Environment
Winter Feast – A Poem
Winter Feast
© Garth Dutton, 2010
The white-flowering gum tree
over my back fence
is in full bloom
in early June.
On sunny winter days
it is full of noisy birds
busy eating nectar.
Lorikeets, wattle birds,
New Holland honeyeaters,
and more.
As I type this poem,
the sounds of birds
drift through an open window.
Natural background music.
Suburbia Pigeons – A Poem
Suburbia Pigeons
© Garth Dutton, 2007
These birds
have adapted beautifully
to life in Adelaide’s suburbs.
Originally Burmese doves,
they came from the hot wet climate
of a tropical rain forest.
Here they have adapted
to a cool wet winter
and a long hot dry summer.
There would not have been
one item of food from
their original rain forest home
available here.
They had to find a new year-round diet
from scratch, and have done so.
In some Adelaide suburbs,
native topknot pigeons and suburbia pigeons
have separate territories.
In other suburbs,
they share backyards and parks.
And I am sure they now
have no ‘racial memory’
of their original rain forest home.
They are in Adelaide to stay.
Cold Wind From The South (Part 3) – A Short Story
Cold Wind From The South (Part 3)
© Garth Dutton, 2007
A few months after the dream, their ‘Church of the Feminine Earth Spirit” had its
first doctrinal split. The issue involved was whether the fossil fuels used in the Industrial
Age were meant to be used to stabilize the climate for the whole of Earth’s benefit, or
whether they were laid down specifically to enable humanity to survive a long Ice Age.
In a way, the argument was completely irrelevant, because there was not much left of the
fossil fuels. No-one had any idea how people were going to survive an Ice Age
without fossil fuels for heating, and there was no oil left to raise the CO2 levels to stop
the Ice Age. Many people were starting to put their trust in the ‘Church of the Natural
Balance’, as they alone believed that they could stop the Ice Age. But the concept of the
Feminine Earth Spirit appealed to many people as well. A considerable number joined
both churches.
But it was an old argument, in new guise, about whether people are an integral
part of the environment, or a class of beings apart from it in consciousness, intellect,
destiny, and so on… In other words, were the fossil fuels created for the whole of Earth’s
benefit, or only for people’s benefit. The split was irreconcilable. About 45% of members
left with the dissenting councillors. Bitter arguments followed in court about the Church’s
now considerable income and assets.
“Things are going off the rails,” said Smyth, as he and Pauline walked out of the
Adelaide Courthouse.
“Just consider the distance we’ve come since that day in the seaside bar,” Pauline
reminded him. “After that session in court, I feel like a drive and a cup of tea or coffee
somewhere down beside the sea. Pick a beach suburb you haven’t been to in years and
we’ll go there.”
“How about Semaphore?” he suggested.
“Why not,” she replied.
They reached their hydrogen fuel cell car and drove west towards the beach. They
neared the coast a short distance south of Semaphore. The road, called Military Road,
went between the lake plus housing estates of West Lakes and the built-on remnants of
sandhills.
“The problem with making too many plans,” said Smyth. “Is that we haven’t
much idea what is going on in the rest of the world. Like what is really happening in
countries like Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and Scotland? They could be under metres of
ice and snow for all we know.”
‘The democratic government takes the line that what we don’t know can’t hurt us.
They haven’t lifted censorship on the NET, for example,” said Pauline. “Not much we
can do about that… Could you imagine a landscape under ice like that?”
He found he could envisage such a scene and went on to describe it to her. He had
always refused to say anything about his time in the State Security Police, even to
Pauline. She now saw how they had used his skills. He could describe in detail a real
scenario from a few fragments of information.
“If you can describe it in that detail, then that it what is actually like. Right
now…” she said in wonder. “Mentally part of you was just there.”
Smyth frowned. Objections to her point of view filled his mind. “I can’t see how
that’s possible,” he replied.
“Neither can I, love, but it doesn’t matter,” she said warmly. “But it’s a skill you
shouldn’t be ashamed of.”
Smyth spilled out deep fears. “The dread that a scenario would be wrong in some
slight, but significant detail, made my life in the Security Police a nightmare,” he said to
her for the first time. There was no need to say more.
“That’s why that other nightmare still worries you, isn’t it? That’s why! In case
some important detail was wrong,” Pauline said softly. “I told you that everything
anyone does involves risk. One has to be a warrior. A warrior can cope with any
circumstances that arise, so doesn’t live in constant fear of the future. Collective
Consciousness warned you, so it’s on your side. A powerful ally, if ever there was one.”
She smiled to re-assure him, then continued. “In a way, all circumstances in the future are
unseen, because everything we do involves choices. And risks. I’m not sure premonitions
really exist. At best they’d be warnings, not factual events.”
They came to Fort Glanville and turned into the short road that would bring them
to the Esplanade.
“Fort Glanville,” said Pauline. “Now there was a scare. About 200 years ago, in
the 1850’s during the Crimean War, there was a rumour, and a wild panic that the
Russians were coming. So they built this fort, and a few others, and linked them by
Military Road to repel the invasion.”
“I know the story,” Smyth said as they came to the Esplanade. He stopped the car.
They got out to look at the beach and sea.
Suddenly Pauline turned pale. “Two hundred years ago,” she murmured.
“Someone had a dream or vision. What if it was a dream or vision ‘out of time’, if that’s
how it’s described? Two hundred years ‘out of time’. Not an event, just a warning.”
