do tonight but listen to the city flow by.... I'll watch the Montreal Canadiens play with the television set on mute.

yeah, I know what you mean

It's a sin I don't see Tom more often. Out smoking tobacco on the stairs of Flectcher Argue, in one way or another we got to talking about the nights. I described a recent night as having been spent trying to remember all the capitals of the countries in South America and the starting goaltenders of each of the 30 national hockey league teams, totally disconnected from my mind, ridiculous.

He replied something like,

"Yeah I know that's rough. For me it's thinking about ball bearings and sprockets and trying to put wheels together. I see wheels, ball bearings, tools, it's all in utter disarray and there's nothing I can do about it."

I guess this is just the stuff that happens to sleepless minds.

... Much of my efforts at communication are characterized by stammering, sputtering, and spitting; all in a mostly futile attempt at jamming a few sentences together in a way that makes simple sense. I find this terribly difficult (though it sure makes it easy to feel like a fraud, a joke).

It's good to be reminded that it doesn't have to be this way, and that getting at the essence of an issue is really not that difficult. And, then getting it amounts to saying,

"Hey man, you don't have to say it twice, I know what you mean, what more can I say?" It's like knowing there's a moon shining out there somewhere.

... Sometimes I wonder if communication is not purposely made difficult so that there can be a next thing to say, to keep this show, this farce, going.

a Hudson update

I've just read today that there is evidence to suggest that Henry Hudson and the eight crew members of his ship Discovery that were cast adrift on Hudson's Bay may have survived the ordeal, for a bit anyway.

The next year, 1612, Samuel de Champlain sent out one of his countrymen named de Vignau to winter with a group of Cree Indians. While there Vignau claimed that he had saw the wreckage of an English boat and heard a story that eight men were killed for trying to steal their food and supplies. The ninth, the youngest of the group, John, Hudson's son, was spared.

Vignau later recanted his story as evidence came to light suggesting that he did live not with the specific group of Cree as he had claimed . Nonethelss, it is plausible that he heard some version of the story somewhere, particularly as Vignau was unaware of Hudson's fate. Indeed, the facts of the mutiny and Vignau's story match.

york factory

In an earlier posting I had given a brief history of the Hudson's Bay company. Since then I've been thinking more and more about Hudson Bay and just what has been going on up there since Henry Hudson first "discovered" it. Henry Hudson himself, as you may know, was the victim of a ship's mutiny on June 23, 1611. The crew set him adrift in that cold sea for which he was named and then sailed on back to England. Henry didn't want to leave so soon, and his position was intolerable.

After Hudson, the voyageurs approached the shores of the Bay while travelling inland by canoe, not much later the Hudson's Bay company itself returned to the area by the route chatered by Henry and established trading posts all along the eastern and western shores of the Bay. One of the largest posts was established at a place called York Factory at the mouth of the Hayes River, now located within the boundaries of the province of Ontario. York factory was operative from 1684 to 1957. A handful of Europeans and Indians lived in and managed the post for almost 300 years. In its heyday during the19th nineteeth century, the post was the permanent home for over fifty labourers and clerks of both Indian and European descent. Below is a picture of York factory taken in 1925. While the folks living on the ground likely saw it differently, viewed from the air, I don't know if a bleaker town has ever existed.

the moth seminar reprieve

I find legal history very boring, unfortunately this confession will effect little change in the the moth class. While this has made recent mornings more painful than they typically are, I will say that they have been punctuated of late with rare moments of interest.

... There's a girl in the class who can talk about legal history in a way that somehow tricks me into thinking it's interesting. She has a way of reading where she pulls out seemingly innocuous details or characters from a book and gives them life. She plucks them out, holds them up, spins them around, plays with them, it's captivating, she's like a magcian. She can make me care.

I cannot do this, for me, all of this stuff reads cold, heavy and monolithic. I essentialize these books and ignore all the subtleties, because for me it is painful not to do so. I cannot trick myself.

Anyway, the unique thing about her is that it's all very sincere and genuine, it's actually quite fascinating. She is not posturing, a tactic that I am all too familiar with. There's nothing forced or contrived here - it's not because the teacher says it's interesting.

Needless to say, this embarasses me, how can the very thing that I find so painful and onerous be the source of so much interest and life for somebody else?

I'm a codger and should not be in that class though nor should the majority who tend to overinflate a reality that, to me, seems present only in their own heads. This class should be filled with more people like her, it'd be a better experience for everyone.