June 13: Kenneth Rexroth, "The Bad Old Days," Nostalgia

The Bad Old Days

by:  Kenneth Rexroth

The summer of nineteen eighteen   

I read The Jungle and The

Research Magnificent. That fall   

My father died and my aunt   

Took me to Chicago to live.   

The first thing I did was to take   

A streetcar to the stockyards.   

In the winter afternoon,   

Gritty and fetid, I walked

Through the filthy snow, through the   

Squalid streets, looking shyly   

Into the people’s faces,

Those who were home in the daytime.   

Debauched and exhausted faces,   

Starved and looted brains, faces   

Like the faces in the senile   

And insane wards of charity   

Hospitals. Predatory

Faces of little children.

Then as the soiled twilight darkened,   

Under the green gas lamps, and the   

Sputtering purple arc lamps,   

The faces of the men coming

Home from work, some still alive with   

The last pulse of hope or courage,   

Some sly and bitter, some smart and   

Silly, most of them already   

Broken and empty, no life,   

Only blinding tiredness, worse   

Than any tired animal.   

The sour smells of a thousand   

Suppers of fried potatoes and   

Fried cabbage bled into the street.   

I was giddy and sick, and out   

Of my misery I felt rising   

A terrible anger and out

Of the anger, an absolute vow.   

Today the evil is clean

And prosperous, but it is   

Everywhere, you don’t have to   

Take a streetcar to find it,

And it is the same evil.

And the misery, and the

Anger, and the vow are the same.

__________________________

Nostalgia can be a very comforting thing.  Thinking of days gone by with a sort of wistful longing.  Marcel Proust wrote several books about the subject.  I've been thinking a lot about my time in high school these last few weeks.  I'm not sure if "wistful" is the correct adjective here. 

I did have a pretty good high school experience.  Lots of friends.  Lots of interests--drama, cross country, English, creative writing, girls.  I wouldn't say I was a popular kid, but there wasn't a whole lot of bullying in my life.  Either that, or I just didn't really pay attention to whoever was trying to bully me.

In reality, I suppose, the good old days probably weren't all that good at times.  I had health struggles.  Between my freshman and sophomore years, I ended up in a diabetic coma for a while.  A few days in intensive care, followed by a week-long hospital stay.  Not fun.  Money was always a worry.  I always put pressure on myself to be the best at everything.  The summer after I graduated from high school, I ended up in a months-long depression due to the death of someone very close to me.

Nostalgia sort of whitewashes all that shit I went through.  That's the unhealthy part of it.

Saint Marty is trying not to be nostalgic tonight.  That means not watching The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Stand By Me.