The Tangent Thread: "That reminds me of the time...."

[Yeshuasdaughter]

That reminds me of how I got stranded in Northern California for a week, twice, ten years apart, while the transmission was being repaired.

 

[AuAL]

That reminds of the time I had to spend three days in Renmark while the entire diff was refurbished, due to a shoddy replacement of the pinion seal in Mildura. We were on our way to the Flinders Ranges, and thought our trip was going to be over because of the massive cost of repairs (almost $1000) but the workshop in Renmark forced the workshop in Mildura to foot the bill for their mistake. We spent the time camping by the river and took a river cruise, during which we saw the homestead where Breaker Morant worked. Quite fortuitous, since we had not planned on staying in Renmark at all.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

In the night, I wandered around that California city. I was sort of lost. Everything was closed. I wore a steel lined pack frame with everything I owned inside.

It was sort of warm at first, the heat of the day radiating back up to me from the earth, but soon, the midnight chill of the high desert spring began to soak into my bones.

I passed the main county post office twice. I noticed the old janitor. He looked at me and pretended like he didn't. I noticed he grabbed a little triangle of wood and pushed the door open ever so slightly and wedged the locked door open. He looked at me with intent, and then pushed his mop into a back room and locked the door behind him.

I caught the hint. I climbed the forboding stone stairs that were commonplace in the post WW2 works programs. Then I nervously pulled open the guilded door, looking back to make sure no one had seen or followed me in the one a.m. silence of the city.

I found a broad wooden bench near the p.o. boxes, and laid down to rest. I glanced behind me, and the old janitor looked down at me through the window of the room he was cleaning, and nodded. I slept all night there. He came up to me in the dawn, and told me I had to be out before x time when the security unlocked the doors. He asked me to make sure and lock the door behind me, so he wouldn't lose his job. I was overwhelmed by his gentle kindness.

 

[tree]

An employee at the train station told me that
it would be ok to take a nap on one of the
wooden benches, that he would wake me up
when it was time for me to board again.

Teen girl, alone, for trip of a thousand+ miles.

He did as promised wake me in time for the
next train I needed to board.

 

[AprilR]

That reminds me of the numerous times i fell asleep on public transport and i always somehow woke up before my stop.

 

[Judge]

That reminds me of the numerous times i fell asleep on public transport and i always somehow woke up before my stop.

Reminds me of times when I didn't. Not only forgetting my stop, but worse to forget where I had to transfer trains.

Nothing like riding BART from San Francisco to Pleasant Hill and waking up to arriving in Fremont. A long ways in the wrong direction.

 

[AprilR]

Reminds me of times when I didn't. Not only forgetting my stop, but worse to forget where I had to transfer trains.

Nothing like riding BART from San Francisco to Pleasant Hill and waking up to arriving in Fremont. A long ways in the wrong direction.

I assume that's pretty far! When you say transferring trains i am reminded of the time i was in the UK and had to use subway to go everywhere. And the "mind the gap" t shirts.

 

[Judge]

I assume that's pretty far!

It was.

But it also taught me to wait 5 to 10 minutes for a direct route on the Concord line rather than to transfer.

 

[AprilR]

It was.

View attachment 125548

But it also taught me to wait 5 to 10 minutes for a direct route on the Concord line rather than to transfer.

Wow that seems pretty far indeed! Well it's a good thing there were multiple ways to go there.

Speaking of, i have little to no sense of direction, and get lost even in my own town. Its one of the reasons i dont drive

 

[AuAL]

I assume that's pretty far! When you say transferring trains i am reminded of the time i was in the UK and had to use subway to go everywhere. And the "mind the gap" t shirts.

Couldn’t resist this one. When I was on the Tube one time, years ago, I was reminded of playing Mornington Crescent online in the 80’s.

 

[tree]

Spoiler: lyrics

Song lyrics to Morningtown Ride, by Malvina Reynolds

 

[AuAL]

I had a favourite Russian deli I would go to to get pelmeni. Then all of a sudden it was shut down. About a month ago I had to go hospital (ED) and when I came out and walked to the bus stop, there was the deli! They had changed the name and… moved around the corner from the old location.

 

[tree]

The Duchess in Alice in Wonderland had a very sharp chin.

 

[Rodafina]

My grandmother was called Alice (although I called her Grammy). She was a lovely kind lady who did not learn how to drive until she was 65 years old when her husband died. She was never comfortable taking left turns so for years and years, she would take 3 right turns instead of making a left. She would have been mostly driving in the city of Boston, MA.

 

[AuAL]

Australians are not “placed” so much by accent as by vocabulary. We use different names for things, depending on where we are from. When I was young, walking to school I had to cross a creek. In the creek were small, freshwater crayfish. Aussies will jump in at this point and say, “Ah, yabbies!” I have to correct them and say in my small corner of the country they were called “crawchies”. I have only come across this usage in one other place, Yeppoon, over 1000 km away. Swimmers, bathers - these can be what you wear, rather than who you are, unless you call them togs. We have many shibboleths.

 

[tree]

Crawfish, I used to see the mud towers they
made in my mother's back yard, when I'd go
to visit her.

 

[Rodafina]

I used to like to build towers out of wet sand at the beach. Process: Get a handful of very wet sand and squeeze it in your palm a bit and drip the very wet sand into a tower, building it slowly, one drip at a time so it doesn't tip over. If the sand was too wet, it would collapse the tower, but if it was too dry, it wouldn't drip.

Spoiler: Looked a lot like this, although I never made quite so many.

 

[AuAL]

A young man died last month after becoming buried in sand when he fell in a large hole on a beach on Bribie Island (Yarun/Yirin). The hole is believed to have been dug to roast a pig.

 

[Kisa the tea]

This reminds me of the time that I saw a neighbourhood pig roasting a human during a full moon. I think it was some kind of ritual.

 

[AprilR]

Ritual reminds me of the Ari Aster movie Hereditary. It was very disturbing