Alan Gets Off the Train

Alan stepped off the train at a flag stop near Hazel, on the south end of Putney Bay, and walked up the hill to his house. His new-found friend, Bert, who was perched on his shoulder part of the way, flew off to a nearby tree, then to the house, as Alan approached it. Bert is smart, and is taking inventory of this place for any kind of predators, particularly house cats.  

 

Though he is an architect, Alan bought this rather humble place (instead of designing it himself) some years ago...

 

"This little house is perfect; I have enough space to work on projects, and to relax, eat, sleep, and dream. I've fixed up the yard quite a bit, adding a trellis, a brick patio, and an in-ground hot pool overlooking the bay. But soon I'm going to build another hideaway on a beach far away from any roads and railways! I rather like toot-toot of the train's horn as it departs from the flag stop, but I don't like the traffic noise. What I like to hear is the faint roar of the bayshore surf and the high-pitched cries of the shore birds."

 

Or so he's been saying for some time now... 

Alan's house is on the rise to the left.

It looks out on an endless expanse of ocean and sky, the sandy beach and surf, the distant dunes of  The Hook (visible at the far-left horizon), and the Hazelhurst Ruins, an Old People settlement of stone and mystery. Hazelhurst is one of several prehistoric settlements scattered over the island.

 

 

Who were the Old People, and where did they go? We don't know yet.

Bert on the Table

Bert sits on the table giving Alan the eye while Alan and Samantha sit there stunned, trying not to make eye contact with Bert. Bert then flutters up to Alan's shoulder, gives Samantha the eye, and Samantha gets a little spooked. No screeching, and no one's talking. Alan sits very still while Samantha slooowly gets up from her chair, wiggles her fingers goodbye to Alan (and Bert) and retreats back to her car.

Alan sips the rest of his grenade, nibbles some sunflower seeds that Samantha must have left on his table, and then holds one up to Bert. Bert very gently takes the seed in his beak, and Alan likes the sound of Bert cracking it next to his ear.

It looks like Alan has found a friend.

Bert Comes Back

Bert comes out of nowhere, bites Samantha, and brings the other Samantha out of seclusion...

 

"OK," said Alan, "So Bert bit you..."
"Yes, then I screamed, and Samantha came running out, who is very brown from living without clothes, I guess. She asked me if I was all right, and everyone in the class was watching, and I wasn't all right; my thigh was still hurting where that parrot bit me...and I was so rattled I just had to leave that place..."

"Samantha's Wild North..."

"Yeah, have you ever been there? It is way the heck in the boonies, up on the North Bight. A friend of mine told me I just had to experience the place. Well, it's a bit rustic, to say the least. Anyway, it took me two days to get down to Putney - I had to walk part of the way!"

"So what about Bert...?"

"Well, he flew off, and I didn't see him again until I got to the Fillmore camp on the north Bight Path. Then he flew up to me and landed on my shoulder...pretty as can be. He screeched in my ear as I tried to fight him off , but he kept landing on my shoulder and my head until I gave up. Then he said 'Bert I am' as clear as day, so I said, 'Hi Bert.' He's been pretty good since, and didn't panic once all the way through the long bus ride, and the train station in Putney. But then people tried to touch him. His screeching scared the guy who runs Hopp's Store, and then bit that creepy kid in Davoo. Then, when I bought my ticket for the train, the agent warned me about taking him on board, and Bert, bobbing his head up and down, said, 'I'm such a good bird. Good bird, Good bird...' so the guy rolled his eyes, waved us on, and here we are."

 

Alan sips his grenade as Samantha stares at hers...

"So," Alan finally asked, "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Well, when I walked out a while ago, Bert wouldn't stop screeching, so I tossed him out the window in the next car, and I just feel terrible!"

"Ah..."

Just then, Bert had caught up with the train (since it had stopped in Skegness), flew into the open window by their table, landing clumsily and bumping Alan's glass, and once again gave Alan the eye.

Samantha sans Parrot

A little while later, as the train pulled into Skegness station, Samantha returned to Alan's table, without the parrot. She had a funny expression on her face as she somewhat humbly asked Alan if she could sit down again. "I'm sorry the bird was so loud. It's a noble macaw, from Brazil, you know, and they naturally screech."

Alan knew nothing about parrots, so he took her word for it..."He seems to talk just fine as well - did you teach him that?" No, not at all!" she replied, "And say, can I get some of whatever you've got there?" She was nodding to his drink. "Oh, sure, it's pineapple juice and a little vodka -  ask the barman for a 'wee grenade'..." She looked at him a second before getting up, giving Alan the impression she might have wanted him to get it for her...

After Samantha sat down again, she quickly glanced at him, then looked down at her drink smiling at something...Alan was starting to wonder what might be going on. "OK, uh, Alan, right? I feel like I need to talk to you, just because you seem like a friendly guy." Alan, who has had a rather sketchy history with women, and hasn't "been with someone" in quite a while, sipped his drink and said, "Okaaay..."