Smyth’s vision of the northern pine forests sticking out of a metre of ice
drifted back into their minds. They looked at each other and then out to sea. And as they
watched, the first grey warships appeared on the horizon.
Cold Wind From The South (Part 2) – A Short Story
Part 2 in a three part series…
Cold Wind From The South (Part 2)
© Garth Dutton, 2007
“Pro And Secret Cop Find New God In Seaside Bar!” screamed the headlines of
the ‘Weekly Tabloid.’ The text went on to describe, then take apart, everything that
Pauline and Smyth had said in the interview with the reporter.
Smyth was angry. “They’ve made a complete laughing stock of us,” he said. “A
mix of primitive animism, Gaia Hypothesis and complete garbage, that’s what it says.”
Pauline was unperturbed. “Don’t worry, love,” she said. “This whole process is
going to be self-generating.”
And so it seemed. The ‘Tabloid’ came out mid-week, and about 100
people came down from Adelaide on the next Saturday, to see where the ‘event’ had
happened. It was the same on the Sunday. The hotel did a roaring trade on both days, and
the plantation-wood-fired train from Adelaide had its best number of passengers for some
time.
Mail started to flow in as well. Smyth was worried. “How can we possibly answer
these letters?” he said, and frowned. “Some are asking all sorts of complex theological
questions.”
Pauline thought about that. “The original vision in the bar is all that really
counts,” she said. “We tell the truth… We are still sorting out the implications of the
experience.” She shrugged. “Really, we don’t have to sort out a whole doctrine ourselves.
Others are doing it for us.”
She handed him a letter. He read it, and shook his head in disbelief. The writer
had said that everything people see and think goes into the living Feminine Earth Spirit’s
collective consciousness. She now sees far out into space with our space probes. The
writer also said that the few nuclear weapons kept to re-direct any asteroids that threaten
the planet, means that the Earth Spirit herself, via us, has now created defenses against a
disaster such as befell the dinosaurs, her previous guardians. “Your vision has been a
revelation to me. Thank you so much.” wrote the writer.
“This is getting out of hand,” said Smyth, in despair. “The whole ‘vision’ or
‘revelation’, or whatever you want to call it, was something I just made up on the spot.”
“Men ‘see’, but have no confidence in their insights,” Pauline said, and hugged
him. “Women know an important insight when they come across one. The Feminine
Earth Spirit seems to have chosen a man to receive the insights, and chosen a woman to
interpret them. Neat I think, don’t you?”
Smyth felt her warm body pressed against his, and knew the ice within him had
nearly melted. His personal Ice Age was almost over. He could hardly believe the
transformation she had wrought. Instead of being a despised relic left over from a hated
regime, he was now held in awe by many people. It was the same for her. Opportunities
to speak to groups of people came in at a steady rate, and as they kept to a modest fee,
kept coming. They bought a small but very tasteful house in Victor Harbor. Things
were on a roller coaster ride which was bringing both status and wealth. It seemed
nothing could go wrong.
But one night Smyth had a dream. Somehow, he knew that Pauline had just been
speaking to an audience. Now it was his turn to speak. He went to the microphone and
began to address the people in the hall. He had no memory of the words he spoke, but his
attention became focused on a man about one third of the way back in the hall.
Suddenly Smyth saw through the man’s eyes instead of his own. It was a strange
feeling watching himself speaking on the stage, almost like seeing a film. Then he saw
other things. Ice…white topped and pale blue below… grottos of it… vast landscapes of
it. Clear, pristine, beautiful; a whole planet of ice; a totally perfect world of ice that had
replaced the sins, pollution and disasters of mankind. As the man in the audience, he felt
himself rise to his feet, take out his pistol, take aim first at Pauline, fire, then shoot the
speaking figure at the microphone. Smyth felt the bullets strike home, and awoke
screaming and bathed in sweat. Pauline was mopping his brow and talking to him, but her
words didn’t register.
Waking reality sank in. “A dream, only a nightmare…”he stammered. Pauline got
him to spell out every detail before it slipped from his mind, as dreams mostly do. Then
she picked up the bedroom phone and rang the police.
“We’ve had a tip-off,” she said.”Possible assassination attempt on both of us at
one of the public talks we’ll be giving in the next few weeks. Sorry, I can’t reveal my
sources… Likely someone in the ‘Church of the Natural Balance’ is behind it. This
man has got a vision of a perfect world without people. A total Ice Age. They are
working to get the Earth back to correct operating temperature, this man is working for a
total victory for the Cold. So they’ve got a problem. Sorry that’s all I can tell you…
Thank you…” She put down the phone.
Smyth got up, went to the kitchen fridge, and poured himself a stiff drink. He
needed it. “Did I have a nightmare, and only that, or was it a vision of the future?” he
asked Pauline, without really expecting an answer. He decided it was only a nightmare.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have called the police.”
Pauline poured herself a drink. “It was a nightmare and some of them can be very
real,” she said. “But certainly not a vision from the future.” She clinked her glass against
his, and said. “Collective consciousness at work. Someone was mentally rehearsing what
they intended to do. With luck, they’d now know that you’d know they were in the
audience. Warriors sometime fight battles with dreams.”
Cold Wind From The South (Part 1) – A Short Story
Here is some speculative fiction based on my home town of Adelaide, South Australia. It’s called “Cold Wind From The South” and I’ve broken it up into three parts.
Hope you like it.
© Garth Dutton, 2007
A cold wind from due south blew in off the Southern Ocean. Smyth felt the autumn and
approaching winter in the wind. Mentally, he thanked the ocean for keeping the ice away
from Australia’s shores.
