Close Encounters of the Animal Kind

Last night on my way home I found myself going down a section of road in the country that was dark and heavily wooded, it reminded me of something that happened on a road similar to this a long ago, in fact it was the very same road.


Once, maybe it was five, could be even six years ago, I was working as a circulation district manager for one of the local papers. One night the occasion arose where I found myself out in my car on a rural country road delivering newspapers because the normal carrier was sick. Normally this wasn’t in my realm of duties because I could have delegated it to one of my subordinates yet I decided to deliver the papers for this carrier so I could refresh myself with what this person went through each night.

Because of my position I knew this persons paper route for the most part and since I was the one during those days that taught the carriers how to memorize the 725-825 different addresses and correctly deliver the six different papers to these various subscribers. In those times, before the corporate buyout/take-over happened our paper was also contracted out to deliver, The New York Times, The Financial Times, USA Today, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal and ours The Herald Sun. Sounds difficult I know but after you have it memorized it’s quit easy and the only thing that needs your full attention is the daily changes to those customers.

So I’m going down this road around four o’clock in the morning one night at the end of January and we were just finishing up a freakish three or four days of warm weather and rain. This night was no exception because while I was preparing the route (hint: how do you think your papers get into those plastic bags?), it was raining quite hard even though it was warm out. Having been delivering for about an hour I was headed down this darken road and got to a section where it dips down a little bit in the middle near a heavily wooded area which given enough rain overflows once in a great while. But there was no flood on this night the water had filled the ditches and surrounding woods but didn’t reach the road that was regardless of the water in the woods wet and somewhat slick.

I’d just delivered (or a better word might be thrown) a paper into a subscriber driveway and looked down to see if any changes were coming up. All of the sudden out on the road in my headlights (I was driving with the bright lights on so I could read the mailbox addresses easier) were thousands of six to eight inch long black and white dotted salamanders. You see these woodland creatures normally during this are buried under old rotten logs or dug down into the dirt, but on this night they had all agreed enough of winter and decided to do something about it. I’ll never know what the outcome of that salamander convention because I only took a few minutes to stop and watch thousands of them gather on the road but this story isn’t about salamanders in the middle of winter, this story is about what happened during that ride.

As I mentioned this was a dark night, it was 4 am and I was in the country on a wet road covered with salamanders in the woods. I got on with the tasks before me and delivered to the next address and was headed to the one that followed that when as I came around this banked corner something even crazier happened. The window was all the way down not only because it was around sixty eight out but because it made for throwing the paper over the hood of my truck into the driveways easier than getting out. I’d just reached across the seat to take another paper off the pile I had in order by delivery and type to throw it when looking up a huge shape was coming in through the window.

Naturally I swerved and quickly recovered enough to try and see the road as my arm came up to protect my face from this giant brown thing was semi-attacking, semi-escaping in front of me. With a push of my arm toward the window I felt claws wrap around my arm and this is what probably motivated me to using the force I needed to for what happened next. As soon as my arm connected with those claws the flapping object was in my face and then it was out the window half-flying, half-tumbling onto the road. I had just had a close encounter with an owl. Not just a cute, wise old Winnie the Pooh owl either but a full size great grey owl out on the hunt looking for I assume salamanders. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been up close to a great grey owl but they get to be two feet to almost three feet tall and this one was no exception, I’m talking full size owl here. The whole thing took less than six seconds to shake up my night but seeing the owl go down I quickly found the next driveway to turn around.

Heading back to where I had my close encounter, seriously this was frickin’ nuts, I’m writing this now and still remember how crazy that was. Imagine going 45 miles per hour down a know but not really know dark wet road and out of the blue you finding yourself in a personal battle with a three foot owl in the front seat and on the steering wheel fighting over who’s going to drive. But getting back I saw as I pulled up this majestic creature lift itself up and fly off into the woods. Seconds later I could hear hoo hoo hoo, hoo hoo hoo as if saying, “WTF was that?” Turning to get back into the truck I felt a squish and looking down saw I had stepped on one of the salamanders headed to the convention I mentioned earlier and it dawned on me this might have been the very snack the owl was swooping in towards when we met. I bid good night to my friend and left to continue on into the night delivering the rest of the route without issue.


