Shakedown Street

Condo association where I live is closing in, and I have to haul my two canoes all the way down to Lawrence Township in Mercer County, where my father might not like them. They're in the Common Element. We own our house, but the spaces outdoors--even the patio--have "common element" designated as a matter of control over the people--mostly working class--who live in the Cortland neighborhood.

The canoes are situated behind bushes and the little of them visible actually looks nice. Who would disagree with successfully owning goods like them?

Well, in the first place, I understand, as I understood upon our buying a house under an association's rules, that this ownership is a little like my writing on the Blogger platform I don't own. I do own the copyright, of course, but have bought no domain.

What a loaded word.

The association lords it over us now. They've notified residents of this second inspection in 20 years coming our way. The other happened last year...just as the "ruling classes" crack down on us across the board in a society presumably American. (I hold a working-class job and learn a lot about this society.)

What is the working-class? Like a refuse bin, a collection of individuals receiving damnation from above, the psychological projections of people with a lot more power pushed down on us. As if we're sacrificed like servicemen...so "others" (as if we don't comprise this society as well) can be free.

I worked hard to buy these canoes, and it might be obvious to some that I must have worked by means other than working-class, at least if they knew the level of my wages. And that my wife just put Rod Sirling on, The Twilight Zone, seems like an innuendo about further work I do, which I haven't yet received any monetary payment for. This episode of Sirling: "The Orbiting Human Circus." Ancient Rome never got nearly so spaced-out with Bread and Circuses. Our distraction, I hope, will never again be repeated in human history.

You may recall I recently posted on Sirling. About the pig-faces episode, and I have achieved some quality of life; quality of life may be felt as an abstraction involved in the theme of that episode. Is this achievement of mine unacceptable? Of course not, not among rational people. But for a working-class man to possess significant intellectual capital--while knowing fully that this capital is worthless without physical goods to ground it in reality--for a working-class man to effectively influence this society we live in by use of the mind, this may be very threatening to those Americans who presume to rule, while any American with any self-esteem knows "rulers" are un-American. The American nation is free. That which is not free is bound by farce and injustice.

I use the definite article before the word mind because every individual is, in fact, a social being.

Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead croon about what used to be the heart of town. "Shakedown Street." No one really wants to be dead and grateful; we want to live here on earth. And any man worth the salt of this desire will fight for his life.

There is no forum for appeal with the condo association. I have to move my canoes. We can't begin to afford a lawyer, though of course I am aware the rules could be investigated for possible contest, not that this thought bears much relevance, because if we could afford contesting these rules, we sure wouldn't live here.

What's relevant is that if I must, I can in all likelihood sell my canoes, though I especially want to keep the Great Canadian, a great find, and would do my best to persuade my patient father, if I had to keep it on his property. Selling both would mean dropping back to the shore-bound/rental handicap I bore out for many years. Chris Lido, former editor of The Fisherman, used to joke about my actually mailing print photos to support articles that were published with the film-print images, and I treasure these emails between him and me I keep as hard copy, because I want to believe his humor was good-natured. I was already forever grateful during my 20's and onward to The Fisherman for publishing me at age 16, although not a word was edited, because each passed muster. The articles are good, in other words. There was no prejudice against a youngster writing them who was fully qualified. I fished almost every day during my teens. I knew my business.

Getting back into publication after many years as a self-employed commercial clammer, mostly from the Jersey Shore, this was a lot more difficult than getting published as the privileged teenager of an upper-professional family, although, of course, no mention of this status was ever needed or given; the issue here is that my intellectual ability at that age reflected upon my parents, my father going on to hold the position of Music Director, Washington National Cathedral while George W. Bush was President and surely contemplated my father's music while seated in the congregation, as my father stood conducting. I do know that on another occasion, my father leading the American Boychoir, George W. Bush winked at Dad.

Dad is fiercely independent. This explains why, for me, it's "You're on your own, son." Something to be grateful for eternally, but the loss of a Great Canadian might swing in the balance. I don't know.

Buying another inflatable is out of the question. It worked to some degree of course, but seems laughable now that I have the canoes, not that I would discourage anyone finding some way to get on the water, but that I would encourage moving on to a better craft, if possible. My son and I, friends who fish with me, we have moved on, and if these canoes must be reduced to money in my pockets, we are not going back to an inflatable. We will rent and fish from the bank.

I bought my canoes by writing essays and articles for various paying publications, supporting most submissions with photography. (I also bought very expensive photographic equipment through these earnings.) It's like any other business. The canoes serve to increase my earnings. To sell may mean less income, but I never forget the words of novelist Ed Minus (Kite, Penguin Group), my former writing member: "Sometimes limitations impart greater freedom." That is, if you will act freely within limits, by which I mean the difficulty is the essence of that freedom. This is great reason never to give up.

The general pattern of politics in this country at present: the rich get richer the poor get poorer. I'm fortunate to very unusual degree--thanks entirely to my own effort, certainly not luck, and don't I ever know this--very fortunate compared to most of the working class who lack education. So I try to avoid sour grapes and deal with what gets thrown down on my shoulders. I think of the rock band Lynrd Skynrd's, "Sweet Home Alabama." The last words of the song involve the soloist swearing a load off his shoulders, but rather than racism implied--racism absolutely is evil--I think of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. The motto of Litton's Fishing Lines, "An Angler Always Finds a Way," is the honest truth. To think that some new leader on the condo board, our situation here in fact, would defeat me, this is a lot more laughable than owning an inflatable boat.