He looked at the sea. Day by day, month by month, year by year, little by little,
the tide is going out, he thought to himself. In perhaps a thousand years it would be far
from here, right out at the edge of the continental shelf. It had happened many times
before. Now it was happening again.
Smyth considered the tragedy of the Pendulum Effect. Faced with an almost
exhausted supply of oil, the world had got its act together, and taken the action necessary
to stop the enhanced Greenhouse Effect. Temperatures had been rising faster than
expected, but once the action was taken, fell at a similar rate. Only the fall didn’t stop at
the benchmark level of normal. It was now expected that they would ‘bottom out’ as far
below normal as the Greenhouse Effect had taken them above. The Northern Hemisphere
didn’t have that margin of safety, and an Ice Age was clearly setting in. The cruelty of
fate had been a cultural wipe-out for many people. Bizarre religions began to appear.
The former Fascist regime had heavily censored the Internet, and the democratic
government that replaced it had not lifted the controls one iota. Authoritarian rulers all
over the world sought to rigidly control the flow of public information. The ‘Golden Age
of the Internet’ now seemed but a dream. The ‘Daily Informer’ did not believe in
publishing bad news. That might cause even more deterioration in people’s morale. The
‘Information Channel‘, the only official television news, had a similar attitude. Successes
against the onset of the new Ice Age were newsworthy. Failures and disasters were totally
censored. A brave battle was being fought, that’s all the news said. But people knew in
their hearts that, imperceptibly, the tide crept further and further out, as ice stayed on
northern lands.
Smyth envisaged the huge storms and great snowfalls of winter in the Northern
Hemisphere; the bitterly cold late spring; the sun of summer hidden behind great banks of
clouds, as the still-warm sea poured moisture into the atmosphere at an almost unchanged
rate… Over land, he saw showers of freezing rain, even in summer.
With effort he switched off the vision, picked up a handful of sand, and walked to
the water’s edge. He let it fall onto the wet sand. The next wave swept it away. A sort of
homage to the Southern Ocean for keeping the ice away from these shores.
Smyth suddenly felt chilled to the bone, and wondered why he’d come to this
nearly empty seaside resort after the end of the summer tourist season. The loneliness of
living in a one bedroom flat by himself, and the social isolation in which he lived, came
back to him. Besides, he hadn’t been to Victor Harbor in years. He had intended to cross
the causeway and go for a walk around Granite Island, but even here in the lee the wind
was freezing. He left that walk for another day.
He decided he needed a drink, so walked through the Norfolk Island pines, then
across the park to one of the resort town’s hotels. Four people sat at tables eating counter
lunches. He felt like a drink first, so sat alone at the bar and ordered a light beer from the
bald overweight barman. Lost in thought, he was sipping it when a soft feminine voice
said, “Hi! Down here for the day, or making a long weekend of it?”
He looked around at a woman in her mid-twenties who had sat on the bar stool
next to him. He thought her quite pretty. She had a friendly relaxed air about her, and
dark hair hung down to her shoulder blades. She wore a form-fitting blouse and
pleasantly patterned skirt.
“Felt like getting out of Adelaide for a few days,” he replied, and sipped his beer.
“Hadn’t been here in years. Just came on the spur of the moment.”
“A bit late in the season,” she said. “The town’s going back to sleep after the
summer. Except of course when whales are in the bay. Then sightseers come here in
droves.”
She undid the pocket on her blouse, took out a card and handed it to him. It was
her identity card. His heart sank when he read her occupation, ‘Sex worker – Self
employed’. Her name was Pauline Jones. It was obvious to him that she was the resident
prostitute in the hotel. He wondered what on earth she did in winter, for she was facing
an off-season almost without customers. “Interested?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” he replied, then smiled. “The question is, are you interested?” He
produced his own identity card and handed it to her. She scanned the card. Her eyes
stopped when they reached his occupation. It read ‘Special Pensioner’.
“Oh…” she said softly. His name was Roland John Smyth.
“A casualty of the fall of Fascism,” Smyth said bitterly, and drank some more
beer. “Would even you want anything to do with a former member of the former State
Security Police? No-one in their right mind would employ us. That’s why the ‘special
pension’ was created. We’re still ‘marked’ by being on it…”
She frowned at him, and said, “I don’t like the ‘even you’, thank you very
much… I work in what is now a quite legal and legitimate occupation.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “Would you like a drink? I’m Smyth, by the way.”
She considered… “Yes. A brandy and lime with a touch of ice would be nice.” He
ordered another beer for himself at the same time. After the drinks were served, she said,
“To call you Smyth makes it sound like you still are a member of the Security Police.
Would you mind if I called you Roland instead?”
He shrugged. “I suppose you can if you really want to,” he replied. “I’ve been
walking on the beach for a while. Nice day, but the wind was freezing. Thankfully, the
ocean out there is wide enough to keep the ice well away from South Australia.”
“You’re not a member of the ‘Church of the Natural Balance’, are you?” asked
Pauline, and frowned.
Smyth shook his head. “That mob who believe in there being an element ‘Cold‘,
as well as an element ‘Heat’, and that there is a constant struggle between them, like
between good and evil in ordinary religion. No! Not me… No way!”
“Just wondered,” Pauline said. “They’ve set up a church in this town recently.
One of them was in here last week handing out literature. How did it go? Everything was
in ‘natural balance’ till somehow humanity did something wrong. Could even have been
something quite trivial. The ‘natural balance’ was upset and Heat gained the upper hand
for a while. Then Heat began to falter and Cold struck back, so now we are falling into an
Ice Age. They say all we have to do is find the right action, or ritual, and both Heat and
Cold will go back to their corners. The Ice Age will simply go away.”
