Dirt 103

       We groundskeepers knew dirt. We writers knew speech. We old souls knew we didn't know, but had a inkling speech was a lot like dirt.        
       On the low end of speech you had your fill dirt--clay chunked up with construction waste. On the high end of speech you had your compost--top soil in a marinade of steer manure.
       I, of course, grew up speaking fill dirt; and the low end of it at that. I'd say I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, except that I grew up on the tracks; my parents' house faced the tracks--four sets of tracks. Not that I felt deprived; in my kid head tracks were it--as good as life got.
       "That's because you're a bonehead, son."
       There were two kinds of moms; those who picked a kid up, those who knocked a kid down. Getting knocked down was all right by me because I was a fighter.
       "Ya, well, I'm goona be a hobo when I get big, and you can't stop me."
       "Why a hobo, son?"
       "Cause Hobo Ed is the happiest guy I know."
       "You're mistaking happy for halfwit, son."
       "Hobo Ed is too happy. Says so cause he's got his freedom."             
       "But freedom ain't real, son. Freedom is . . . freedom is what a guy gits in his head when he ain't got nuttn in his head."
       "Freedom is too sumpm. Freedom is . . . See, when . . . Hobo Ed says when you hop a box car, ride it to the end of the line, freedom is what you git."
       "No, son, freedom is what I git when my good-for-nuttn son pushes me to the end of my rope." 
       Mom would reach above her head then, pull on a pretend rope. After her tongue fell out, she'd make a face like she couldn't believe she was dead. Back from the dead, she'd say, "Your choice son, you can ride the rails--put your ma in an early grave, or you can make your mom happy; make a sumpm of yourself."
       "What, a sumpm like dad?"
       "Son, there's two kinds of dads; those who pick themselves up, and those who knock themselves down. See, son, for a boy to amount to sumpm he needs a game plan. Now, your dear old dad had no game plan--had none cause he hadn't a clue. Git a clue, kid: Git yourself to college, so you don't end up a nuttn like your father." 
       Boy, that sure hit home; not only was my father the unhappiest person I knew, he hit me every time I came home. That was that, then; though I wasn't about to give up on freedom, I was determined to make a sumpm of myself. 
       
        Years later, in high school, I visited my sister in college. What a shocker; teenagers from every backyard in america, every tongue true to the yard dirt stuck there. Sumpm, how I fit right in. "Wrong" my sister said, "In college we speak something called "proper English."
       After almost having to go to war, I got to go to college. My goal for college wasn't an education per say; it was the 'per say' itself--loading up my tongue with steer manure. Word had it, the professors there spread a lot of it. 
       And they did.
       When I started working at ACCW--decades later, I expected the professors there to speak the same.
       They didn't. 
       Take Ezra, the head of Photography; he spoke fill dirt--though a high end of it at that. But what really warmed me to Ezra was the 10,000 lakes coming off that Minnesota tongue of his.
       After touching on my Minnesota roots, I asked Ezra where he'd grown up?
       "Anoka," he had said.
       "Huh," I said, "never heard of it. But sure sounds Minnesotan."
       "Anoka's an old river town; where the Rum runs into the Mud--The Big Muddy as it were." 
       Oh, what a time Ezra and I had recounting those humid Minnesota summers out in the killing fields of our youth, our white necks black from nature's own sunblock--the dirt, sweat, and the 10,000 misquitoes smashed there. 
       Perhaps it's at the dawn of middle age when guys start practicing their elder speak, for Ezra and I--both forty then--kept hearing ourselves say: "Ah, kids these days; don't know how easy they got it." Then we'd follow up with the hardships we'd experienced growing up in the dark ages of our youth.
       Except the 1950's were pretty bright. No, growing up post WWII in the breadbasket of the world, everywhere you looked was a peice of pie, a peice of cake, and peace. We baby-boomer boys were all about the sugar, sure, but didn't care about no peace. All we wanted was to grow up and fight in a war like our lucky dads got to do.
       Of course, our lucky dads, mysteriously, refused to talk war. So we boys got our war talk off the Big Screen. Talk that told us blood and guts and war was pure glory. Home from the movies, we'd dig our fox holes. No, a boy never felt more manly hunkered down in his fox hole. Never more productive than popping up to slaughter those bastard gerry's--Germans. Of course, it never dawned on us Minnesota boys that we were largely German ourselves.   
       I was nine or ten, fresh home from seeing the movie, "The Guns of Navarone," when my dad and I finally had our war talk. "Boy, don't you go tellin your ma this, but shortly after the war I took a wrong turn and my life's been hell since."
       "Screw hell, dad, tell me about the war--the blood and guts, the way you had to wait to see the white's of their eyes before you killed those bastard gerrys."
       "You're a bonehead, son."
       "Ah, you can't blame a boy for wantin to get his head around some blood and guts."
       "Get your head around this, boy: War is spending the night in a foxhole with the blood and guts of your dead best buddy. War is coming home on a ship, trying to get your head around a word like "lucky" when you feel guilty as hell that every one of your buddies came home in a body bag. Of course, after the war I got hitched to your ma and pretty soon I could see; it was my dead buddies who were the lucky sons-of-bitches."
        Dad pulled on a pretend rope then, his tongue fell out, made a face like death was as good as it gits.
       After dad came back from the dead, I said, "I understand, dad; mom's mean to me, too--says I'm out to put her in an early grave."
        "Get off your high horse, boy, you're killing me too. Your sis is too. That's what I'm trying to tell you, young man, don't buy into it."
        "Into what?"
        "Into the marriage, the kids, the nine to five. Get a clue, boy, for a man the american dream is a nightmare--the end to freedom. No, boy, if I was you I'd jump the next train west. West, young man, west where the sun never sets on the rogue male."
       There were two paperbacks kicking around my parents house: Rogue Male and The Bride Wore Black. I never saw anyone reading the books, but after our man-to-man it dawned on me; these must be dad's books.
       
