Blog#15-On the Way to Beaumont, (Texas Yet Again)

Day 18—Second Crack at Anahuak and High Island

In Winnie

White-tailed Kite

Weather was perfect today and I went back to the refuge for several hours. Spent much of that time waiting on the Spoonbills to fly closer. I was rewarded for my patience.

Roseate Spoonbill

All the houses on stilts

I finally made it to High Island. The houses are all elevated. I can’t imagine living in a place where I built my home allowing for the ocean to come in under it. I don’t think I’d sleep well, but these folks have adapted to it. The homes aren’t fancy. Probably because they own second homes—portable ones. Now I know why.

I make my way to the Audubon boardwalks, off 7th street. I have about an hour of good light left. I arrive to find the gate closed, this entrance doesn’t open until mid March. A few days away, but the sign also tells me I can enter today from another location off Winnie Street. (Daily pass for all boardwalks, $8) As I am reading this sign, a pickup truck approaches from the opposite side of the gate. The truck stops, a man in his 70s gets out from the passenger side and attempts to open the gate. It is padlocked. He shakes the padlock, as in disbelief. He holds the padlock in his hand, looking at it as if he has never seen such a device before. The driver, who looks to be 25-30 years younger, gets out and joins him. I roll down my window and tell them that the sign facing me states the gate doesn’t open until March 15th, but the Winnie Street gate is open. “No, it’s not” the men say.

They are locked in. It is past closing time for the auto tour and the caretaker has left, locking the gate behind him. The man from the passenger side walks around the gate towards me and says, “I think I know where he lives. Can you give me a ride?” and without waiting for a response from me, he promptly comes to the passenger door of my car and opens it. I start to explain a couple things to him about the state of my car, but he begins picking things up off the seat and moving toward the back with them. I say to him, “Give me a minute, please. I’ve been living out of this car for a couple weeks and I have my”- that’s all I have time to say, because now he is lifting the box with all my dry food goods in it and has snagged the strap to my camera, which he is about to drop. “Um, those are my electronics, please let me move them”, I say, catching the camera in the air and trying not to indicate that he is pissing me off. He is on a tangent, muttering again and again, “I know the guy. He lives off 3rd street. He drives a red scooter. I talked to him. I been coming here for years. He knows me. I talked to him. He knew we was in there. I told him we’d be in there awhile, and he said he’d just lock it later when he left. I don’t understand. He knows me. “ Renditions of this continue as I rearrange things to make room for him in the front, which has been my office/kitchen for many days, perfectly organized. So much for that.

American Bullfrog

Look at his dew flap–he was warning another lizard. Green Anole

He gets in then and I turn the car around. I tell him I literally just arrived and was in pursuit of the nesting spoonbills. He gives me no indication that he hears me. I drive to a stop sign, he tells me the man on the red scooter lives that way, and that other way is the Winnie Street entrance. “The gate’s locked, but you can walk around it and go on the boardwalk. You should have time. There’s about 40 pair of nesting spoonbills out there. We was taking pictures of “em.” I guess he had heard me. I follow block by block directions, (because he doubts my ability to navigate from 7th to 3rd), to a dead end 3rd street. “I know it’s one of these,” he says, gesturing to the two houses at the end of the street. “We need to find his red scooter, then we’ll know which is his”. We had just passed a young girls’ softball game in progress up the street. I suggest that there is a possibility that scooter man may not have gone directly home. “He must be close to 90”, the strange man in my car says. “Well, let’s hope he didn’t go to watch his grand daughter play softball”, I say. Again, no indication that he hears me. He’s back to ranting, chin in his hand- possibly talking to himself and not to me. He never looks at me. “He may have a little dementia. I talked to him. He knew we was in there, he musta just gone off and forgot. How can anyone do that? ” (I didn’t tell him that my husband has done just that to the forklift mechanic that comes to the place he manages. Twice I have gotten phone calls from the guy because he’s just finished fixing the forklift and the gate is locked. And Brian “knew he was there” Brian says it’s not dementia– it’s just that he “has a routine”.)

He was 2-3 feet long. I think he is the Glossy Swampsnake

We do not see a red scooter, but we do see a man on a riding lawnmower. “Stop here—he’ll know where he lives”, the stranger commands. I obediently stop, thinking how the time is slipping away. I wait while the two men have a discussion, and the mower man points to the far house. “If his scooter is there, he’s home,” the mower man tells us. The stranger loads back up and I back out of the driveway—I can’t see jack, because everything is now piled to the roof in the back and my back up camera is in and out of shade. Luckily, the stranger knows how to drive, so he instructs me. Lovely man.
We drive to the last house and there is the red scooter. I had in my mind that this scooter would have an orange flag on a whip mounted to it, but this was really more like a Vespa. A nice “scooter.” Not a moped. Not a Razor.