Bert

"I'm not sure how to begin this, it's kind of a long story," she began.
"Well," he said, "I'm not going anywhere for another hour or so, is that enough time?"

"Oh I suppose. Anyway, I was up at Samatha's Wild North, you know, that women's commune near Desert Point? Have you heard of it? And no, I'm not the Samatha it's named after -just a coincidence! Anyway, I was at a yoga retreat there and I was doing the downward facing dog pose. That's when Bert, the parrot, flew out of nowhere and landed on my butt. I didn't feel anything as I was deep in meditation...by the way, do you do yoga?" "Uh, no..., replied Alan." "Well, anyway, that stupid bird bit the back of my thigh and then I screeched bloody murder! This brought Samantha (the famous Samantha that anyone rarely sees!) running naked from her 'seclusion' and I was never so embarrassed in my life!"

                                                                                       --see next post!

Alan's Trip Home



As Alan was staring out the train car window, his thoughts wandered to the question, Where is Home? You know, that place where you sleep, where you hang your hat every evening, where the supper dish is...  Alan dwells on this all the time, maybe because he constantly feels restless and wants to be somewhere else, even though he has already come a long long way. 

Just then a woman with a parrot on her shoulder walks into the car, orders an iced lemon-tea and then sits down across from Alan. The parrot rocks on its feet while swaying its head sideways (the way parrots do) and casts it's unblinking eye at Alan. "I'm Samantha...", the woman said, "...and your name is...?"  "Oh, it's Alan," said Alan , a bit distracted by that eye of the parrot.

"And this is Bert," Samantha added.

They talked for a while, mostly polite chitchat, and then the parrot SHRIEKED, making everyone jump. "Bad bird!" scolded Samantha, and abruptly got up as the parrot, being a parrot, repeated "Badbird badbird badbird..." as Samantha walked out of the car, waving a hand sort of dismissively at Alan.

Okaaay...

Eventually he got over all that enough to enjoy the gorgeous sunset (below) from the train window. He thought they were passing File Heads. He'll be home in a little over an hour, and it will be almost dark...

 

File Heads is a bluff just south of Laverne on Putney Bay.

After the Tsunami, Alan Goes Home

After all the excitement over the sort-of tsunami in Putney Harbor, Alan Faramond (who made the sketch of the bridges) relaxes at the Rainbow Cafe over a cup of dark sumatra and a chocolate gelato. Martha, the Wheatland girl on the bike, had come up to dry her feet and settle her nerves. Still a bit out of breath, she sat down at the counter next to Alan, and announced, "Well, I've never been so accosted by Nature in all my life..." Alan recognized her as she was ordering the minty-green tea, a house specialty. He pulled out his book and showed her the sketch he made of the wave, the bridges, the merganser, and her..."it doesn't really look like you, but it was of you." "Wow, cool...are you one of those depictors?" "Yes, fully licensed by the Commonwealth to record whatever I see around me. I also design houses for people who want something different." "Um", she said, and sipped her mug of tea. She's not that impressed, Alan thought, but he left her one of his calling cards anyway. "I need to get back home, he told her, and if you're ever down near Hazel, stop by - I work at the Land Office there."

"Where's Hazel?"

"South of Rosslea."

"Oh..."

 

He then walked to the Downtown Station and took the Putney-Victoria train back home.

 

 Here the train passes close to the waves,

as Mt. Hayes is revealed above the clouds.

 

Alan always enjoys the ride. The route follows the coast through not-so scenic Portmore, but more scenic Abbotsford, Skegness and then Rosslea. Passengers can watch the rolling hills and views of lofty Mt. Hayes from one side of the train, or the surf and beaches from the other. Alan almost always sits on the seaward side so he can watch the waves.

He likes to sit in the last car, close to the coffee bar. As people come in to get a mocha, they are likely to stop and chat; Alan has met more than one house-designing client here. He always keeps a stack of his calling cards handy...

Here is the route of Alan's train:

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Merganser

 

Most Putney residents assumed the merganser ducks that hang around the bay were originally brought in from eastern Russia in the early 1900s for sport shooting. Rumor has it that these ducks were the descendants of north Asian mergansers that got away.

 

Not so!

 

After years of research on obscure islands south of New Zealand, ornithology expert Delilah Wiggins of Putney University has determined that New Island's  mergansers are a close relative of the Auckland Merganser long thought to be extinct! See the Wikipedia article below:

 

 

The Auckland Merganser or Auckland Islands Merganser (Mergus australis) was a typical merganser which is now (almost) extinct.
This duck was similar in size to the Red-breasted Merganser. The adult male had a dark reddish-brown head, crest and neck, with bluish black mantle and tail and slate grey wings. The female was slightly smaller with a shorter crest.