“You’re joking!” he said, incredulous.
“No,” she replied. “Though I added the scenario of the boxing ring. That’s how I
remember the pamphlet. It was a really glossy and expensive one.” She sipped her drink,
then continued. “The problem, as I see it with the Church of the Natural Balance, isn’t so
much what they are saying, as some of the people in it. I’ve heard that some are fanatics
who believe that every minute action people take has immense environmental
repercussions.”
“The ‘Butterfly Wing Syndrome’ from computers,” suggested Smyth. “I heard
that the religion was started by a rich computer freak.”
“A later rumour says it was actually started by an intelligent computer he owns,”
she replied. “On computer environmental models, even now, a butterfly flaps its wings
somewhere and cyclones change course. Followers take the computer models for real,
apparently.”
A thought came to him, and for some reason he voiced it. “To me, an Adolf Hitler
type problem, by the look of it. They are still at the ‘Where did we go wrong?’ stage.”
“Ah, yes,” she added, after another sip of her drink. “Hitler is unexpectedly in
jail instead of being in power in 1922, so starts to write ‘Mein Kampf’. But in writing
the book, he worked his way through to a different question… Who can I blame?”
“Exactly!” Smyth said. “Who will they blame, I wonder.” He looked at
Pauline. Yes, he thought, good conversationalist, not flashily dressed. Definitely the type
who preys on sad lonely men who don’t have a current sexual relationship, and have lost
both the hope and the motivation to go out and get one. He forced the thought out of his
mind. He didn’t want to see himself like that. Too much reality…
She looked lost in thought, then said. “Are they rich, though. There seems to be
heaps of money in religion these days. Always is in difficult times like the present.
Perhaps we should start a religion ourselves. For environmentalist religions it’s almost
still the ‘ground floor’. If ‘Natural Balance’ can do it, so can we.”
Smyth took a sip of his beer, then considered for a moment or two. A sudden
feeling of despair gripped him. He could envisage spending the whole weekend with
Pauline and spending on her all the money he had brought with him. He wondered why
he had even wanted to come here at all. He had no real plans of what to do when he got
here… He fought his way back to the topic.
“A new religion,” he said, and thought up almost a send-up of a religion. He
laughed, then said. “Here’s one… How about a Mother Earth type religion? Fossil fuels
were laid in stock by her for just such a crisis as the present. If it hadn’t been for us
burning fossil fuels, the Ice Age would already be much worse than it is. We have been
acting as a sort of agents for Mother Earth, but up to date haven’t realized we were doing
so. That’s why we overdid it with the enhanced Greenhouse Effect. The purpose of fossil
fuels might be to keep Ice Ages at bay by adjusting the carbon dioxide levels in the
atmosphere.”
Pauline didn’t laugh. She looked at him. It was one of the most penetrating
glances he had ever received. She turned back to her drink. “Let’s see,” she said.
“Women could relate to a Feminine Earth Spirit as solidarity with something feminine.
Men could relate as a man loves a woman.”
Smyth was horrified. “You’ve got to be joking!” he said, with a sinking feeling in
his stomach. “I wasn’t serious.”
She kissed him on the cheek, and put her hand on his. “I believe in windows of
opportunity,” she said. “A chance comes, you take it… Come with me, Roland, I
have to make a couple of phone calls.” She led him over to the red payphone at
the end of the room. She rummaged through the phone book, found a number and rang it.
“Hello! Registration of Businesses. My partner and I would like to register a new
religion, to be called ‘The Church of the Feminine Earth Spirit’. There’s an official
form…Good! We’re in the country, so could you send it to us by post.” She gave their
names and the hotel’s address.
Smyth tried to turn and walk away. She grasped his arm gently and said softly.
“Do you want to be on a ‘special pension’ forever? I don’t want to be a sex worker
forever. You’ve got nothing whatever to lose!” She really put emphasis on this last
sentence.
He realized he really hadn’t got anything to lose, so let her ring the second
number. It was the ‘Weekly Tabloid’, South Australia’s only other newspaper. He felt in
free fall. “Please…”he begged. “I wasn’t serious…”
“Doesn’t matter!” she replied. “I am!”
After she finished the call, she took his hand in hers, and they went back to their
nearly-finished drinks.
“I don’t believe what’s happening!” Smyth said. He had no further interest in
drink, but drank the remainder of his beer anyway. “Oh! I forgot to ask you how much
you charge,” he said, dejectedly.
“Charge!” she replied, then smiled warmly. “That was former occupation.” Then
she confided. “At University, the only subject in which I did really well was Psychology.
Bad luck that was, really, because I’d just graduated when the Fascist government fell.
Soon afterwards, the revelations about how they’d misused Psychology devalued the
subject so much that there are now no jobs left in that field at all. In these post-industrial
times there virtually are only service sector jobs. In desperate times one has to take
desperate action to earn a living.”
“You don’t want me now, then?” he said, even more dejectedly.
“I didn’t say that,” she replied softly. “How about a love affair instead!” As they
went up to her room, she said. “As a little girl, I once had a fantasy that I was a High
Priestess. Perhaps it’s coming true.”
