Telescopic Sights
The Carlow Nationalist December 30 2009
I should have known from an early age that travel would feature heavily in my life – a judicious choice of gifts may sometimes do that to a person. My mother had made such a judicious choice. While my friends on Christmas morning unwrapped festive parcels of Meccano and Scalextric, Clackers and Action Man, Raleigh Chopper bicycles with super-soft saddles and swept back handle-bars and the latest Liverpool football kit, I sat quietly staring in awe at the scarcely-imagined sight of a chrome and leather tube; a tube of substantial magic which would allow me to see beyond the confines of my small corner of the planet. I will never forget the sensation of opening that plain white box – without adornment or decoration – unwrapping the swaddling cloth which cushioned its delicate occupant from harm and revealing for the first time my very own telescope. Did I mention it was chrome and leather?
It was not like one of those present-day, gargantuan optical devices; all levers and weights and counter-balances; fully connectable to the internet for enhanced accuracy when chasing zeniths and astronomical milestones; nor did it come with a fold-up tripod, eliminating the nervous shake of excited young hands. No. It was a basic device, constructed in the age-old mould of all great scientific discoveries, with simplicity as its raison-d'etre. It would not have looked at all out of place in the hands of Fridtjof Nansen on the icy deck of 'The Fram' or those of Jakob Roggeveen rounding the Cape and bound for the unknown shores of Chile. It was, in its basic essence, the functionary tool of the explorer and seeker of new worlds.
Fully extended to its maximum length it measured an unimpressive eighteen inches – almost, but not quite a toy – but fully extended it could reach forever. Distance would hold no secrets and miles could be tamed to sit like lambs about my feet. From my bedroom window I could peer across the neighbouring gardens which before I had only imagined. I saw for the first time, with my own eyes, the reality of a scruffy black dog whose ferocious bark I could hear echo across the mysterious distance on dark nights. The sight of his lolling red tongue and playful demeanour as he chased and re-chased a ball thrown by a small boy removed my Baskervillean fears.
I saw the men of the steel works hammering rhythms on lengths of dark cold metal. Through the lens of my miraculous telescope I saw their hammers strike each blow and thrilled at how the sound would arrive long after their blows had been delivered. I saw sparks erupt like a mini-Vesuvius from the tip of a welder's torch. And I saw the driver of the crane mount the steps to his place of work high above the town. Enclosed in his lofty cabin, like a pirate look-out in a Crow's Nest, I spied him open the pages of a newspaper, light an early-morning cigarette, and I knew as I did so, that he was ignorant of my presence in the fabric of his day.
I spied on birds as they chose their partners, made their homes and finally raised their broods. Once I saw a sleek black cat stealthily inch its way through an Amozonia of dense nettles and weeds. Its quarry, a feeding male blackbird, was oblivious to her secret advances as he sunk his orange beak in to the soft earth searching for whatever treasures may lie within. With carefully chosen movements of her razor-tipped paws the cat closed the distance between the two. I switched my view between hunter and hunted. I even tried to shout a warning to the bird, "Look Out! Look Out!", but they were too far away and anyway, maybe, just maybe such an intervention was wrong. Through the lenses of my telescope I could not tear myself away from the natural world as it unfolded around me; minor cruelties and all.
The things I witnessed through the barrel of my chrome and leather telescope only drove my curiosity with the intensity of a rider's spurs on the flanks of a charging steed. Like an addict I became hooked on the continual need for more. More distance, more clarity, more knowledge. What lies over the next ridge? What lurks beyond the distant reed-beds of the lake-shore? Where does the winding road lead? Just one more rise, one more hill, one more summit. There was always more to see and more to explore. And even if I could not physically travel beyond the limits of my eye-glass, the glimpses offered to me charged my appetite for knowledge of distant lands and distant peoples.
Eventually, the chrome flaked and the leather unraveled into a spiraling thread. Scratches appeared on the glass lens and dust gathered in balls within its housing. No longer were the images clear and concise but became the realm of shadows and opacity. However, my telescope had done the job for which it was intended and questions needing answers filled my head. It was time to travel and find those answers.
Recently while standing on a hilltop overlooking Africa's Great Rift Valley I slipped my hand into my pouch and withdrew my new Leica 10x25 super-binoculars with digital compass. Through their modern lenses I watched a herdsman and his boy lead a line of tired Nubian goats towards a distant well along the parched valley floor below. The boy, like all boys had his mind on other matters. As his father marched onwards, the boy scanned his surroundings, his hand a sun-shield over his eyes. An auger buzzard landed with floppy wing beats in a nearby treetop. The boy, as I watched, curled his fist into a tube and spied the bird through the imaginary telescope of his own device. Like me, as a child, he too had wanted to see what lay beyond.