I wait while Stranger, as I affectionately name him in my mind, goes and knocks on the door, then disappears around the house when no one answers. Tick tock tick tock. I’m thinking, if only the caretaker is home, then he can give Stranger a ride back in this SUV that is here next to the scooter. And I can leave NOW to go see the 40 pair of Spoonbills.

Of course, no one is home. I am sitting there while this man completely disregards any imposition I am suffering.  I don’t know if it is because I am a woman, and in his world I am there to serve, or maybe he is some autistic genius who is operating in a different world where he doesn’t even see me.

I ask, as Stranger climbs back aboard, “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to take you back to the neighbors?” He snaps at me, irritated, “What else are we supposed to do?” When did he and I become joined into a “we”?

I never get tired of these guys

At this point in our adventure, I am inclined to say, “Well, you could walk your ass back to where I got you, and I could get on with my birding”, but I resist. I am carrying patience and tolerance.   He is definitely pushing the envelope on those.

Back to Mower’s place,(another name I assign), but he has since disappeared indoors. I sit and wait while Stranger goes and summons him out. And I mean summons. There is a decided lack of manners in this man. Mower takes it with a grain of salt. He has the scooter man’s phone number and calls it. Scooter is an hour away in another town, but the “maintenance guys should still be there working in the maintenance shed”. Stranger gets back in my car, and I turn to Mower and say, “I don’t know this guy from Adam. If this doesn’t work, I’m bringing him back to you and you’ll be needing some bolt cutters.” He just grins.

Stranger and I then go driving around looking for the maintenance shed— It’s back behind the post office someplace. “I think I know where it is”, he says.

Green Anole

That was incorrect. He doesn’t know where it is. We pass the post office, and come upon a metal shed-like building that says something roost on it. Sounds Audubonish to me. “Do you think that’s it?” I ask. “No- we have to pass the post office. I think it’s down here”, he answers.
I tell him that we did past the post office. “We did? Well, maybe that was it”. Turn around. Go back to the metal building. Tick tock.

He pounds on the building, no response. I can already see the next drive coming.

Blue Winged Teal

I take him back to Mower’s house, then watch as he interrupts Mower’s meal (his mouth is full). I smile sweetly at Mower. “What’s for supper?” I ask. “Hamburger!” he says, swallowing and grinning at me. He then phones Scooter over in yonder town and gives him the update. He tells Scooter that Stranger is talking bolt cutters and Scooter says, “That ain’t gonna happen”. I guess his dementia hasn’t softened his backbone.

Goodnatured Mower is relaying conversation between these two, and my daylight is fading. “He says you weren’t supposed to be in there”, Mower, relaying. “I told him we was gonna be in there awhile yet. He knows me”, Stranger. Yada yada.
For a man who claims to “know him”, I was surprised Stranger knew where Scooter lived, but not his name.

I am starting to “know” Stranger, in his abstract way.  I’m thinking, by now, he must be formulating the idea that he knows me.  He may remember me if he sees me pulled over on the highway tomorrow with a flat tire. “I know her. She’s from Oregon.  She drove me to hell and back,” he’ll say to his driver as they continue on.

A compromise is reached— Scooter will head back now from yonder town and Stranger will wait at the gate in the pickup with his friend and not use bolt cutters. Time keeps onna slippin. I cringe inside, fearing that he might tell me to stop at a store or fast food joint to pick up something on the way back to the pickup. I predict he’s going to say, “Take me up there to burgerking.  It’s suppertime”.

I deliver him back to his waiting friend. I think I should know Stranger’s name, because I am already writing this in my head, so I ask. “John Phillips”, he tells me.  I tell him my name, though he does not ask. He gets out of my car and walking away, turns and mutters, “Thanks”.

His waiting friend is chatting over the locked gate with a younger couple who were riding past on bicycles and stopped to try and help him out. They are discussing bolt cutters. He is actually conversing. As I am backing out, I say to the young man, “They’re all yours”.  And I get the hell out of there before Stranger decides to send me to fetch him some tabackie.

Belted Kingfisher

Yellow Warbler (yes, that’s it’s name)

I race to the Winnie Street entrance and park at the locked gate. As I start in, I meet a man carrying a big camera and a tripod coming out. I have about 15 minutes of daylight left. “How far to the Spoonbills?” I ask. He looks doubtfully at me and says,“It’s a good 10 minute walk. And they’re already in the shade.”

Shit the bed.

I drive to Beaumont and sulk in my sweet little AirBNB.