The Toneyard

On the way home from the post office, I decided to take a few backroads and cruise around White River Junction a bit. It's a gloomy day. Should be raining, but it only spits from time to time. Good day for a visit to the cemetary.

I haven't been there since I originally posted on this blog about it. This time I drove through, slowly. Looking around at the centuries-old tombstones and mausoleums. Then something very unexpected happened. I was looking to my left, watching the grave markers pass by. Burroughs, Harmon, then a deer.

Hold on, what the hell?

There was a ragged looking doe, her fur matted down from the damp weather. As I slammed my brakes, she froze up in shock, staring at me from no more than twenty feet away. Then I realized there was a second deer, slightly behind her. We sat there staring at each other, and when I fumbled for my phone to take a picture, they began to run away.

This is all I managed to snap before they bounded between the graves and back into the woods.


As I drove back out of the cemetary and down the steep hill, I saw a guy walking down from the upper hill, looking more or less at the ground, his ear glued to his phone. The urge to roll down my window and shout at him was overwhelming. "Dude! There are deer over there!" But instead I let him be absorbed by whatever inane bullshit he was rambling about to the person on the other end.

The lesson I took from this experience is that I need to look around more often. And to go to the cemetary on gloomy days.