Defining Incongruity
It’s hard to explain the toilet bowl that sits on the guy’s
front lawn under the expansive elm tree.
But it is most decisively there - in all its white porcelain glory. And it is making a statement all by itself -
whether he intends it to or not. It
makes me think of the word “incongruous.”
How many things in life fall into the category of
“incongruous” – things that don’t fit within the surroundings in which they
find themselves? This should be a
continual source of entertainment, wonder and offense all at the same time.
I went to the bank the other day. It has an interior ATM that is only
accessible with your card after the bank closes. As a result, people courteously sit in their
cars and wait until the person in the bank ante room comes out. The guy before me went in and I couldn’t help
but glance toward his vehicle. Wow. In the back of his little station wagon-style
car, he had quite a collection of “stuff.”
I’m being respectful. But it
would require the Sesame Street people to re-write a new song way beyond the
realm of “One of these things is Not Like the Other.”
It was the adult sized accordion which caught my eye
first. It was not in a case. It was sprawled out over the heap of
everything else that was back there. (I’m
looking for a second-hand adult accordion so naturally my radar picked that
up). Then the exhaust system of a
vehicle, including the catalytic converter piece, was on top of the interior
heap running the full length of the side of his car. And a suitcase-looking thing was crowning the
area of “stuff” right behind the driver’s seat.
I surveyed “himself” as he walked from the bank to his
driver’s seat. Is he a traveling
musician? The living picture before me
almost looked formal: white shirt, dark
pants, and an almost Elvis- wave to his hair.
But then a real musician wouldn’t do to the accordion what he did. Is he a junk-picker? Will that accordion with which I am now
obsessed be on ebay soon? Is he a
tinker? Who knows what a tinker IS
anymore?
When I was growing up there was “The Tinker and His Son”
that wandered around the tri-town area where I went to church. Well, maybe it was his son, but maybe
not. I say this because the guy was all
of four and a half feet tall, if that and his son was the measure of Andre the
Giant. Yes, that Andre the Giant, from WWF.
They seemed to wander around and I vaguely remember them pushing a
cart. The father was very old, and the
son perhaps in his 40’s. But this is all
a kid’s perspective and is surmised from a safe distance away from the
incomprehensible. Maybe they were the
precursors to homeless or under-employed people that claimed a neighborhood
territory. Or maybe he was just a
door-to-door “tinker,” namely, the guy who will fix stuff or trade stuff for
household items you think you need.
Perhaps they are akin to encyclopedia salesmen.
Remember that scene from “Second Hand Lions” where Michael
Caine and Robert Duvall are sitting on their front porch with shotguns lying
across their lap? They are waiting for
the encyclopedia salesman to arrive. And
they aren’t inviting him on the porch for sweet tea either. Were tinkers received with the same welcome? Probably not, if they were part of your
community’s historical cast of characters.
They were at least willing to do something for some financial support.
Back then I’m not sure we had homeless people who held signs
that just flat-out asked for money like they do here and now. People actually offered to work for money, well, like I do I
guess. I will type, teach, make jam,
sell birds, sell puppies, and paint for green tender. And that is in a large part why I’m not homeless – because I keep
re-inventing myself to keep the roof over my head. It’s just that little extra which softens my
life up a bit.
So we have things that are incongruous, like the
toilet. And we have people that are in
the grey zone of congruity, like the tinkers.
And then we have the congruous and beautiful.
That is when the school bus stopped in front of me and the
two mothers guided their little elementary schoolers up to the bus. The white woman turned and went to her car to
get on with her day. The African
American woman waved at her and gave a thumbs-up sign to the kids on the bus
and moved on to her day. At that point I
think I got something in my eye because all I was seeing was home town America
looking beautiful and congruous again.
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