A Short Note About Tolerance
And the perspective to renew our own
It seems - at least to me - that one of my favorite “farmer philosophy” topics is working hard to be tolerant and understanding of others. Or, if it isn’t, many things adjacent certainly are. And so, I might have been more aware of one of life’s lesson’s being reinforced and in progress than I might have been otherwise simply because I do think on it fairly often.
Tammy and I were driving from our farm to my parents house (NE of Des Moines) in the dark and in some fog. Now, before you start thinking things like “why would you drive in those conditions?” Let me remind you that there are more hours in December that are dark than sunlit. And, the fog was navigable. Give us credit for living in the Upper Midwest and being aware of what is safe to drive in and what is not.
So - before I go much further - did you know that Iowa’s Whitetail Deer population was somewhere between 500 and 700 animals in 1936? According to the Iowa DNR, present day herds total about 400,000 animals after the hunting season.
Well, it’s now 399,999 animals.
Most people who have driven any decent amount of time on rural roads in Iowa have at least one deer-related incident in their story-telling repertoire. And, usually, there isn’t much you can do about it when it happens. The times when they are noticeable to a normally attentive driver, they are fairly easy to avoid. It’s those instances where there is a steep ditch or other cover that make it impossible to see them coming that get you.
Once we hit the deer, we did the normal self-inventories. Yep, we’re both still intact - no injuries. Then, we tested the car out.
Yep, still moving.
We were on a two-lane, county road that we knew well - but it was very dark. So, we headed to a point where we knew there would be some light so we could assess the damage. Of course, we were moving slower and more cautiously than before because we couldn’t be sure what might be too much for Belle. Yes… we named our car Belle. If you don’t understand, don’t worry about it. If you do, you do.
Once we assessed the damaged, we figured we could limp on to my parents house. There weren’t many other places we could stop to get assistance between the deer-meets-car incident and our intended destination anyway. Plus, it was Sunday night. Only the deer are open for business on Sunday night.
We determined that 50 mph was going to be the top speed that was safe.
And now you know where I am going with this. We had suddenly become one of THOSE drivers. The ones that get nasty words said or thought about them on any road filled with people completely preoccupied with getting from here to there at speed.
Just not our speed.
We had at least one driver angrily flash their lights at us as we slowed down even more for a railroad track that was certainly NOT a good idea for us to go over quickly. And once we got to a place where passing was possible, they made sure to do so with just enough anger in their driving technique to make it obvious that they weren’t happy. Ahhh… to have a vehicle that had not just been injured by a deer.
Well, they had an excuse. There is no way they could have known that we weren’t able to go faster. As far as they were concerned we were just driving slower to be difficult and inconvenience them. Or, perhaps they just thought we were incompetent. Regardless, we had placed ourselves in their way and they were sure we had done it on purpose. We had picked them to be the people who would have their Sunday night drive ruined.
I wonder. Did a thought cross their mind at any point that there might be something more going on?
And that’s my lesson to myself for tolerance. I don’t know everyone’s circumstances. Heck, I have a hard time always knowing everything about my own and the closest people around me. So perhaps I should be the one who considers that there might be some very good reasons that another person isn’t performing how I might like them to.
Or maybe I’m just always right and everyone else IS out to make my life more difficult?
Yeah, that must be it.
This is a road we have driven MANY times, in all seasons and often in the dark, for decades. What's remarkable is this is, I think, the first time we've seen deer close to the road. And, this was our 2nd encounter of the drive - about 30 miles before the collision (as much of he ran into us as us into him!) we missed hitting a doe by inches. I suppose we were due???
Yup, a baby in the back seat.