“I worry myself to death about youns out a driving around! You gotta watch out for them deers they’ll jump right in front of you and the people just fly on these roads. If you got off on the soft part of the road you’d be wrecked before you knowed it!”
Last night’s video: Alex Stewart Portrait of a Pioneer 21.
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We live in the Texas Panhandle. My sister-in-law is a Presbyterian minister and pastor’s 2 small-town churches just north of where we live. On Christmas Eve, last year, she was driving from one of the churches to the other, it was dark, and all of a sudden a small herd of deer came across the two-lane hiway she was driving on and collided with her car. Her airbags went off, her car was totaled, and several deer were either killed or had to be killed after law enforcement arrived. She was not injured, except for abrasions and bruises, but, needless to say, she didn’t make it to the 2nd church for Christmas Eve services.
We run the gauntlet of deer every night along with many other animals. You think you’re safe in the middle of town? Nope. Doe and fawn stalled traffic in the the middle of a four lane intersection in town. A line of cars at shift change waiting for a skunk and her following line of skunk-lets to cross the road.
I keep my high beams on looking for the shine of eyes. If I spot them in time I drop my high beams down low so they aren’t blinded, and slow way down until I’ve passed them because a panicking animal changes direction several times. Just when you think you know where they’re headed and speed up, they change their path and run right in front of you.
The minute you stop looking out for wildlife is the minute you hit them.
I think maybe that extra concern for safety, ours and others, comes with the years. I realize, for example, that I have to be becoming more concerned about falls, slower reaction time, poorer vision generally and poorer night vision specifically and so on as time goes by. I wish I could not think about it but I owe the folks who care about me to take care for their sake. I don’t want those concerns to control me but I’d best not ignore them. And as our concern of necessity increases we tend to think that others don’t have a high enough concern.
Sad that what we can so easily take as being extra fussy or even meddling is just another way of saying, “I care about you and I want your health and happiness.” My Mom was a worrier. She would pick up.and carry burdens that were not hers. It was her nature. I never understood until her last years and even then not well enough.
Dodging Deer Season is upon us again. It’s a sad fact of their life cycle that some dash across the road, oblivious to the danger of cars and trucks.
Then there are the new residents and tourists who drive much too fast on our mountain roads, flattening the curves to go even faster. I stay home as much as possible during this time of year though the price of gas has given me reasons for that too.
My son usually comes over after work each day to check on me and as he leaves I’m almost saying the same words to watch out for deer. There is a sign by the road right in the beginning part of my property that says Watch for Deer for the next mile! In the south, I was warned more about the danger of getting off the shoulder of a country road, you could mire down pretty fast.
I have heard stories similar to Alex Stewart’s life from family that passed on to heaven many many years ago. I truly respect their wisdom in raising their families through such hard times. I am also thankful for the modern medicine we have today.
Posted my comment too quickly! Meant to add that yes, I’ve heard the word “waylaid” used. My grandfather used to greet visitors by saying, “Come in the house!” I’m wondering if that is unique to Appalachia or is more common.
Thank you again, Tipper.
I live in upstate SC and at least among the country folks “come in the house” is a common phrase. I remember a time when neighbors would visit and you would be told to “come on in”” and the ones saying this would not even go to the door and to see who it was. If they happen to be eating , chances are you would hear “grab a plate, drag up a chair and help yourself” after you had been told to come in. This was back when you didn’t worry lock your doors or worry about being harmed. This still goes on to some extent among the natives.
I see I made several mistakes with too many words or words in the wrong place. Still having eye problems but it is getting better. I don’t know what I will blame it on if and when my eye heals!
If an alarm went off every time someone in my neighborhood said this there would never be silence. It’s like a long goodbye in the rural South around me.
I hate to see the Alex Stewart readings come to an end. That man is someone I wish I’d known, been neighbor to,
just to garner his wisdom and experience. What a fascinating (and hard) life he led! They broke the mold when
they made him. Thank you, Tipper, for sharing his life story with us.
The deers come out of nowhere for sure. I guess you could say I got my first deer a couple of years ago within a few feet of where my brother-in-law got one the week before. Both vehicles suffered heavy damage while we were unhurt. When the deer hit my windshield, I thought it was broken but it turned out to be a stream of slobber instead of a crack.
Sounds exactly like something you’d hear soneone say around here, and I’m sure I’ve said it before. You see more deer around here than you see when you go a vacation in a state park.
Sounds like Grannie worrying about the girls!
I am probably the only reader who hit a buzzard with a motorcycle. If my Grandpa Nick Byers told the story it would probably go like this…” I come aroun at curve fronts New Liberty Church n he was a’squatin’ thar in the
middle up muh lane eatin’ cairn. Ah swerved left an the thang swung aroun n cawt me head on, hit did, tween headlight and fender, thang hit the forks. Two foot har n hit wudda knocked me off n kilt me”..
Those words are so true in my life now. Since my daughter and my wife’s death I start walking the floor if my son and grandson don’t get home after work when I think they should. Between the deer, the highway they drive on being a race track and the number of drunks on the road, I worry myself to death. I do not worry about their driving ability. At 3 o’clock this morning I was awake and praying for my son, he and his friend were leaving at 4 o’clock driving and pulling a pontoon boat 70 miles to go fishing. My son and grandson both will call me and let me know if they are going to be late. I worry to the point of getting sick if they are late. Both of them live with me. You wouldn’t believe how worried I got one morning this week worrying about my other grandson, there was a wreck very near his home at the time he would be leaving for school. I was worried sick until I knew it was not him.