Cat On A Window Ledge – A Poem
This cute poem is in my book “The Apricot Tree” published in 2008
Cat On A Window Ledge
© Garth Dutton 2008
A cat sleeps on
in winter sun
unaware
that in Australia
cats have become
ideologically unsound
The Relief Teacher (Part 2) – A Short Story
The Relief Teacher (Part 2)
© Garth Dutton 2008
A student in the middle of the class attracted Carol’s attention, so she asked her to speak. The student began… “I’m Ana, and I’m of Portuguese descent. In Portuguese we have a quite different word for the environment. It is called ‘o ambiente’. The word ‘ambient’ also exists in English. We came across it in Physics, when we discussed the ‘ambient temperature of the room.’ So in Portuguese, ‘o ambiente’, is something everyone is in all of the time. You can’t not be in it. ‘Environment’ is related to the French word ‘environs’. Mum and Dad have an “Adelaide and Environs” street directory in their car. The environs of Adelaide are places like Willunga, Gawler, Bridgewater, and so on. So in English the ‘environment’ is something that is ‘out there’. She pointed out of the classroom window to the hills. It’s a quite different conception of reality to ‘ambiente’. Also, in Portuguese, the term is masculine. Many people who speak English think of ‘the environment’ as being feminine.”
Carol thanked her. “You’ve certainly given us something to think about,” she said.
John, who hadn’t said anything yet, put up his hand, and when given acknowledgment to speak, said. “I’m John, and last Christmas I went with Mum and Dad up to see my aunt and uncle in Queensland. On the way we drove through the Pilliga Forest in Northern New South Wales. Dad said that once it used to be all grassland, and isolated trees, but now it’s grown into a huge, tall, dense forest. The reason is that aboriginal people used to burn the land to keep it open kangaroo country, but once they were killed off or put in reserves, the trees took over.” He paused for effect. Then he continued. “So the forest has grown by people not doing something… burning. So is it therefore a ‘natural’ forest, or a man-made one?
“
There was a short silence, then Tan spoke, again in a rather tentative halting English. “I’m still thinking about Waikiki Beach,” she said. “It has to be a natural beach, because people didn’t create the sand. They only moved the sand from one place to another. Nature created the sand.”
Alan took up her point. “Supposing they only dumped the sand at one end of the bay, and let natural processes like waves, tides and wind spread it to make the beach. Would it be natural or man-made?”
Alice caught Carol’s attention, and said. “Miss, I object to the term, ‘man-made.’ Could we use ‘person-made’ instead. In third world countries plenty of women work on construction projects.”
Jenny interjected. “But sometimes some problems are ‘man-made’, like the extermination of whales. Of all the millions of them wiped out in the past 400 years, how many would have been killed by women… probably none…” Carol recalled seeing a Greenpeace sticker on Jenny’s bag when she entered the classroom. She realized the lesson would be running out of time shortly, so brought the class’ attention back to herself.
“I’ve thought of one,” Carol said. “Last year, I went up to the Flinders Ranges, and visited one of the National Parks up there. These types of Parks have been set up to preserve the ‘natural environment’. But suppose one ranger lives in the Park. It then has one human inhabitant, so isn’t it part of the ‘Human Environment’?”
Another thought came to her. “Suppose we agreed that no-one live there, and it remained a wilderness without people. But we became proud of what we had done by setting up such a Park, and it became part of our culture. Isn’t it then still a part of the ‘Human Environment.”
Con took up her point. “Mr. Smith showed us a video earlier in the year about the Amazon Rain Forest, and the Native American peoples living there. They live in villages scattered here and there throughout the forest. They are people, too, so by the definitions on the board it would have to be part of the ‘Human Environment,” he said.
Since raising the problem of the beach, Rob had said nothing, just listened to the discussion with a self-satisfied look on his face. He could see that they were running out of time for the lesson, so said. “The only term that has any meaning in this context is ‘Environment’, or ‘ambiente’ as you call it, Ana. If you use ‘Human and Natural’; or ‘Natural’ and ‘Man-made’; or ‘Natural and ‘Person-changed’; or whatever, it is…” He searched for a term and found it. “Logically unsustainable!” The class and the teacher agreed with him.
Rob continued. “The question is, Miss Jansen, what is going to happen to this information now we have arrived at this conclusion?”
Carol thought about that. She saw she would need to do something with the information. She decided to be quite honest with the class.
“I’ll certainly take it up with other teachers here at the school,” she said. On further consideration, she continued. “And the content of the lesson I can bring to the attention of the Geography Teachers’ Association. You could also write a class letter to Dr David Suzuki in Canada, or Sir David Attenborough in England, or both. I am a member of Friends of the David Suzuki Foundation, so I already have his address. You could write to the ABC, or the British High Commission in Canberra, to get an address for Sir David. Perhaps you could also send a class letter to the State and Federal Ministers for Environment.” The class seemed very satisfied by that.
“In the few minutes left, could you copy down the definitions etc. on the board,” said Carol. There was a murmur from the class. They did not seem too happy with the suggestion.
Jenny gave a sigh, and put up her hand. “Do we really need to copy down those things,” she said. “Now that we have seen it set out like that, it is self-evident… A single category, “Environment”, is the only one that makes any sense at all. Is there anyone in the class who can’t see that?”
There was silence in the room. The bell rang.
“Right,” said Carol. “Write your own summaries for homework. Thanks for a great lesson.” There was a murmur of assent from the class, and they began to pack up their books and bags.
