Hanging On The Corner
Back about 50 plus+ years ago, I graduated from college. I had a great job, working in the auto industry. (But) I felt like I was missing something. I was on edge with tremendous nervous vigor. Also, the era I grew up in – the 40's, 50's & 60's – idealized schism against the staidness of the previous generation. The values and principles are definitely now less inclined, in that direction. I was getting bored. Looking back on my life; I maybe, somehow, needed to re-invent my high-strung gumption, now that I'm becoming more refined in my post teenage years. I grew up being a mischievous punk kid, who had a score to settle.
Not worrying about money (I was already loaded from years of working shadily, hiding my money, and hustling as a kid) or anything else of importance; I decided, I needed some ACTION. I cannot say, I particularly welcomed this development; but- I was familiar with it. (So) I'm thinking, I must pronounce my own identity at some point, and this is liable to take the form of anti social nonconformity. Once the trademark of the anguished teen! So I get together with a select group of crazy ass friends I know (who were also bored as hell) and we all decide, that we need to go hang out on a corner and act COOL! ..Hey, something to do! But, that wasn't all of it. My mind was PLOTTING?
But you have to remember something important about our adolescence: above all things we were myth-makers, creating and recreating situations and whole webs of significance little understood by the pragmatic grown-up world. Our aim was risk and courted danger.
Being jaded social deviates, we began hanging out on street intersections; binge drinking with friends, shouting insults at people, and generally attempting to score points with friends and increase our standing in the circle. The group was our security; and if you are by yourself, you're seen as an easy target for those who desperately needed attention.
We would often make the scene at parks and street hideways, for want, of having no better place to hang out. There was some kind of magical feeling you get from hanging out there? Quite often, this was perfectly innocent and there was nothing sinister about it. However, it created problems when we started constantly hanging outside of someone's domain; and with issues, such as noise and litter, were just two of the less serious problems, we caused. Often a lot of distraction was being made, because of our presence; so we decided that we would prowl, for a proprietary hang-out, where 'EVERYONE KNEW OUR NAME.'
While on our new corner, we were always on the brink, and there was an element of unpredictability. We were a group of friends, punctuated with "dunnos" and "maybes," laughing, joking and spending time together. But, outside the performance, we became obvious to the rogue cops in town, that we were becoming TROUBLEMAKERS.
All of a sudden, posturing at our new corner and nearby park and street crossroads developed into prowling around and displaying ourselves to the area punks. Separation for us youths on the street corner began with the construction of 'us and 'them.' In the defiance and madness of the streets, peer admiration is the only form. We had to assert our own identity against that of our peers at some point...''we stand about our town thinking were BAD'' --and it did take the form of a rebellious nature.
First of all, I went out and purchased some tough muscle cars, during the few years that I'm hoodwinking around the town corners. I needed to inflate my ego more within the standing of the social club. The cops in town didn't like it at all. They were constantly chasing me. I had quicker, faster, souped-up wheels, that handled better than any police chase cars. With my ego bursting, I was on a collision course.
The display of our belonging was to appear tough, hard and dangerous. Now a lot of fights, were happening on a regular basis, between, jealous rivals hanging around on the street corners, largely doing nothing, but drinking. Our trademarked street corner now was becoming A SITE OF PUBLIC DISPLAY with all bunch of punk kids with motorized 'road rockets' drag racing down the main streets with the cops in pursuit. Enough of all this nonsense.
I decided IT WAS TIME-- after a few years of all this craziness; I got more and more committed to praying, connecting to my true self, and transcendental meditating. I felt deep in my heart ''it was time'' for me to make some shifts in my outer world. That decision involved trekking across the entire country...I was excited about the new adventures I was undertaking, that were surely paving their way on my new horizon, through, the Doors of Perception... And, as I may say: THERE WERE MANY.
© daniel miltz