It left me in an odd mood though for I began to wonder what would have happened if I had hit this owl and how with all my talent I wasn’t qualified to care for a field mouse let alone a owl if it had been injured. An animal with a sharp beak and huge claws I pictured myself trying to place a broke wing three foot owl in my car without getting peaked to death and blooded by claws in the process. I’m glad it didn’t turn out that way though as I headed home to watch “The Great Lebowski” before going back to work.

Later the same day around 11 am I’m out doing a delivery to a customer near Jordan Lake a twenty-seven mile long reservoir built by the Army back in the fifties or sixties and as I’m going down the road I see there’s an eastern box turtle making his way across the road. Now I’m no turtle whisperer but I do know enough about them to realize they can’t hold up a car with their shell so I stop the car to rescue him (or her) off the road.

Since I lived on a little lake at the time I thought, hey why not take him back there since there’s a whole bunch of different turtles in it and plenty of woods near by for him or her to live in. So gathering him up I place him in the truck on the passenger floor and continue on my way.

If you’re ever out anywhere and anyone ever tells you that turtles can’t climb they are plumb dumb lying to you because I spent half the time bending over to keep this little turtle from climbing up into my dashboard and the other half trying to steer down the road so it didn’t look like I just drank a twelve pack of Bud Light. Picture in your minds eye the truck in front of you where a guy is driving it and every once and a while the truck swerves erratically from one side of the road to the other and you have a rough idea what it is like driving around with a loose turtle in your truck.

Anyway as I continue on trying to keep the turtle from climbing up into the dash and failing where my attention should be focused on driving I look up after adjusting the turtle once more and right in front of the truck in my windshield is a fucking bald eagle. I shit you not, this is the very same morning after the owl (or the next morning after that night, the news tends to make you never really know what day it is since they all blend from one into the other, but this was the very same morning from the previous night with the owl, turtle in on the floor next to me is being mischievous). Once again I swerve hard out of the path of our nations symbol who was attempting to have me kiss some glass with bald eagle embedded in it and once more, my window was down.

The Eagle manages to pass me but as it’s going by its fucking wing comes into the window slaps me hard in the face and its gone. Startled I look in the mirror on the side of the truck as I begin pulling over thinking the eagle might be hurt only to see it flying off. Eagle fine or not I stopped the truck got out and started screaming, “what the f*#k, what the hell is this crap, jumping f*#king Jesus on a pogo stick what the f*#k is this sh*t all about with the animals”, I’m jumping up and down screaming, shaking my arms and generally freaking out looking like some half deranged lunatic after a somewhat intense situation. I mean it was nuts, like some frickin’ Russian KGB or American CIA stress test, it shook me up.

The just as I’m finishing up my ‘WTF life dance’, I hear the eagle who’s safety made it over to big tall gnarly old tree to recover say, “that was for the Owl, pay attention to the road you no driving f*#k.” He then gave me the feather and then flew off like I did something wrong? If things couldn’t of gotten any weirder when I got back in the truck the frickin’ turtle who is on the passenger seat now says, “that’s what I was trying to tell you, the owl’s got a message for you”. I looked at him with a sarcastic eye and said, “really, you think? Are you serious”? I then drove to the next public phone I could find called in and told them I must have come down with something so I was going home for the day.

You see my reasoning was that I’d given it my best shot for the last ten hours and given all the weird things that had happened I was probably better off home in bed than out on a road driving around. I went home, parked and took the turtle over to the edge of the woods to let him go. He walked away slowly but before he got out of sight he turned and said, “I just can’t remember when I have been with a worse driver in my life, fast, slow, one f*#king side to the other, all I was trying to do was get to the other side of the road and this one has to pick me up, stupid humans!” and with that he left. I stood there thinking to myself some days are definitely crazier than others and today was no exception but it still didn’t top the baby possum story, but that’s for another time.