Gina gave the chalk back to Carol. “Oh…also…” Gina said. “The Water Cycle… Evaporation from the sea, clouds, rain, run-off, rivers back to the sea…is self-evident, too, once you have seen the diagram once, and worked your way through it. Yet each year, it is taught as if it is a very difficult concept to grasp.” She smiled, and then said confidentially
“Actually Mr. Smith is quite a good teacher. We are seen as a very ‘mixed-ability’ class. Rob, Alan and Jenny pick up everything first go. The rest of us have to work on it. Some have a poor command of written work, or English. Mr. Smith has a problem, in that, if he keeps on giving extra work to those three, who always finish first, then they will get further and further ahead of the rest of the class. But if he doesn’t, they get bored and start doing stupid things.”
“I know the problem,” said Carol.
Gina continued. “Lately, he’s taken to getting those three to help others who haven’t grasped the concept concerned. At first, they considered others slower than themselves as ‘thick’, and didn’t like doing so. Now they are getting used to helping. I think we will all pass this subject this year.” She said this last sentence with emphasis. Then she went to get her bag and books. “Bye” she said.
“Thanks very much for being my scribe!” called out Carol as Gina left the room.
Rob had been writing something on the board while Carol was involved speaking to Gina. He had written ‘Please Leave” at the top, and underlined it several times. Underneath the details, he had written. “This concept, ‘beach’, makes the dual categories logically unsustainable”
“We might need it next Geography lesson,” he said with a smirk, and was gone.
Clive, the teacher of English, walked into the classroom. He scanned the material on the board, and said. “Fascinating stuff! Mind if I use it as part of my lesson. The problem of accurately defining things in English! A good example!” His students started to arrive.
“Seems like you had a good lesson,” he said.
Carol agreed, as she packed up her books and papers. She had her only free lesson for the day next, and needed a cup of coffee. “I’m a relief teacher, and they didn’t give me a hard time!” she said with a smile.
“Then it has to have been a good lesson, whether they learned anything or not,” said Clive. He looked at the blackboard again, and said, “I think they probably did. Have you got another class now?”
She shook her head. “The class I should have is on a full morning’s science excursion,” she replied.
“Would you like to sit in on the whole, or part of, an English class,” he asked. “You could explain a few more details about this.” He indicated towards the information on the board.
The prospect of a cup of coffee receded. “Fine,” Carol replied. She hadn’t yet taken an English class for relief teaching. It would be good experience to sit in on one.
Clive settled down his class, and said. “We have a visitor today… Miss Jansen… And we have a surprise. We are going to begin today’s English lesson by talking about the beach.”
The Relief Teacher (Part 1) – A Short Story
This is a short story on an environmental theme in two parts. It is called “The Relief Teacher” and it is based on a geography class that went exceptionally well when I was an adult student teacher doing teaching practice as part of my Graduate Diploma of Education in the 1990′s.
Part two will be published tomorrow
The Relief Teacher (Part 1)
© Garth Dutton 2008
Carol approached the classroom where she would be teaching, and it was noisy. Most students were still standing up talking. She walked in, then she said, “Would you all please take your seats, please!”
“Who are you?” called out one student. “Where’s Mr. Smith?” asked another.
Carol picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote ‘Miss Jansen’ on the blackboard. She then gestured for the students to be silent. “I am Miss Jansen. I am a relief teacher. You usual teacher, Mr.Smith, is away sick today, so you are having me for your geography lesson today instead. He may be back tomorrow, so I hope you’ll all be well-behaved and co-operative for me. We have a lot to get through in one lesson.”
A murmur went through the class, and mixed with it, Carol distinctly heard the phrase, “She expects us to work!” She noted the sentiment, but did not visibly respond to it. Instead she said, “Right! Now I believe you have just done a section on the Sahel region of Africa and desertification. Am I correct? A brief description of what you have done, please…”
Alan, who sat at the right hand side front of the class, at a desk by himself, put up his hand. Carol indicated for him to answer. He said, “I’m Alan,” and he gave a brief, but very good summary, of what had been done. She thanked him.
Carol found that she was starting to get the feel of this class. She perceived that Alan might be the type of student who picked up ideas and concepts very quickly, but there were quite a few other students in the class who appeared to not want to be there at all.
Jenny and Alice, who sat a few desks further back from Alan, were busily engaged in whispering to each other.
Carol motioned for them to stop. “If you have anything to say about the topic, please say it to the class. If it is just gossip left over from recess time, leave it until lunch-time!”
Jenny gave a pained smile, and said with a touch of sarcasm. “That topic Alan described gave us all compassion fatigue.”
The students’ attention instantly focused on Carol. How would the relief teacher respond to a remark like that?
Carol replied. “Environmental problems of that scale do cause some people to lose heart. That is why, instead of going straight on with environmental problems in first world countries, we are going to look at our conceptions of the environment generally, in this lesson.” The news did not go down all that well with the class.
One student put up his hand. “Hi, I’m Rob,” he said. “Please Miss Jansen, some of us have done “The Environment” every year since Year 1. This is year 10… And every time it is done, it is done as if we have never heard of the topic before. We’ve had it up to here!” He put his hand under his chin. “Boring!” he remarked, and left it at that.
Carol saw an opening that might make this lesson quite worthwhile. She decided to take a chance with this class. She smiled and said. “Very well, then… How do you think the topic of ‘Environment’ should be taught at Year 10 level?”
There was a momentary silence in the classroom, then a loud murmuring amongst the students.
“Right!” said Carol. “You can have four minutes to discuss it amongst yourselves, but at working level of noise only, please.”
She suddenly thought to herself. “Whoops, I haven’t marked the student roll yet.” The roll book was on her desk, so she opened it.
