pt. 200 - wright bothers / ending

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 200)

As Orville said to Wilbur: 'Hey Wilbur,

let's bring this thing down!' I've always

been enamored of Kitty Hawk, and those

two goofball bicycle brothers. Ohio. The

beach winds of Kitty Hawk North Carolina.

And the slug-heap masquerade beachfronts

of Sewaren, NJ. A stone's throw here from

Avenel. To my mind, not that much of a

difference between them. Anything could

have happened there. Anything could have

happened here. The thing about Orville and

Wilbur is that they've been misrepresented

all through history. 1904 to now, or whatever

it was, and whatever it is now. (When you

write like this, it's important to be always

conscious of the moving horizon to which

you are writing. For a good part of me,

right now, it's Spring, 2016, the first full

day of, in fact. But if I seal off that fact,

without realizing you may be reading this

in 2019, 2029, or 2050, for all I know

(very little). So, the writer's proclamation

here of 'present time', around that I skirt.

Why box it in?).

-

Everybody goes about saying, of the

Wrights, 'they invented airplanes,' or

flight, or air-travel, or whatever. Flight

escapades and experimenters were all

around them  - it was part of the 'gestalt' to

use an overly-arch Germanic silly word, the

'gestalt'  of the day was that Mankind could

fly, and would. Icarus notwithstanding.

The' experimenters and little workshop

guys were plentiful. What the Wright

Brothers did, along with Charlie Taylor,

their trusted helper and sidekick (who, as

usual, did a lot more of the work then

he's credited for and than you know),

was to invent, not 'flight', but the

'CONTROLS' with which to make

flight and flight adjustments possible

for fixed-wing (albeit primitive) aircraft.

(Three-axle controls allows flight

adjustment while underway, having a

pilot adjust for steering and equilibrium;

and more). I always looked at what they

did as something akin to the craft of

'writing'  -  any fool can gush on paper,

or on a keyboard anyway now, reams and

piles of words : broken heart, how I love

you bullshit, romantic riffs about eternity

and beaches, birds and the phoenix who

rises from the ashes, every hallowed

cliche in the amateur-writer's handbook.

Yeah, like we all want to hear that stuff.

Bleat on, poetry slammers, local

writer-groups, the wing-spanned derelicts

of school and of hobby. Look to the

Wright Brothers! What you need is NOT

more emotive gush, the muck you call

'writing'  -  what's needed are the

CONTROLS to make it so. That's why

I always took a liking to the Wright

Brothers, in spite of all that's come

after : hoteliers in the sky, reclining

seats, the movies, food and drinks,

the soft-pedaled footromps of

hostesses and pilots, and the

in-flight poop decks,

quite literally!

-

I come from Avenel. And for two

hundred of these Avenel days now,

I've been posting story-line ideas

of remembrance, fact and picture-post

reminiscence of all that went before.

I've loved it, loved working on it, and

loved the follow-up. The Wright Brother's

controls have always been in the back

of my mind. I'd attached some wings,

leaped from a cliff, and, yes, found

I was flying. The view has been great,

and the air-currents exhilarating  -

and for some of that too, I thank you

all. Those who have read anyway.

As Lily Tomlin, I think it was, once

put it :'Without you, I'm nothing.'

-

This is to be my final 'Water Line' post.

It's some manly, Avenel guy's boast to

say 'Give 'em Hell.' And I feel I have,

some, and probably did, some. Interest.

Damage. Knowledge. Learning, and the

fun of some good jokes too! I'm still to

be daily-writing, and posting, a new

project. It's a bit too different, as I see

it, and off in a little bit of another, more

'writerly', direction. To just assume my

Avenel friends and 'Water Line' readers

would be interested, or continue to get

something from it in the same way,

would be presumptuous of me, and

wrong. Two-hundred mornings of

reading is enough for anyone. Like

the Wright Brothers' flight, what's

made my own flight good are the

controls I've willingly adhered to,

kept to and discovered

along the way.

-

'Let's bring it down, Wilbur, and

see if this thing lands.'  --

thanks, everyone. gar

pt.199 - be prepared

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 199)

Let me think here of a hundred things.

Mostly contradictory, and, ultimately,

mostly pretty useless. Being brought 

up a boy  -  I can't speak for girls  -  

a lot of this is thrown at you. You're 

supposed to take it all in, absorb it, 

and turn it into useful protocol for 

your own life, one of careers, action, 

energizing and edification. To be 

satisfied. The Boy Scouts begin it all,

if your father doesn't : 'Be Prepared!'

