Zanesville & Dresden, OH, 5.7.26
This was one of my favorite days, not least because it was a series of enjoyable events untinged by the broader ambiance of familiar people and detested socio-political issues. Days like this remind one that there can be respite from the albatross which is the political culture of this declining empire.
A vulgarian oil man from Texas named Clayton Williams, in his failed run for governor against the venerable Ann Richards in 1990 said – probably not on television, but in a print interview anyway – of rape: 'It's kind of like the weather. There's nothing you can do about it, so why not lay back and enjoy it?'
Which brings me to the most beautiful Catholic Church I had the opportunity to visit on this trip. It was Sunday morning and I'm less and less hostile to religion with the mellowing (ha!) that comes with middle age. I get why it appeals to people. It serves a function, often a harmless socializing one. I'll take a Bible believing Christian over a secular magic phone addict any day. And twice on Sunday.
At least here there's some modicum of majesty. And if you're lucky a priest with a notion of what the implications of Christ's teachings are. The socialist movement of course was a secular expression of the best in Christianity. Lifting up the downtrodden, giving voice to the voiceless. That sort of thing... But that is an error.
The meek, of course, will inherit bupkus. It remains wicked to accept someone's thinly disguised suicide as some sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card to eternal salvation. It remains an unhelpful illusion to do for others what they could do for themselves. It remains foolish to impute into a bedouin oral tradition text, revised a dozen times or more, some sort of universal paradigm for human conduct. Better to resort to the Greco-Roman legacy, the real foundation of what little remains worthy in 'Western Civilization', than to persist with primitive Manichean notions of ethics. But about Zanesville...
The day started out at Slack's Book Barn. The nice fella is retiring and liquidating his stock. Did alright there – can only imagine what might have been around when the fire sale started a month before. The proprietor was a card – your garden variety caustic lifer bookseller. He referred to his most annoying repeat customers simply as "the fucks". Yay!
Next stop was Dresden, OH, situated 20 miles north of town. Showed up just due to the name, and of course it was another surprising German hamlet. Stumbled upon 'Baskets and More' the overstock outlet for the Longaberger Empire of high quality yet reasonably priced household wares. Steep discounts abounded for a variety of crafts. My mother made out like a bandit via bribes, I mean gifts.
The young woman who staffed this well kempt yet largish shop all alone remarked ruefully on the absurdity of the place. I thought it was like the Twilight Zone, a shop where quality products were to be had for a song. And yet virtually empty of customers on the Lord's Day. God bless capitalist overproduction!
Back in Zanesville with the coming of mid-afternoon. The Emporium downtown had a host of local products and some antiques here and there. Operated as a something of a collective by two middle aged punk women, a few trinkets were secured there and intelligence gathered regarding local watering holes. Consensus was reached in short order: go to Terry's on the water. Yes, ma'ams!
I suppose the two afternoons I spent at this joint were the most enjoyable of this, and perhaps any other, vacation. Dirt cheap yet delicious margaritas; an outdoor bar where smoking appeared to be not just tolerated but virtually mandatory; a strong kitchen serving up the usual fare with flare; sassy wait staff; easy company easily enjoyed.
It appears I didn't photograph any of the characters on the first day – and I'm quite certain I didn't on the second day: the Mountain Men "contractors" who might fix up your deck or put a bullet in the head of an inconvenient associate. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here I met a couple guys at first that had been drinking for hours before I arrived. Just sitting in the sun all afternoon. And getting tore up. The jokes wouldn't translate, but it was a fine time indeed.
This might not be a nation of chiselers. But Herman Melville did likely popularize the term Confidence Man in his eponymous pre-Civil War novel, chronicling the doings of his fellow Americans on the Mississippi. He despaired of this. I mean, Joseph Smith would found a city second only in population to Chicago on that verysame river.
Mark Twain's royal charlatans from Huck Finn come to mind as well. It's a national plague and it's only getting worse. I do not care to join them, but I can draw political inferences from experience and art and it's just another way of reinforcing a long-standing conclusion. American liberalism is bunk.
There are well-founded reasons, come to find out, why the white working class votes in opposition to the welfare state. First, it doesn't help them much and it may harm them with it's paternalistic intrusiveness. Second, they themselves know that their shitbird relatives are milking the system. And they resent it, understandibly enough.
As for politics further left, well, that's a discussion for another time, but if the people you're trying to save regard you as a delusional do-gooder, you might take the hint. Probably about what's even desirable would be a revived multicultural labor movement – you know, the thing liberal elitists hate and hence fear the most: solidarity without boundaries.
