FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 842, 10 December 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

"THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

A CHANGE OF POSITION On discovering that one of the recent patents relates to “a combined double-chin reducer and hair-wave preserver,” for wearing in bed. I thought that I heard a sad lady bemoaning . . The state of her features with grief and chagrin; “I can’t keep a curve in my hair, she was groaning, “While curves unrequired are invading my chin. , , . .. One's sense of well-being and beauty it cripples; Ah, what can one do with a problem like that— A chin that insists on indulging m ripples But hair that remains irretrievably flat?” Then quoth an inventor, “Dear madam, how trying— Yodr trouble is one that would harass a saint! , , . But here is a gadget that I am supplying To cure your by no means uncommon complaint; Attach it at night and it proves an unerring Corrective of contours that cause you despair, , . . For while you're asleep my device is transferring ~ . That permanent wave from the chin to the hair!” Lucio (“Manchester Guardian”) * * * ROUND THE CORNER If the Harbour Bridge inquiry has done nothing else, it has at least informed Aucklanders that there is more to the Waitemata than the immediate City waterfront. The harbour does not end at the Chelsea ferry landing, nor is its limit marked by the Watchman and Pousonby Wharf. Around the corner, so to speak, are vistas which offer a new beauty, and charming little corners known only to their immediate familiars, the residents of the vicinity. Drive down Rosebank Road, Avondale, or Harbour View Road, Te Atatu, and realise how little of the Waitemata you know. In no other part of Auckland is duplicated the peculiar charm of the Whau estuary, solitary under its densely-wooded banks, with here and there a tall old chimney or the feudal looking crest of a dismantled brick kiln breaking the picture of trees and tideway. * * * “PARK AVENUE” Through miles of intensely green orchards, and hedgerows vivid with climbing roses, Rosebank Road —how appropriately it is named —finds its way toward Pollen’s Point. Who was Mr. Pollen, we strangers wonder, as we approach his abode. Down toward the tip of the long promontory the roads fork. Acres of market gardens extend on either side, with silver bands of water gleaming among the potato tops and pea sticks. One of the roads—-we seem to remember i-ead-ing “Park Avenue” on a weatherbeaten sign—wanders off to the west. That is the way the outboard motor fellows go if they happen to be taking their little craft overland instead of piloting them all the way round from Mechanics Bay or St. Mary’s Bay by water. It is a very illegible signboard that stands at the corner of the road, so we hope no outboard motorists ever lose their way. It would he terrible to start racing an outboard in the wrong place. Anyway, the City Council, which appears to have this peculiarly rural part of the isthmus under its control just now, should he heartily ashamed of leaving “Park Avenue” with sucli an inadequate and weather-worn corner sign, and will please take immediate steps to renovate same. MANGROVE MAZES Any adventure off the beaten track, like this, can only cause acute regret that mangroves are not a saleable commodity. Every reeking mudbauk in these deep inlets is paved with dense jungles of mangroves. Perhaps mangroves are better than naked mud, but true enthusiasm demands that we regret the presence of either. We have heard it boasted that this is the only place outside the tropics where mangroves sport themselves in such profusion. That may be something co boast about, but for ourselves, we don’t see much in the claim. Now if mangroves were a millable timber, there would be something to make a fuss about. Or if it were suddenly discovered that mangrove leaves contained a vitamin important to human welfare, we could set up an export business at once. There might even be a fortune in the enterprise. Alas for such dreams of prosperity! Down at the grassy terminus of Rosebank Road there is a Maori family which sets forth on favourable tides and jags mud eels in the tideway, or collects pipis and cockles from the banks. Over the way a neighbour proclaims that he has “white shell grit” for sale. The shell grit is good for either paths or poultry. It keeps paths clean and fowls healthy, so what with pipis, cockles, and shell grit, even the spreading tidal banks by Pollen’s Point yield their charming contribution toward the amenities of this mysterious existence.