Illustration from 1909

Drawing of the head

This bird was first collected when a French expedition led by the explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville on the ships L'Astrolabe and La Zelee visited the Auckland Islands in 1840. Its decline was caused by a combination of hunting and predation by introduced mammals. The bird was not flightless, but rather hard to flush; it preferred to hide between rocks when pursued. The last sighting was of a pair shot on January 9, 1902. It was not found in a 1909 search, and a thorough 1972/1973 exploration of possible habitat concluded that it was long extinct (Williams & Weller, 1974).
Subsequent fossil discoveries suggest that this merganser was previously resident on the South Island and Stewart Island/Rakiura in New Zealand. Fossils of a subspecies or closely related species have also been found on the Chatham Islands. There exists a short remark mentioning "a merganser" found on Campbell Island in McCormick (1842), but this may just as well refer to the semi-marine Campbell Teal which is otherwise missing in his notes: he only mentions the Pacific Black Duck ("a New Zealand species of duck").
There are unconfirmed reports of an extant Auckland merganser population on The Commonwealth of New Island, a warmer large island west of Australia.

The Cecelia Ave. Bridge...

 

... was the pride and joy of Alexander Poloustrov's modernization efforts in the early 1900s.  As the railway bridge was nearing completion, he moved his labor force 200 yards up the bay to begin construction on a similar concrete arch span, which was completed in 1914. The elegant street lighting was special-ordered from St. Petersburg and shipped around South Africa.  

 

It's wide sidewalks and little traffic make it a favorite walking route back and forth from downtown Putney to the west/northwest neighborhoods. Jumping off or diving from the bridge is not allowed, though young daredevils try it quite often. Some have met a grisly end by hitting a stone abutment (such as where the Chinese merganser is standing) instead of the water. There have been eighteen known suicide attempts from the bridge, but probably more since records have been spotty. Only two of these were known to be successful, since it's not that high off the water.

 

Except for frightening off the merganser, the tsunami had no affect on the bridge.

 

*****************************

A brief review:

This all happened in the City of Putney, on 

The Commonwealth of New Island, in the Indian Ocean. 

As the 4:42 crossed the Landon Everard Railway Bridge...

...the tsunami had just passed beneath it! When the passengers saw the roiling waves, the conductor assured them that, "This bridge is plenty strong enough to take that little bit of rough water!"

This cast-concrete parabolic-arch bridge was built in 1908 during the Great Modernization directed by Governor General Alexander Poloustrov. Under the reign of  Czar Nicholas II, Poloustrov built hundreds of miles of new roads, streets, and railways as well as hydroelectric dams and deep-water harbors to modernise New Island. This ambitious Great Leap Forward was intended to tell the world that Russia was also creating a colonial empire to rival that of Great Britain, Germany and the USA. Poloustrov's modernization was surprisingly accomplished with hired labor - a story unto itself!

Landon Everard, a New Island native, later won brief fame for sending the first international  telegraph message to Perth, Western Australia. The railways maintained the telegraph and early telephone systems, so the bridge was named after Everard in 1992.

The Putney Interurban Streetcar Authority (PISA) runs trains every 15 minutes over this bridge from the Downtown Station to the western and northern suburbs. A narrow bike/walking path was added in 2011, but it was a bad idea. The trains ran so close to the path that few people used it, and two 11-year-olds were almost hit by a train while arguing and shoving each other during a rainstorm (a long story). The path was closed late in 2012.

Also on the Cecelia Bridge...

...Georgina Lark was taking her sister Francine's baby, Tomas, for an outing in his pram. She was returning to Newtown (Francine's neighborhood NW of downtown Putney) from the Fantasia Market, and had been walking for over an hour, in the gathering afternoon heat, with no hat. She was hot and thirsty and beginning to find this tiresome.

She had let go of the carriage (thinking it would stay put) to dig in her purse for a mint or something when she suddenly noticed the tsunami coming up the bay. In those few seconds of Georgina's spellbound distraction, the pram had edged away from her down the sidewalk...

uh-oh...

 

By now the wave was crashing almost directly below the bridge and Warren McGovern, excitedly dancing and waving his arms, (having just seen the wave) nearly fell over the pram. He grabbed its handle just before it tumbled into the street, rescuing young Tom! He then hollered toward Georgina, who was still staring at the water, "Hey, is this yours?"

 

More bystanders had rushed onto the bridge wanting to know what was happening, and Georgina seemed to delight in all the attention. To anyone listening, she explained she had recently returned to Putney from far-away Los Angeles, California, where she had been living for several years. "I almost got married there", she said, still somewhat breathless. While Warren waited with the pram, she went on about trying out for acting parts in Hollywood movies, but not having much success; in fact, no success at all. "You just can't believe how tricky and creepy those movie agents are...why, there was this one time..." 

 

Warren, still holding the pram, made eyes at Tomas while thinking that Georgina might have only one oar in the water...