A Frightening Sound
As I approached the Dillingham Street Bridge, the Sunday morning quiet was rudely interrupted by a loud, horrifying sound coming from the bushes on the bank directly to my left. I was startled almost right out of my Asics gels! At first I thought that the sound must surely be coming from a human in the process of being strangled – and resisting. In about a millisecond, though, a new sound – the flap of wings – brought me relief as it hinted to me that maybe the sound was coming from a bird. And about that time I saw a great blue heron emerge from the very spot the sound had come from. My heartbeat slowed down as I watched that big, beautiful bird spread his wide wings and take flight right at the River’s edge, keeping barely above the surface of the water as he slowly glided west toward Alabama, still squawking that horrible sounding squawk. I had no idea those graceful creatures sounded like that.
SCUBA Divers
The most unusual sight on the River today, though, was SCUBA divers! Yes! I first spied their red and white “diver down” flag floating very near one of the pilings of the Dillingham Street Bridge. Then I saw the two guys themselves, about chest high in the water, on the Phenix City side. They were wearing all the equipment, and apparently were getting all set to dive. I heard one of them say something about how clear the water was. I noted that they both had Southern accents. I watched them for a few minutes and resumed my walk. When I came back by on my return, they were both underwater. All I could see was the red-and-white diver down flag floating near two steady streams of bubbles which were decorating the surface of the water. I decided to go home and get my camera and wait for them to surface. So that’s what I did. I walked home, got my camera, and returned to that spot where I could still see the red-and-white diver down flat and the two steady streams of bubbles. And guess what? I stood right there and waited for an hour and a half and nobody ever surfaced. Finally I gave up and came home. During the wait, though, I had a little bit of entertainment.
Montgomery's Story
While I was standing there under the Dillingham Street bBridge, leaning on the rail with my camera, waiting for the scuba divers to surface, a young man approached from the south. Tall, lanky, tattooed, scruffier than most of my students, he looked to be in his twenties. He carried his baseball cap in one hand and a half-smoked, unlit cigarette in the other. When he was quite a distance away – about fifty feet – he tossed me a greeting, “You seen any fish down there in that water? I been all down there [motioning to the South] and I ain’t seen too many fish in this river.” I replied that I’d seen a couple of little fish, but that I was waiting there to see the SCUBA divers. The young man was as surprised as I’d been to see SCUBA divers in the River, but offered that he knew that "they's some folks that sometimes they SCUBA up there [motioning north] on the Phenix City side, where they threw all them slot machines in the River one time. And they find them thangs up there, too. Wish I had me one of them slot machines. But I don't know much about that 'cause I'm from Montgomery. I ain't from here.” Then he pointed out a huge striped bass in the water there underneath where we were standing. “A five-pounder, at least,” he said, and I agreed with his estimation. The fish swam slowly north out of our sight, and about a minute later he swam slowly back in the other direction. Then he went away. The fish, that is. Montgomery stayed around for a while – long enough to tell me this story, which I’ll put into his words just as he told it to me:
A couple of weeks ago me and my buddy, we was up on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. You ever been there? [No pause for me to answer.] Well, it’s up there in Alabama, and it was me and my buddy. We took these two Mexican dudes. The reason we took two Mexican dudes was that my buddy’s girlfriend, well, she’s kin to one of ‘em, but not really … but that’s way too long of a story for me to tell right now … but so me and my buddy and these two Mexican dudes was up there on the Tallapoosa River. And have you ever seen anybody SPEARFISH? [No pause for me to answer.] Me neither. But them Mexicans did it. They spearfished! They each one of ‘em had ‘em this long hollow pipe thang, about as tall as I am, and on one end of it they had ‘em this SLINGSHOT thang [He’s gesturing wildly to describe all this to me.] There’s this SLINGSHOT thang they got rigged to one end of that pole. And they pull back on that slingshot thang, and then they let it go, and out from the other end of that pipe come this big ol’ long nail thang [He gestures to indicate that the “big ol’ long nail thang” must have been about a foot long.]. And that was the SPEAR! That nail thang was the spear! And it was sharp, too! And it come outta the end of that pole. And they shot it with that slingshot thing they pulled on on the other end! They shot about five big ol’ fish while we was there! I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it in my life. That must be the way they fish down in Mexico. But I don’t know nothin’ about that, ‘cause I’m from Montgomery. Dang! [He drops his half-smoked cigarette.] That was my last cigarette. Well, you have a good day, ma’am.”
So Montgomery walked away, headed north toward the dam, but when he was about fifty feet away he turned around, motioned to the SCUBA divers and yelled, “How long they been down there?” I answered that they had been down at least an hour. “Alright then, I’m gone on,” Montgomery responded as he resumed his walk north for about a hundred more yards before he stopped to initiate a conversation with a fisherman who’d staked a claim to a spot there near the curved steps leading down into the River, right behind the CSU art and theatre complex.
Overheard on the Riverwalk today:
One male cyclist to another, “To me, the purpose of drinking liquor is to feel the effects of the alcohol.”
One of three guys hanging out on a bench near the north fishing well, “Naw, I ain’t gone be doin’ no fishin. I’m just gone sit here and look at the paper.”
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