       The Saturday after our man-to-man, I packed up Rogue Male, a baloney sandwich, my life savings--the three bucks I'd saved towards a new bike, headed for the tracks. 
       When a boy is nine or ten, looking out the sunny side of a box car, the engines jugging West towards his freedom, it never dawns on him that things may just as well go wrong as right. Things went OK till I started dying for a drink--never thought to bring water. I was starving too, but knew better than to eat my lunch before noon. I passed the time watching the 10,000 lakes passing by. Oh, how I longed for the next town when the train would slow down enough to jump off.
       Turned out, trains don't slow for one saloon towns. That's the trouble with america; every settler overly optimistic; thinking the town he founded would amount to sumpm.
       It was evening, before we came to a bigger town. At least, I'd saved my lunch to go with some rail side pond water. Drinking, a hobo showed up. He wasn't happy-go-lucky like Ed, and before I knew it, the dirt bag had conned me out of my lunch. Later, an even meaner hobo pulled a knife on me, stole my three bucks. And as for Rogue Male; I used the first chapter Saturday night to get a fire started. And Sunday morning I used the second chapter for some emergency toilette paper--that green pond water was a bit thick. 
       I had some down time Sunday afternoon--riding a train back East, so I opened Rogue Male. But having not read the first two chapters, I couldn't make hide nor hair of the third, so I chucked the rogue male out the box car door.
      Sunday evening, I slipped in the side door of my parents house--been gone all weekend and no one noticed. 
       Well, my sister noticed.
       "Damned the luck; little brother isn't dead, after all."
       I didn't say anything--too busy wolfing down my bowl of sugar, milk and cereal. 
      "Oh, well," she added, "while you were gone, I had the best day dreams ever--you, bleeding to death in some dark culvert."
       "Thanks for not tellin mom I was gone."
       "What, and blow your cover? No way was I saying anything till I was sure you'd bought the farm."
  
