Barksdale and the White-Tail Deer
Tales of driving with Barksdale reminded me of a few stories. Scott was dating Jeannie who was at Green Mountain and that brought him and his car into contact with the back roads of New England. I remember two great stories he told us after dates with her, here is the second one.
Barksdale often went to see Jeannie at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont. On one trip, during his return to Yale, a typical winter snowstorm was at play. Visibility was, of course, poor and without warning, a White-Tail Deer was running down the snow-packed road just ahead of him. He braked and swerved to miss it, but they collided, nevertheless.
Both the car and the deer ended up in packed snow right at the edge of the road. Scott’s left headlight illuminated the deer, unmoving, face down in the snow. However, his right headlight, still working, was pointed skyward into the falling snow.
A quick inspection revealed that the soft, collision-friendly design of a Volkswagen bug’s forward trunk was stove in. More importantly, the right front tire seemed to be immobile due to bent sheetmetal of the fender. It didn't appear to be a collision you could drive away from. Also it was dark on that narrow road. And cold
Suddenly, a red pickup truck pulled in behind Scott and a Vermont farmer asked if he was OK and if he could help. Of Scott's description of the Vermonter who stopped to help him, I only remember overalls, a fur hat and red suspenders that matched the red pickup truck. The two of them tried to pull the bent fender away from the front wheel, but it was not until the farmer got a long shovel handle out of his truck that they finally managed to free the wheel.
At that point, Scott was startled to see the deer, standing up, looking at him quizzically in the bright headlight’s beam. There was apparently no real damage to the deer, who proceeded to slowly walk away down the road into the snow. “Yep. They do that sometimes.” The farmer remarked.
With the farmer pushing from behind, Scott tentatively drove the Volkswagen out of the deeper snow and a few feet down the road. Except for the weird direction one of his headlights was pointing, nothing else seemed amiss.
Throwing his shovel handle back into the truck, the Vermonter bid him good night and drove off. Scott simply returned to Yale.
