Quite a place to live

12/8/09 Backgammon, given away

I gave a board game away at school, but that's not the interesting item from the day.

Here's a little story that pretty much sums up a lot about Maine:

My drive home takes me on a long straight stretch of dark, back-country road. Suddenly, I saw a deer in my headlights on the right side of Route 121. I learned long ago to never slam on the breaks when an animal runs in front of you, especially when the road is snowy and icy. I managed to cut my speed in half before I clipped his rear end as he ran right across the road. Fortunately for me and my car, he didn't come up over the hood and into my windshield.

I was fine, my car was fine, but I knew the deer wasn't so lucky.

I turned the car around and found the deer laying in the snow on the side of the road. It was obvious he was alive, but not going to recover. This kind of thing happens every day in Maine, but that doesn't take the sickness out of your gut when it happens to you.

I didn't need to report any damage to the car, since there wasn't any, but I needed someone to take care of this suffering creature. I called the sheriff, who connected me to the state police, who told me they'd be there eventually.

A minute later, a guy in a little hatchback pulled over and walked back to my car. He looked vaguely familiar.

"You okay?" he asked. When I said I was fine, he asked if he could have the deer.

If you're not familiar with Maine law, basically if you hit and kill a deer in Maine, you can have the meat, as long as the authorities rule that it was an accident. I told him it was his if he wanted it, but we had to wait for the cops. He was in full agreement.

We had to wait about forty-five minutes for the State Trooper to arrive, since there is -- this is not an exaggeration -- one trooper on duty for the entire county. It's gruesome to say, but I'm glad I wasn't the one bleeding to death.

While we waited, I discovered that the other guy, Josh, was my neighbor's brother-in-law. I'd say small world, but these are the sort of thing you expect to happen in Maine. A while later, Josh's girlfriend arrived in their huge pick-up, trading it for the little car he'd been driving.

Josh was clearly on edge as the deer struggled. Despite injuries that would have sent any human into debilitating shock, the deer kept fighting.

"God, I wish we could just put it out of its misery," Josh said, and he was right. The animal wasn't going to live, and the right thing to do would be to end its suffering as quickly as possible.

All Josh had in his truck was a little Buck knife, and we both knew it was illegal for him to do anything before the police arrive. To make matters worse, the deer got spooked and literally dragged itself across the road, down an embankment, and into the woods. If Josh hadn't jumped into the road as it crossed, waving wildly to slow down an oncoming truck, we would have had an even worse accident on our hands.

When the trooper finally got there, the deer was out of sight in the pitch-black woods. The cop gave Josh the go-ahead to take care of the deer. Josh took my flashlight and his six-inch knife to so something I'm pretty sure I'll never have the stomach for.

It took Josh about fifteen minutes to find the animal in the snow, kill it, and drag it out.

As the trooper and I waited on the road, we discovered that I know his kindergarten son, who goes to my school. They'd moved from Miami to Maine three years ago just because they thought it'd be a great place to live. They hadn't been disappointed.

We chatted about his son's teacher, Mrs. Plummer, who helped organize that great Baby Shower I wrote about yesterday. Small world? Nope, it's just Maine.

Josh got the deer out of the woods, returned my flashlight, and began to load it in his truck. As I got back in my car, Josh yelled out, "Hey, you want some of the meat?"

"Sure."

"I'll bring it by your place," he said.

Just another night in my home state.