Yes, that's, dynamically and said so 

electrically, the Boy Scout motto. 

Preparation is everything, never get 

surprised, don't get hit with the

unexpected, be set up for all things, 

know what's coming. All that sort 

of thing. Yep, and fellas, it works 

until, surprisingly say, your girlfriend 

gets pregnant. Not so prepared now, 

are you, or THAT wouldn't have 

happened. (Did I really say I can't

speak for girls, just before? Can 

I actually say even that anymore)?

-

Being prepared  -  when you come right 

down to it  -  I always thought anyway  -  

is a pretty stupid affair : Mr. Button-up,

Mr. Know-It -All, Mr. Never Letting

Anything Cool or Unexpected Happen.

To me that always sounded like a pile

of really boring you know what. I 

always figured, 'give me the unexpected, 

throw me the surprise, any old day. It's 

more fun, better to learn from, and far 

more the way I want to be.' Going back,

now, to about 1966, let's call it, way 

before Internet days and all that crap 

now  -  I know, I have friends that I've 

traveled with, they can't take a shit 

without Miss Candy-Ass on their 

'Mapfinder Questorama How Do I 

Get There and Where Am I Now?' 

voice accessory damning their every 

free move. They fall for it every time,

while I, the one driving, have to hear 

the consequences. A blind bird can 

have more fun flying around than 

can anyone following one of those 

things. What's life to be about? 

If you're so weak-knee'd that

you have to have some lady-voice

scratching your back for you so as 

to find the next turn, I say go ahead

then, take that and go. Just don't

call me up, I'll be lost.

-

If someone had told us kids, back 

about 1960, that there'd be God-voices

telling us where to turn and how to 

get somewhere, we'd have spit up 

our noodles in the Brandywine 

Junk Yard we were sitting in. Before 

us stretched war, and then adulthood,

all to be lived, we hoped, without 

direction finders. Turned out the joke 

was on us; ten years later half the

new, modern things that started 

happening, through the 80's and 

90's, came from developments 

in Vietnam military situations 

and needs, or the space program.

Strangest damn world, indeed.

The entire 'Arpanet', or whatever

it was called  -  today's Internet, 

now  -  was first made for military, 

inter-staff, communications and 

intelligence and information 

passing. Go ahead, if you don't

believe me, look it up. The product 

we know of as 'Superglue' was 

first developed for field wounds 

and military dressings, Vietnam,

battlefield injuries, to immediately

close up wounds and things, to stop

bleeding and field death. Too weird,

but all true. Same goes for the space

program but, really, when you come

right down to it, who now cares?

-

Avenel kids, we busted windows with 

glee, just to see how the patterns of the

cracks went. We'd start fires with the

leftover gasolines found in old trucks

and cars. Incendiary crazy fools, but we

never thought. Explosions? Cool! Those

poor houses going up on Doreen Drive

and Mark Place; jeez it's a wonder they

ever got done. Those poor guys, every

Monday morning, must have had to 

spend three hours first counting up the

damages and repairs needed from the

weekend just past. 'Those rat-bastard

kids on Inman hit us again!' Unlike

today, there was never a guard posted,

no one around, nothing being watched.

We were alone in a wide-open world,

ill-defined, without definitions, but

ready for it all no matter. Be prepared?

For what? They ought to be prepared

for us, thank you.

-

Have I ever told you that wet noodles

were invented so people could say bad

jokes and stuff 'went over like a wet 

noodle?' OK, just kidding on that one.

-

What the use of any of this? I wonder

sometimes. Everyone used to say I was 

a 'rebel' from Avenel. Huh? I never 

understood any of that  -  I certainly 

wasn't what they said, and it just

showed really how little they knew. 

What a poor grasp they had of my 

reality, assuming they even knew

what it was. My problem wasn't

so much 'rebellion' per se  -  if it

was I'd have been a druggie or a

criminal or something  -  it was, 

really, more that I simply didn't

understand anything  - like living 

in a foreign land where people kept 

talking in a language I wasn't really

hip to and caught only a few words 

of here and there. I always felt more 

like a spiritualist, a real fervent 

believer, in a roomful of jaded 

atheists. Who all believed nothing, 

but chattered on endlessly, trying 

to believe in something. Or convince 

each other that they did. Like on 

Easter - my whole life, it was

always about the clothes and 

the food and the visits and the 

better weather, and all that crud. 

