Job Hazards

Please be safe and stay alive--I know it is not always easy.

Lucky that the truck wasn't moving. Take care, although there isn't much defense against such a happening.

I've only hit birds two times and both came within half an hour of each other on the road from Wabasha, MN to Dubuque, IA.

When I drove big truck with my husband I hit birds, but not like the one in the article. I can't believe the eagle survived. It is pretty scary. We never did hit a deer or elk out on the open road. I'm so very thankful for that.

Keep safe driving JoElla,

Vickie

Wow! There was a golden eagle in our pasture last week. I could not get my camera on him/her quick enough to get a picture, but he/she was a huge and magnificent bird! I would sure hate to hit one.

A grouse took out the (plastic) grill on my little S-10 pickup about 10 years ago, and a deer messed up the hood of my van 3 years ago. Then it had the nerve to regain its feet and walk away! When I called it in to the insurance company they wanted a physical address. I laughed and told them it was in the woods at the intersection of fir and pine trees, about 10 miles out from the highway.

A head-on collision between an Army jeep and a Brahman bull...

“Here’s the gate, Dubya,” Small Tim said a minute later from the back of the jeep.
Dubya killed the headlights and stopped at the gate.
“Don’t wanna skeer em off `fore we get there,” he explained. “Preacher,
if you wanna get the first un, go ahead an get up on th hood. Small
Tim, you open th gate an close it behind us.”
Brother Hollis had never killed a deer, much less ever been deer shining and he was very excited.
“Are you sure this is legal, Brother Dubya?”
“Well, hit ain’t `zackly legal, Preacher, but long as you don’t shoot one o’ Mr. Sewell’s Brahmas, he won’t mind,” Dubya said.
Mr. Sewell was one of the first in the area to import the Brahman
breed, which were popular for their meat, and characterized by the
large hump on their neck and shoulders. He was very proud of his herd
and rightfully so; they were a goldmine in the meat packing industry
and he hired the bulls out for breeding purposes.
Small Tim jumped off the back of Dubya’s Jeep and began opening the
cattle gate. He had it about halfway open when a loud bellow split the
silence, echoing across the valley.
Tim froze and whispered, “That was close… reckon hit’s ol’ Satan?”
Brother Hollis, who was already on the hood, whispered back, “Too
close, I think. I can hear something breathing right in front of me. I
do not feel good about this at all. Did you say Satan?”
Satan was Mr. Sewell’s prize bull and master of his herd. He had chased
every kid who ever dared to enter the pasture, and was used a badge of
honor by those who took the dare.
Tim shined his flashlight in front of the Jeep and right into the
glowing red eyes of Satan, no more than twenty feet away—pawing the
ground with his hooves and snorting.
“I thank he’ll get out of the way if we drive straight at him, Dubya,”
Small Tim said. “When I open this gate, drive through fast!”
“Are you sure about that, Brother Tim?” the preacher asked from his front-row seat on the hood.
Dubya answered by hollering, “Hang on, Preacher!” and floored it. The
Jeep lunged forward through the gate and Dubya switched the headlights
on.
Satan didn’t get out of the way; he lowered his head and charged.
Brother Hollis dropped his rifle, turned around and scrambled up the
hood. He grabbed the windshield and had one leg lifted in an effort to
climb over it—but it was too late.
The impact stopped the jeep in its tracks, but Brother Hollis kept
going (although backwards) off the hood, over Satan’s hump and onto the
back of the stunned beast. Satan had run headlong into the electric
winch that was mounted on the front bumper. He staggered a bit, shook
his head and took off around the jeep and out the open gate with
Brother Hollis on his back, holding on for dear life.
They could tell the direction of Satan’s escape by the screams of “Help me, Jah-EE-zus-ah” coming from the preacher.
Small Tim picked up Brother Hollis’s rifle and threw it into the jeep.
Dubya backed out the gate and Tim closed it and jumped in. “You sure
they went thisaway? And is th preacher okay?”
“Yep, an I don’t know,” Dubya said as he drove in the direction of the preacher’s fading screams.

