By Lee Scott
Like many Baby Boomers, my spouse and I still think of ourselves as spring chickens. Our brains say one thing, unfortunately, our bodies say something else. This became evident to us on a recent trip returning home to Beaufort. We left around 1:00 in the afternoon and knew that it would be about an eleven- hour drive. Of course, the journey would have to include frequent rest stops for our two dogs. Since we had not done a drive quite that long for a while, we agreed early on that we would alternate driving every two hours in order for the driver to rest between shifts. But as the day went on and the sun started to go down, we recognized that we were going to have to alter that plan and make it one hour shifts. The spring chickens were starting to slow down. Finally, we got to the exit for Beaufort off I-95. And if you are familiar with the highway from I-95 to Lady’s Island, then you know it is mostly a long stretch of emptiness except for downtown. Even the Marine Corp Air Station is dark.
Well, I sat there drinking my coffee and my husband reached for his coke when it happened. There in the middle of our lane stood a 16- point buck looking like the proverbial deer in headlights. (My spouse argues this point saying it was just a big deer.)
“GLUB, glub, glub” I yelled choking on my coffee as my spouse jerked the wheel into the suicide lane completely missing the animal. Afterwards with the adrenaline still soaring through our veins and trying to catch our breaths, my husband asked.
“Why didn’t you say deer?” I responded, “I never call you dear.” We both laughed letting the tension ease out of our bodies. I personally thought that my “Glub, glub, glub” was appropriate for that moment considering my startled condition. We agreed that the encounter had woken us up sufficiently to finish our journey home. But the spring chickens were definitely dragging the following day and we both acknowledged that we had been lucky the night before. Despite what our brains tell us, we are not spring chickens anymore. Eleven hour journeys are too long for us and that 16-point Buck just lucked out that night. Lesson Learned.