I never once heard anyone, amidst

all these 'believers' and celebrators,

say 'He Is Risen!' What gives, 

I wondered. It always seemed to 

me that if such was the ostensible 

reason for basis of your actions, you'd

at least want to own up to it. But no 

one ever did. It was, truly, as if I wasn't

understanding the words or concepts too

well. I was a fairly simple guy, a little

aloof maybe, and my simple bodily

presence is fairly normal  -  everyone 

should have related. It was only my own,

inside, thinking that was different, but I

figured they gloss over that  -  like the 

same way of not saying, 'He Is Risen!'

-

So, all this 'being prepared' stuff, it was

pretty useless  -  1966 again, all those

new and breaking rock and roll dudes, 

the music that supposedly stirred so 

many, you think they didn't work 

by the seats of their pants? It was 

all chance and the serendipitous

arrival of some chord breaks and a

better-knack for the tune producer

or engineer. Nothing was down pat, 

let alone culture and personal life.

Avenel to L. A., nationwide, it was

all on the wing. Be Prepared! Ha!

pt. 198 - kullman dining cars

BELOW THE WATER LINE 

(pt. 198)

One thing about growing up in Avenel,

I guess I should mention, is the fact

concerning highway ideas about roadside

motels, and diners. As a kid, each of

us knew they were there. The highway

was, literally, a string of small motels,

and a few diners  -  the Avenel Diner

and the Premium Diner among them.

Rahway had diners, in town there was

'Irene's.' Up and down Routes One and

Nine they could be found. The word

'iconic' wasn't really in use yet, though

in time that's what these all became -

not yet grown into their concept then.

What made it all interesting, for me, 

was that down at the bottom of Omar 

Ave., and Blair Road, was the factory

location, and yard of, Kullman Dining 

Car Company. They actually MADE 

these things, and were known nationally! 

(See insert; follows): "Kullman Dining Car 

Company, established in Newark, New 

Jersey in 1927, originally manufactured 

diners. The company expanded and 

later became the Kullman Building 

Corporation. It relocated to Avenel and 

finally to Clinton Township (with 

corporate offices in Lebanon) and 

over the years production grew to 

include prefabricated housing, 

dormitories, prisons, schools, banks, 

equipment buildings of cellular 

communications towers. It also 

built the first pre-fab United States 

Embassy in Guinea-Bissau in West

Africa. The company is known for 

incorporating the use of new materials, 

such as stainless steel and formica, 

as they were developed and appyling 

technologies developed through 

construction of diners to other buildings 

and is credited with introducing the 

term accelerated construction. 

The company re-organized in 

bankruptcy and Kullman Industries 

went out off business in 2011. 

XSite Modular (www.xsitemodular.com), 

a company formed by the management 

team that left prior to Kullman going 

out of business, now owns all the 

Kullman Intellectual Property 

purchased at auction."

-

Diners like that have, of course 

and over time now become part 

of the road-weary American

traveler's legend, all part of the

presentation. It was strengthening

as well as weird to see that have a

basis in Avenel. It was a small 

enough factory, and much of  the

work was done outside. These 

metal trailer type things, the

dining cars, were constructed and 

then the insides were appointed  -  

we'd see guys building counters, 

stove-sections, seats, padding, 

tables. The entire shooting match  -  

shiny metal, glass and mirrors. 

Everything would be done,

ready for hook-ups and power 

lines. Even the little table-top 

juke-box selector things, in place. 

Then they'd be coupled to trucks, 

or lifted onto flatbeds, etc., for the 

trip to their destination. It  could be 

Ohio, or Indiana, or Arizona. Evidently 

these things were shipped everywhere. 

We even learned geography from this  

-  the guys would talk a little to us, 

lunchtimes, eating sandwiches. No 

matter what they said, we'd believe 

them. 'Some King bought this for his 

private dining room. It's going far away,

getting lifted there by plane! We gotta' 

hang it, at the airport, at the bottom 

of a plane. Hope the wheels can hold 

the runway speed for takeoff!' Then 

they'd laugh. We kind'a knew it was all

BS, but we'd laugh back and I guess

'pretend' we took in the whole tale.