       
       Early on, when I was getting to know Ezra, I kidded him about the clean-fill way he had of speaking. "But, professor, how am I to look up to you when you speak like a groundskeeper?"
       "Hey," he had said, "I'm a professor; I have nothing to prove."
       Later on, Ezra kidded me: "But, groundskeeper, how am I to look down on you when you speak like a professor?"
       "Hey," I had said, "I'm a groundskeeper; I have something to prove."
       After that, for larks, we spoke to one another according to our pigeon holes. This was an easy hole for me; littered my speech with the trash I'd picked up along highway 61. And, oh, what a kick the professor got out of my white-trash speak. Such a kick, he suggested I work some of it into my writing.  
       "Oh, no," I had said, "a writer of my caliber doesn't resort to anything so sophomoric as butchering his mother tongue." 
       "Hey," Ezra had said, "if butchered English was good enough for the Missouri boy to paddle his way down the Mississippi, why shouldn't the Minnesota boy use it to pole his way up?"
       Boy, that sure hit home. No, you want to influence a writer in America, just drop him on the same raft as Twain. So, driving home that day, I'd envisioned myself on a raft with Huck, poling our way up Old Man River. No, for old Huck and I, it was all, "Lake Itasca or bust."
       Home, I'd opened my laptop, had so much fun unchaining the junkyard dogs, I had to kick myself in the ass for letting the joy of writing get away from me. Which begged the question: Where, exactly, had the joy of writing gotten away from me? 
       Writing sure was a joy in college. A joy till my writing prof cut the heart out of me with: "Please, Anton, share with the class why a writer would want to serve his better reader a plate of road kill."  
       Then, out of college, I cut my heart out even more when, trying to get published, I took to considering my better editor. Embarrassing, the close shave I gave my voice that it might raise the penciled brow of that English major who, fresh out of college, was called to New York to raise the bar of Literature, only to find herself at the bottom of a slush pile in search of the canned cat food that made fat cats fatter.
       Well, rejections got me to thinking of doghouses, and doghouses got me to thinking of dog shows, and dog shows got me to thinking of the close shave you give a dog to get ready for a dog show. Oh, what a standard poodle literature in America had become. No, Ezra was right, time for Lassie, here, to bite Timmy in the ass, run off, join the pack.
       OK, so I have yet to find me a following, but I sure get off seeing myself on a makeshift raft, the lone wolf of literature, poling my way up Old Man River--poling up without a care in the world. Well, I have one care; the power Old Man Time has over reach. No, like every writer in America, I'd like to dip my bucket in Itasca, not kick it in Anoka.  
     
       Back to larks. 
       Ezra had the harder end of the lark; speaking steer manure. Though Ezra wasn't exactly working-class--his dad taught math, neither was he ivy league. I suggested he find a fellow professor to fill his manure spreader. But, no, upon review, ACCW was an art college anchored in craft; all the profs spoke fill dirt.
       Ezra's speech coach showed up one day when he and I were talking perspective. I, seriously leaning on my broom, thought we were talking The Big Picture. But then Ezra, fiddling with his camera, said, "Take this view to the south. I can increase the depth of field if I narrow down on the aperture."
       Before Ezra could put his eye to his camera, Hayward appeared. Having sized me up, Hayward said, "Phenomenal, yes, how our groundskeeper can position his chin on the end of his broom and call it motivation."
       For a response I added head weight to my broom handle.
       Hayward left in a huff, and checking my chin, I said, "Phenomenal, yes, how our president can position his tongue on his high brow and call it motivational speaking."
       "Hey," Ezra said, "we all have our flaws: Hayward's got that callus on his tongue from licking his high brow, and you got that dent in your chin from leaning on your broom." 
       I pulled on my chin. "Good one, Ezra. And where, exactly, do you wear your callus?"
       "On the end of every finger." Ezra pulled on his fingers. "See, Anton, teaching art's easy. What's hard is the rib spreading. Every student's got it in there, for sure, but it's like pulling teeth to get what's in there out."
        I didn't want to pull teeth. "That Hayward, the way he speaks; makes me want to punch his teeth out. I hear he's from the East--old world money, no doubt."
       "Wrong," Ezra said. "Hayward grew up poor in Poughkeepsie. But then he won a Rhodes scholarship, went off to Oxford." Ezra pulled on his chin. "Oxford; you're bound to come back with some tongue stuck to your brow when you go off to Oxford."
       "Big deal, so Hayward's a frigging genius. All the more reason not to like him."
       "We don't have to like him. But we do need Hayward to talk Oxford. If he talked Lake Wobegon like you and I, the rich wouldn't trust him--wouldn't let him stick his hand in their deep pockets."
       I didn't say anything. 
       "Like it or not, Anton, it's largely Hayward's hands in the pants of the well-to-do that keeps this place afloat. So, you be nice to Hayward."
       I didn't want to be nice to Hayward. But I did want Ezra to like me. 
       Changing my tune, I did my best to positively criticize Hayward. But I don't think Ezra was listening--caught up in shooting his view to the south.
       Yes, Ezra's view to the south was something. And given the art professor, here, busting ass to capture it, I guess that something spelled art. Of course, I, the groundskeeper, couldn't see the art for all the work those turning leaves spelled for me. 