“Who isn’t here today that is supposed to be?” she asked the class. Most of them ignored the question. Alan, however, scanned the classroom. Then he called out to Alice and Jenny. “Where’s Samantha, and Rita?”
“At the Interschool Basketball Competition, of course,” said Alice to Alan, rather than the teacher. “Don’t you know we are in the quarter-final.”
“Is that all who are away,” said Carol, finding Samantha’s and Rita’s names on the roll, and marking them accordingly.
“Yes!” said Alan, leaning back on his chair. Carol glared at him momentarily. He got the message, and sat properly at his desk.
When the four minutes were up, Carol said. “Right, let’s start the discussion. Who is going to make the first contribution?” There was complete silence in the classroom.
Then Rob spoke, without putting his hand up first. “How can we answer it? We don’t know you well enough to know what kind of answers you expect.”
Carol considered, then wrote at the top of the blackboard,
A murmur went around the class for they really didn’t know how to take what she had written. They lapsed into silence wondering what to do next.
One student, Tan, who sat at the back of the class, looked like she might have something to say. Carol looked expectantly at her, and said with a smile. “Yes! Did you have something to say to start the discussion?”
The students’ eyes turned to Tan, who then said hesitatingly. “My name is Tan. People here see all the problems as coming from the Human Environment, not the Natural Environment. But in parts of Asia people have been growing rice for thousands of years. It’s the big timber companies that are clearing the hill and mountain forests, not farmers. It is the loggers’ actions that are causing erosion and damage to farmers’ fields by seasonal droughts and floods in the lowlands.”
Carol gave her a smile, as well as verbal thanks, and erased the categories OWN ANSWERS – EXPECTED ANSWERS from the board. She replaced those titles with,
Under the first category she wrote ‘forests’ and under the second category she wrote ‘farming land’. Then she said to Tan. “Do you agree with putting them in those categories?” Tan nodded agreement. Carol said. “The particular issue you mentioned will be discussed in considerable detail in term four.”
Gina, who sat right at the front of the class, near the teacher’s desk, raised her hand a little. Carol indicated for her to speak, and half turned to the board in anticipation of what she was about to say.
The student said, “My name is Gina, and please Miss Jansen, can I be your scribe? So you don’t have to keep turning your back on the class to write on the board.”
Carol was quite surprised. She was not quite sure what to do. She was relatively new to relief teaching, and had never had that kind of offer of help before.
“Certainly,” she replied, and handed the chalk to Gina as she came to the blackboard. Then Carol said. “Would you like to tell the class your contribution, Gina, before writing it on the board?”
“Could I just write it on the board, please, Miss Jansen?” Carol nodded agreement, and Gina wrote ‘lakes’ under Natural Environment, and ‘dams’ under Human Environment.
Other students then made their contributions until there was quite a list for each category. All the students now followed Alan’s, Rob’s, Tan’s, and Gina’s lead and introduced themselves by name first, even though they knew that Carol could not hope to learn 24 names in one or two lessons. Carol tried hard to make sure as many students as possible had something to say.
During this time, Rob had assumed an air of complete detachment from the discussion. Now he leaned back on his chair, put his hands behind his head, and said. “Miss, I’ve got a problem!” The class burst into laughter.
Carol gestured for them to be quiet, but three or four girls continued whispering and giggling. Carol glared at them, and waited for them to stop. She thought to herself how glad she was that sex education was not one of the topics she taught. She gestured for Rob to continue, but told him to sit properly on his chair.
Rob said theatrically. “The problem is, of course, with the topic, not my personal life.” He brought his chair down to level again with a bang, gave one loud thump of his fist on the desk, and said loudly. “I give you the problem of… the beach!”
He then assumed an air of complete self-satisfaction, for having thrown a conceptual ‘spanner in the works’.
The class considered in silence. Then Gina spoke. “Surely I’d have to put it in both categories, wouldn’t I, Miss Jansen?”
Gina looked across at Alan, who took up her point. “Hmmm,” said Alan, with a look that suggested that he was giving the matter deep consideration. Then in a Sherlock Holmes-type voice, he said. “Obviously, a beach is part of the Human Environment during the day when there are people there, and goes back to being part of the Natural Environment at night when everyone has gone home.”
Con, who had not made any contribution to the discussion so far, said, “In Greece, there are some beaches that are crowded with thousands of tourists in summer, but deserted in winter when it is very cold. So surely, the beach is part of the Human Environment in one season, summer, and goes back to being part of the Natural Environment in winter… oh, and I’m Con, by the way.”
Jenny was waving her hand in the air, so Carol acknowledged. “I’m called Jenny!” she said. “My brother Rick and I stay with our Dad during school holidays. Last year Dad took us to Disneyland, and on the way back we stopped over for two days in Honolulu. Waikiki Beach there is a man-made beach. It used to be a mangrove swamp, and all the sand was carted there from somewhere else on the island.”
“Good point,” said Carol thoughtfully, and then she asked the class. “Could it ever be part of the Natural Environment if it was a man-made feature like that?”
Alan laughed. “What about a man-made desert then? Try telling a sand dune it can never be a part of the Natural Environment.”
“I think I’ve got a solution,” Miss Jansen, said Gina. She had written ‘beach’ between the two categories. Carol considered, and borrowed the chalk. Above the word ‘beach’ she wrote the single word ‘Environment’. “Does that solve the problem?” she asked the class.
“Yes”, said Gina, and others. Carol thanked her.