Crazy stuff, but it was fun. The other

cool thing was that, out back, at the 

ends of the work-yard, there'd be one

or two wrecked or abandoned or old

diner-car things, just sitting there. 

We'd usually manage to get in, just 

traipsing around  -  we treated it all 

the same way we treated the car and 

the truck junkyards. It was just how 

we lived. Cool stuff, and a million 

memories. Kullman eventually 

closed up or moved on. But for a

long time, whenever I entered a 

diner, I'd look for the little

'manufactured by' sign, in metal, 

usually somewhere on the side 

wall or, in the larger ones, on the

entryway inside wall. Kullman 

Dining Car Company, Avenel, NJ.

-

So, I mean then, I'd tell myself, 

what was Avenel about if not 

supplying the entire big, bad 

world with dining cars. Just like 

the portables at school  -  as if

they moved  -  on wheels, silver 

metal, like Airstream trailers that 

some bimbo family would drive 

around with, or in, to Utah or New 

Mexico, scrambling eggs in their

diner-car kitchen all the way, sitting 

there to eat while humming to Elvis 

on the juke-box, the sloppy diner-cook 

guy, in his dirty white apron and funny 

white cap, dropping his cigarette ashes 

when you hit a bump in Ohio right into 

your pureed ham-strap, creamed peas 

and potato-crisps. Kullman Dining Car 

Company, from us to you! And not 

only that, but we lived in a town where, 

every 1000 feet, all along Rt. One, north 

and south, was another roadside motel! 

Some of them with walls around them 

so the cheaters could park their cars 

unseen. All those office guys with their 

secretaries, and all that, taking an hour 

out of their busy day, right there, in Avenel, 

to make time with Sally O'Malley and

her wonderful salt-shakers! What a

world! Mystery world, to be sure. Ten

year old kids, saying, 'what do they 

want to do that for?' not quite sure 

yet what the whole motel strip was 

about (in both senses of the word!). 

So much to be said for the innocent 

life. I can't begin, and I've long ago 

sold away my birthright to that.

-

Anyway, again, Avenel was 'indubitably', 

(such a 1950's word), the center of 

some part of the world. I often just 

walked to the end of Inman Avenue,

right to Rt. One, just to watch the 

traffic passing  - wondering and 

wishing. All those people, busy with 

doing, going somewhere, and set on 

a human task. I little cared, actually, 

for anything of the southbound traffic  

-  it was only the northbound that took 

my spirit away. I made the (false) 

assumption, of course, that they were 

all going to New York City, some 1960

crazy-image I had of tunnels and 

bridges leading to intense company, 

intellectual adjustment, creative and 

crazy people. Certainly where I'd want 

to soon go and be. Not that they were, 

I just approached it that way as 'place 

of dreams, end-site for any travel, 

golden city to be at'. Just a kid's

fantasy maybe, like being once more

in that tree house behind my house, 

hanging over the tracks and viewing 

from the treetop heights that distant 

city. Man, was I made of dreams or 

not? And if it all was a dream, how 

different was it, really, from any of 

those dreams in the hot-sheet 

motels nearby?

-

One last thing too, years later  -  back 

in Pennsylvania, after I'd left there, 

a lot of the farmers hit hard times. 

Some closed up their operations.

One guy, my old farm neighbor 

Warren Gustin, I know he took a 

'second' job, in Elmira, 20 miles

away from his home in Columbia

Crossroads. His 5 kids and wife, 

and him, managed to still continue 

the farm work and the cow chores 

and planting, but on a different scale, 

and the job he took enabled some 

needed extra money to carry them. 

He took a job with the Bombardier 

Company, from Canada. They

refurbished NJ and NYC railroad 

cars  -  the old, crummy ones would 

be brought in, they'd gut them, make 

everything new and updated, re-do 

the entire car for safety and service

qualifications. He found it all very 

amazing, but what shocked him more 

was the day-to-day workman's things 

he had to do  -  he'd never before worked 

in a factory format. It depressed him at

first, and caused him some problems, 

having been a free and open farmer his 

entire work-life. No matter  -  just like 

the Kullman Dining Car place, on each 

of their rail cars (and I'd look for, and

see this badge too, on many of the trains 

I rode) they would rivet in a metal plate 

that says 'Refurbished, July 20o1,

(or whatever date), Bombardier Railcar

Co., Elmira, New York. I still always look.