Dirt 103

       We groundskeepers knew dirt. We writers knew speech. We old souls knew we didn't know, but had an inkling speech was a lot like dirt.        
       On the low end of speech you had your "clean fill"--clay dirt 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 clean fill; 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 he came home from the plant. 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 clean fill--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."
  
       
                                                                                   

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