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The smart rider
It is easy to tell that school’s back. Patrolling school pedestrian crossings are an unlikely rag-tag mob of jug-eared, wild-eyed pensioners, each and every one looking quite mad enough to belong to New Zealand’s Sensible Sentencing Trust. Identical in their uniforms of sandals, socks and white lab coats covered by high visibility vests, these folk, the Percy Sugdens of Perth, stride out without warning into the middle of road crossings, blowing whistles and waving lollipop signs challenging traffic to swerve and stop while kids idly dawdle to and from school. It is easy to suspect that these pests have nothing better to do than exercise petty power and, rather than keeping children safe, they are really more interested in reporting to traffic police motorists who inadvertently drive past schools at more than the permitted 40kph or forget to stop at the crossings. We try to run them down, but to this point have been completely unsuccessful.
An unfortunate reason for this lack of accomplishment is that of working, something which keeps Marty off the roads at critical times. Instead, he has become a SmartRider, one of Perth’s million commuters who cram onto trains and buses each weekday morning and head into the city. Public transport has always been a favourite and Perth is no exception, and it is easy to see why. On his first day as a serious commuter, three of Marty’s four rides were free as a result of the ticket machine at the Bayswater station being broken down and then bus drivers having insufficient change for the $100 note tendered for the $2.40 fare. It was tempting to try and ride free forever, but there was some feeling that the drivers would eventually twig if offered unchangeable tender every day. He is now the proud owner of an electronic card which is so clever it works out the best applicable fare for each day’s travel.
It is undeniable that public transport commuters have exceptionally highly developed skills; what other species could stand at platforms, get on and off trains, remain upright as other passengers push past them for space, not topple or lurch as trains hurtle at an uneven gait without lifting as much as an eye from the page of the book they are reading, not even for a moment? Who else could sway to the beat of an Ipod and digest a Tolstoy novel at the same time?
If reading is one skill, timing is another. In economical anticipation of effort, commuters position themselves in the best part of the train to get to a connecting service or out of the station so, when the doors open, there is a determined rush to the nearby bus terminal or to other platforms. In this case it is off the train, down the platform, up the escalator, into the bus terminal and on to the bus within a minute and all without missing an Ipod beat or making eye or any other contact with another soul. This is precision itself.
There are also the curious conventions. Without exception, when a seated passenger gets off at a station, the vacated seat remains empty even though there may be 50 passengers or more standing sardine-like in the aisle. Either they are too absorbed in their Ipod or book to notice or pretend not to notice the empty seat or, more likely, they don’t want to be seen as the pushy or greedy ones by sitting down. Inexplicably, the seat remains unfilled for the duration of the journey. As for us, we are of sufficient age that we nab priority seats reserved for the elderly and infirm, believing that we qualify on both counts.
With the local council apparently threatening to prosecute the tree man of Thornlie if he doesn’t soon relinquish his gum-tree perch, we set off on a search mission to photograph this unlikley hero and with the help of our satellite navigation we homed in on one of the only two gum trees remaining in Hume Street. From what looked like a Bedouin campsite fifteen feet in the air, came a voice from among the branches demanding to know who we were and the nature of our business. Satisfied that we posed no threat the star emerged, Richard Pennicuik, the tree man himself. Alas, it seems that he has become a target for local hoons who pass by and pelt his sanctuary with eggs and hurl abuse. And it may not be exaggeration, for while we were chatting a small ute pulled up, its occupants giving the impression they were not there to spread good cheer. Fortunately, they reviewed their plans after sighting us and departed.
After learning more about his protest, the nature of global warming and the beauty of living up a tree, including being visited by rare, black cockatoos, we signed Mr Pennicuik’s petition to save the tree. It may have been coincidence, but the very next day he called for the tree to be given a heritage listing.