The first one just ran across the road about 20 miles outside of Austin as I was heading back to Taos.
That was pretty funny, though, like encountering a chimney sweep sweeping a chimney. What else was the bird supposed to do? He (?) ran all the way across the road without stopping or flying, and when he got to the grass on the shoulder, he ran even faster. This was a satisfying moment and a nice present for my birthday, as it had been quite a few years since I’d seen one of the long (24″) skinny birds. Later that day, however, things turned weird.
I was at a remarkable spot somewhere in the Texas Panhandle. In fact, when looking over the map again just now, I couldn’t even find it! Maybe it doesn’t exist any more. What it was, was an abandoned “lake,” one of those artificial lakes you find all over Texas where people fish and water ski in muddy brown water. Only this post-apocalyptic recreation area had seen better days: for reasons of drought or other calamity, the water level was less than half its original depth. The boat ramp ended just part-way down a dry, parched hillside. The ruins of a concession stand stood nearby in the weeds. Here and there were battered examples of cheap “lakeside” real estate with broken windows. It was one of the saddest, strangest places I have ever seen.
Oddly, I wasn’t alone. Far below the empty parking lot where I had stopped was a family with three kids, parked on a dried-out mud flat that had once been lake bottom (and before that, an arroyo). They were actually fishing and apparently having a wonderful time, as an occasional squeal drifted up to where I was watching. Then suddenly I heard a very different sound: “COO!” or something close to it, unlike any sort of “coo” I’d ever heard before. “COO,” then “COO” again. Finally, I saw the culprit: no more than 15 feet away, sitting on a stump with a beakful of nesting material, was another roadrunner!
Its head was turned sideways toward me, so we maintained eye contact for the longest time. The bird continued to coo. I decided to walk slowly over to the car and retrieve my camera, keeping the bird in sight the whole time. But the instant I turned away to reach for the strap, POOF!—it vanished in an instant.
I couldn’t find it afterwards, of course, and it wasn’t making any more calls, though I knew there had to be a nest down in the bushes somewhere. Still, two roadrunners in one day, after years of not seeing any—had I acquired a new totem animal?
Building a nest amidst the ruins sort of fits, after all.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Your Texas writing is always good. Give us more!
People don’t understand very well how much melancholy and dereliction exists in the great state. Think of places like the great swimming pool outside Cisco, at the base of a dam (previously a fish hatchery) where there were once beauty pageants and where Conrad Hilton had his first hotel, where even in the 50′s my family used to come all the way from Abilene on a Labor Day. Last time I was there the acres of change rooms had burned to the ground, the concrete was cracked and overrun by weeds.
Think of Mineral Wells, where people from New York and Boston once came to take the waters, where Mary Martin began her career. The enormous hotel was boarded up.
Think of Thurber with its lone smokestack and its population of 2, where once there were roaring saloons and whorehouses servicing miners from far and wide.
Think of Gouldbusk, where a cousin of mine still lives in a house surrounded by vacant houses. Think of Santa Ana, think of Buffalo Gap, where….
You get the idea. Texas is full of these melancholy places, where life was once lived full out but now hardly exists at all. Nobody thinks of this or notices it when they write about the state. My wife (a Canadian) hates these derelict places, which don’t seem to exist in Canada. I love them. Life flares up, and then it dies. That’s true of places, and it’s true of each of us. Elsewhere it’s disguised. In Texas take a road trip, and you see it wherever you go.
Boy, do I know what you mean about the melancholy and dereliction! I even received an email from Brazil from someone revealing just that reaction to my Texas photos on FotoFeed.
I must love such places, too. I’m always fascinated by them.
Always like your writing Ken…..and on a side note….my wife is Canadian as well….Winnipeg. Just sayin’………..and the flat lands of Canada are much like driving through Kansas – or even parts of Texas…..but they sure can’t stand the heat! HA! (And I don’t care much for “minus 100″ either….no matter if it is Centigrade OR Fahrenheit!!
Thanks for those kind words, brother. We members of the tribe of long-lost Texans/Okies hooked to Canadian girls have to stick together. Never been to western Canada, but they tell me it’s a lot like Texas. I reckon the Great Plains just kept on spreading and spreading upwards through a dozen states and didn’t know how to stop when it reached a border.