(Excerpt from Good Ol' Boys ~ Wild Game Dinner, coming soon in the 2009 WoW Anthology)

That's good, Brew. Had me going "Oh no!"

Thanks, Zada. I giggled the whole time I was writing that. My
characters are taken from real life (only the names have been changed
to protect me from civil suits). Mr. Sewell's Brahman herd is very real
- he (under his real name) lived next door to our 16 acres, and I was
one of the kids who dared to challenge Ol' Satan (his real name). I
have gone hunting with "Dubya" and "Big Tim" many times. They were my
heroes! WEnt `coon huntin' with `em too - but only once. (Running
through the mountain woods at night with a bunch of drunk adults with
guns can be hazardous to your health).

I meant to report my "bird in the windshield" story first out of respect for JoElle's thread, but I forgot to.

I was about 12 or so, my dad was driving with my Uncle Bob in the
passenger seat. I was in the back seat but leaned up between them to be
included in the conversation. We topped a hill at 50 mph or so and
there, in the middle of the road was a dead dog with about 5 buzzards
doing what buzzards do.

They
usually get out of the way, but one (probably too full to gain
altitude) flew away from us, right down the middle of the road.

We rear-ended it.

The impact gave it the boost it needed
because it flew off, apparently okay; but we all three now know what a
buzzrd's butt looks like up close and personal.

Brew, I just love reading your stories.

Vickie

Hey, Vickie! Thanks. Don't you have a story in the new Anthology? Never too early to start promoting!

Yes, Brew, I do have a story in The World Outside The Window Anthology, it is called Austin, My Hero. I've been promoting it to family, friends, the writers groups I am part of, and many other places. I sometimes wished I lived in a bigger town, with more book stores and better opportunities. I'm not going to give up though, if there is nothing else I've learned the last four years since getting published, is that you never give up.

JoElla, reading that article, made me remember how many times we have been on that stretch of the road also.

Vickie

Loved the story Brew. You make things so realistic.

Two events happened within a week that made a huge impression on me as a kid. Both on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where my uncle was the head park ranger.

The first was, we came around a corner in my uncle's official USPS Faded Forest Green coupe and thundered right up on a buzzard gorging on some furry road kill. He jumped up and tried to outrun the car by flying straight down the road ahead of us. Realizing he wouldn't make it, he disgorged the semi-digested dead wolverine or whatever all over the windshield. I was in the front seat and extremely impressed.

A few days later my uncle was called because a guy was driving a convertible when a deer jumped off an embankment to the road bed and landed right on his car. The deer plunged straight through the fabric roof, right up to its upper legs. In frantically trying to kick itself free from being trapped in this terrifying speeding object, it kicked the driver to death. The car crashed into some trees, the deer slugged its way out (with several tourists taking pictures of it) and took off unharmed.

So it's not like the humans always win these things.

When my Uncle Feagin was in his late teens, he went out for a "man's" night with his Uncle Buel. They spent a few hours at a saloon in the only wet county around, and on the way home, a mule suddenly appeared on the road in front of them. Uncle Buel didn't have time to stop, and the mule, after being hit, slid up onto the hood of the truck and hit the windshield. Luckily, neither my uncle nor my great uncle was hurt, but the mule didn't make it, and the truck wasn't in much better shape. The headlights, amazingly, still worked, but one shined its light straight up, and the other straight down. They managed to make it back to Uncle Buel's home, and carefully parked the truck away from the house, hoping to hide the damage from Aunt Maxine, who would be very angry with her husband for taking his nephew out on such an evening. It didn't work. Shortly after daylight, Feagin and Uncle Buel woke abruptly from Aunt Maxine's shout. They ran out to find her standing next to the truck, fuming. Uncle Buel tried to calm her down. "Now, Maxine," he started, "we was doin' just fine 'til we came across that drunk mule!"

Ann