The Apricot Tree – A Poem
This poem is called “The Apricot Tree”, the title of my book of poems that came out in 2008. It’s about Mary, who was the love of my life at the time but I lost her because I uttered one disastrous sentence…
The Apricot Tree
© Garth Dutton 2005
Mary
used to live on a hobby farm
in the Adelaide Hills.
She was my lover for three-and-a-half years
in the early 1990’s.
Whenever her ex-husband had their 3 children
for the weekend,
she would come down to the city to stay with me.
On other weekends I’d go to the farm to stay with her,
including taking my two children with me,
when I had them for the weekend.
Then we’d take all 5 children out on Saturday night
for a pizza or a Chinese meal
in nearby country towns.
My children really loved
going to the country for those weekends.
It was a good arrangement,
but an apricot tree changed all that…
One Saturday in spring one year,
I called to see her.
She was cooking lunch, and said to me,
“Would you like to have a look at my apricot tree?
Something’s gone wrong with it.
Instead of flowering this year,
it has put out dozens of suckers
all through my flower gardens.
I just don’t understand.
Usually it’s so productive.”
I recalled her shelves full of bottled apricots.
Then she said,
“Your Angolan Portuguese friend in Cape Town
taught you all about trees and the environment.
See if you can figure it out…”
So I went out to see the apricot tree,
and circumstances were just as she had described.
There was not a single small fruit on the tree,
and apricot suckers were all through her flower gardens.
It took me about half-a-minute to find an answer.
The tree had gone over
to an alternative means of reproduction.
But why?
I thought again of the rows of bottled apricots,
and a logical reason suddenly came to me.
I went back inside and said,
“The problem is the tree has no descendants,
so it has gone over
to an alternative means of reproduction.”
She repeated slowly, “The tree has no descendants…”
I said, “Of all of its fruit you’ve eaten, given to friends,
or bottled over the years,
how many of its stones would you ever have planted?”
She shrugged, and said, “None! This tree is so productive,
I don’t need another.
I just wrap the stones up in newspaper
and throw them away with the fortnightly garbage.
I also pick up any windfalls and throw them away as well,
in case they cause disease.”
Then she said angrily, “Here! Stir the soup!
I’m going out to look for myself…”
And muttered as she went,
“The tree has no descendants… Indeed!”
Five minutes later she was back, and looking shaken.
“There is no denying the logic of what you say,” she announced.
Then, “Shall we have lunch?”
So she called her children, and we had lunch.
But as the afternoon wore on,
she became increasingly broken-hearted
at the way she had treated her favourite tree.
“What was it you told me that white people from Angola believe?”
she asked.
She answered the question herself.
“That trees are living creatures.
They have a primitive diffuse awareness
of what goes on around them.
They have never needed to develop senses any further,
as they are not mobile.”
I said, “That’s it!” and she replied,
“Sometimes I think you live in a world that’s so alien
to the one I live in,
perhaps we should discontinue this relationship.”
I disagreed, so we left the matter at that.
But within a few weeks,
she had decided to sell her hobby farm
and move into a township.
She bought a house,
with a quite large piece of land
on which she intended to develop
a country-town Permaculture system.
As far as I know, she is still going well with it.
She now works in a plant nursery.
If I was to look for a turning point in our relationship,
I think I would still pick the incident of the apricot tree,
for I feared that I had put her through
an awful culture shock.
In fact, the same sort of culture shock
I had been through myself in Cape Town.
It is a one way trip…
Once you start seeing and experiencing trees
as living creatures,
there is no way back to seeing them as inanimate.
The world is a scarier place for a start,
but once you get used to it,
everything is just so much more alive
than it ever was before.
I have contacted her once or twice
since we broke up,
but it was clear to me that there was no second chance.
So I wrote a song called, “The Bells of Christmas”,
one of the most popular in my repertoire.
It was about the sense of loss I still felt for her
that first Christmas we were apart.
Writing the song got it out of my system.
Or perhaps it didn’t quite,
for this poem has been difficult to write.
The Non-Green Blues – A Song
Here is a song I wrote a few years ago called “The Non-Green Blues”.
It sums up my feeling on development and the urban sprawl that’s happening in Adelaide at the moment perfectly.
© Garth Dutton 2007
I’ve seen the future of Adelaide,
and that future’s non-green.
If Councils and Planners have their way,
it’ll be a different scene.
High-density housing without any room for trees.
That future’s unfolding and rapidly it seems.
But that’s not the future that I’d choose.
I’ve got a bad case of the non-green blues.
Some planners hate suburbia the way it is today.
They want to see us back in the village
from which our ancestors escaped.
But from my old apartment
there’s a view of birds and trees.
Just can’t help thinking
that’s the way it needs to be.
Non-green’s not a future that I’d choose
I’ve got a bad case of the non-green blues.
Help me, help me, help me do.
I need a cure for the non-green blues.
The ‘Greening of Adelaide’ used to be.
Won’t someone bring it back for me.
There are some suburbs of Adelaide
where people are growing old,
and when they die, their properties are sold.
Mostly to developers who bulldoze all that’s there.
Town houses, gravel and concrete
put me in despair.
That’s not a future that I’d choose.
I’ve got a bad case of the non-green blues.
Think I’ll become an activist
and contact my M.P.
Write letters to the Council
and ‘To the Editor’ straight from me.
And like George Orwell with his ‘1984’,
try to stop an emerging process
before it spreads some more.
Non-green’s not a future that I’d choose.
I’ve got a bad case of the non-green blues.
Non-green’s not a future that I’d choose.
I’ve got a bad case of the non-green blues.
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