       
       The days passed, and I got a better feel for the ACCW community. And what a singular community it was. Where I had worked before, everyone saw the landscaping as something you walked through to get to a job. Here, the staff, faculty, and students saw the landscaping as something you sought out when it was time to get what was inside you out. 
       The Dean of the college touched on it one day when I was standing in a daze trying to get a handle on what to do next. "Why so serious?" she said.
       "Oh," I said, lifting my chin off the end of my rake, "my new spread; just trying to put some two-and-two together on how to keep it all."
       "Two plus two? That's four. Nothing serious there."
       Pulling on my chin, I was tempted to take the Dean to school on the difference between two-and-two and two-plus-two. But I really needed the academician, here, to get off the subject of math. Though I could put two-and-two together with the best of them, two-plus-two was about as far as I'd gotten in math. 
       "You're right," I said, "it's not serious. I mean, look at the great grounds I've landed. No, really, I must be one blessed cuss, to get to keep all this."
       "This art and craft college is something else. And we're counting on you to keep it something else."
       "Me? Hell, I wouldn't know art if it hit me in the craft." I laughed.
       The Dean didn't. "You have a hand, right?"
       I displayed my left, surprised not to see a glove on it. Damn, where were my gloves? Oh, there they were, airing out on my wheelbarrow.
       "Anton. Put your hand into this place."
       "My hand?"
       "Each hand is unique--like a signature. Everyone who is involved in this school is working hard to honor that singularity of expression."
       I did understand this. We writers, too, worked hard at nailing down our singular voice. "Wow, this place is something else."
       "That's because we have exceptional people with an exceptional program in an exceptional place. You are largely responsible for place. Instead of seeing yourself as the hired hand, see yourself as the hired paint brush." She waved her hand over the grounds. "The campus is your canvas. Now, inspire us."
       The Dean left, and I framed in a section of my canvas.

       I don't know; looked like a finished painting to me.
       Nevertheless, I dropped my rake, headed for the Front Desk. As a staff person, I got a free class as part of my benefits package, and I wanted to see if there was any space left in Painting 101. 
       
       My new calling as painter weighed on me the next few days. Adding to that weight was an old lady who came walking down the main walk. "Greetings," she said. "You must be Leif's replacement."
       Turned out this lady was the landscape architect who had designed the campus some twenty years back--the real artist behind the painting. She was cordial, but she put more pressure on me than the Dean. "There are two types of pruners," she said. "Most are sculptors. A choice few are painters. Leif was a painter. He believed plants should look like plants. I believe if you machine the life out of these plants, you'll find a foot in your ass."
       I looked at the old lady's foot.
       "Not my foot, Einstein. The foot of the spirit of the place." She waved her hand over the place. "Believe me, if there's one foot you don't want in your ass, it's the foot of the spirit of this place."
       After a year or so of mulling over my new role as Painter and, moreover, how to keep my ass free of spirit feet; I came up with a game plan: Not to prune at all. No, for five years now, I'd been letting things go. Oh, sure the bold brush strokes were consuming walkways, eating entire corners of patios, but, by god, things sure looked painterly.
       And it all worked out for the best. Because I wasn't pruning, I had more down time. More and more, I found myself lying in the dirt under the old madrone tree. This tree, like a carved figurehead, grew out of the prow of the campus. There I'd lay, look up, learn stuff. 
       Take today. I learned so much I had to sit up, take notes like a schoolgirl: "The college's signature tree, the madrone, showed us how to grow. The tree willingly shed old leaves and bark to make way for new leaves and bark. The tree was old but that alone didn't make it wise. Our madrone was wise because no matter how big it grew, the tree remained ever green."
      OK then; time to get back to class. I laid back, looked up.

       

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