I’ve seen a few strange things on my daily walks around Ashcroft, such as the neatly laid out (animal) bones on a rock by the river, but the strangest so far is a random vegetable that showed up one day. More on that in a moment, but first a few words about the Titan submersible disaster, which claimed the lives of five men last month.
Full disclosure: I’ve been a Titanic buff for decades. I have (and have read) two shelves’-worth of books about the ship, its passengers, its discovery, and subsequent research, and own quite a few films and documentaries dealing with the disaster; I even have a lump of coal which was recovered from the wreck site.
My interest was sparked way back in 1979, when I first saw a very good TV movie called S.O.S. Titanic, and in 1985 I finally tracked it down on videotape and rewatched it. When the film came to an end I hit rewind and the TV defaulted to the channel it had been set to.
Moments later the 6 o’clock news came on, and the lead story was — I kid you not — that oceanographer Robert Ballard and his team had found the remains of the Titanic, which had not been seen since it sank in April 1912. As coincidences go, it was certainly an eerie one.
All that said, even before the Titan submersible was lost I would have told you that there was not enough money in the world to get me to descend 2.5 miles into the Atlantic in a glorified tin can to view the wreck, let alone pay US$250,000 for the privilege. There are legitimate reasons for researchers to go down to the Titanic; there is ample evidence that what’s left of the Titanic is slowly disintegrating, and it’s important to monitor and document the site while we can. Disaster tourism, however, is not a legitimate reason, and while I am deeply sorry for the five men who were lost, and the friends and family they left behind, the word “hubris” comes to mind; a word that has often been linked with the Titanic herself, for that matter.
But what of the random vegetable? I hear you cry impatiently. Well, on June 25 I was doing my daily walk, and at the top of the path leading town to the river, of which I have written in the past, I put my water bottle in a crevice in one of the boulders that prevents vehicle access and carried on down to the water’s edge.
When I climbed back up to the top I stopped to grab my water and have a sip, and that is when I noticed it: a large, perfectly-formed, completely intact field cucumber placed on top of the boulder, a foot or so from my bottle. I hadn’t noticed it on the way down, and it could well have already been there when I arrived; it was definitely there when I came back up the path, with nary a person in sight, as a quick scan of the area confirmed.
I mentally filed it under “W” for “weird” and carried on. The next day I approached the boulder with some curiosity, but the random cuke was nowhere in sight. Once again I walked down to the water’s edge and then climbed back up to the boulder, and once again I reached for my water bottle. Something on the ground a few feet away caught my eye, and I moved closer.
Scattered among the rocks were neatly sliced rounds of cucumber, clearly cut deliberately with something sharp. The incident had now moved firmly into “W” for “WTF?” territory, and for the remainder of my walk I pondered the matter. So many questions! Who walked around with a cucumber? Who had placed it on the boulder? Who had sliced it up? And (another “W”): why?
I shall probably never know. As weird things go, however, it could have been worse; it could have been — oh, I don’t know — random animal bones neatly laid out on a rock. Now that would be unsettling. Hey, hang on a sec …
editorial@accjournal.ca
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