"After years wasted," the Revᵈ commences, "at perfecting a parsonical Disguise,— grown old in the service of an Impersonation that never took more than a Handful of actor's tricks,— past remembering those Yearnings of Danger, past all that ought to have been, but never had a Hope of becoming, have I beach'd upon these Republican Shores,— stoven, dismasted, imbécile with age,— an untrustworthy Remembrancer for whom the few events yet rattling within a broken memory must provide the only comfort now remaining to him,—"
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Line 29 Vulgarized:
"After a lifetime of easily pretending (so easy!) to be a Reverend—years one might consider to have been wasted because I was pretending to be something I wasn't—long after all my youthful years looking for adventure, long past all those things I could have, or should have, done with my life but never would have, seeing as how I'm here never having done them meaning they never could have been done anyway, time working the way it does, going only the one way so that Hope and Dreams literally die due to its relentless passage, I have come to finally rest here in America. A castaway, his ship smashed on the shores, the mast destroyed to stop all forward momentum, become stupid and forgetful with age. An old man whose memory cannot be trusted but who only has those memories left to sustain him."
Subtext:
Take the Reverend's stories with a grain of salt. Not only has he lied his whole life about being a Reverend but now he's old and forgetful and sad. His stories won't just be fanciful and embellished because they need to be exciting so he doesn't lose the roof over his head; his stories might just be fanciful and embellished because he can't remember what actually happened anymore, or has become senile enough to believe the things he says actually happened.
From Cherrycoke's point of view, he speaks from the future about his past, a past full of hope and possibility, both of which were killed by the passage of time. The modern reader, reading about America in 1786 from America in 1997, might see a parallel here about the history of America, once full of hope and possibility, brimming with the brightest future for all Americans, but now cemented in time over the last two hundred plus messy years. But Cherrycoke isn't looking forward (just as Pynchon and the reader are currently not looking forward). Mired in the past, he disregards what is more important. While visiting Mason's grave and telling stories from his past, America is being born around him. He could be celebrating the possibilities of progressive changes via the Constitution soon to be written but chooses to turn his back to it. Why not, I suppose? He's an old man. What concern is the future for him?
The greatest part of youth is the expanse of possibilities set out before you. But every year, more and more possibilities close off due to life and time's forward momentum. This is both good and bad. It's good because if paths aren't closing, you aren't progressing as a person. You're in stasis. But it's bad because the more paths cut off, the more constricted a person can feel which leads to longer and longer nostalgic trips to the past when things seemed more wondrous and free. Reverend Cherrycoke's life and his stories are a microcosm of the way history works. It's why old people constantly screw younger generations by the way they vote. Because they only think about how great the past was and are blind to what the future needs to be. But nostalgia also blinds them to how the past wasn't great at all, it's just, on a personal level (read selfish level), that their past was wide open and full of hope therefore it must have been better. They won't experience much of the future so they simply think the world should be like it was when they were young.
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