Wednesday, July 14

Chicken, Crow

This post over at xtcian, about running into a tureky, reminded me of a bird experience I had about 20 years ago. (you know what? I had originally typed '10 years ago', thinking it was actually 10 years ago. I then had the sudden explosion of realisation that it was actually 20 years ago. Holy crap! 10 years just flew by my eyes. Am I that old?)



At that time, I used to golf quite a bit, with college buddies. One day we were on our way to Green Gables (this, in the days when one's PEI golfing options could be counted on one hand) for an afternoon round. I was driving my military green 1978 Honda Civic, and as we were about to drvie down into a little valley, I noticed on the road on the incline on the other side of the valley, a crow was standing in the middle of my side of the road.



Being a goof, I told the guys to watch this, we were gonna play chicken with a crow. I gunned the motor, and charged towards the bird. As we kept approaching, the crow kept its back to us. "He's playing us" was the general consensus from the car. Suddenly, about 10 seconds before we reached where the bird was, it turned around and stared at us. It stared us down.



It stared me down. The driver. The only one who really mattered in this test of wills. Our eyes locked, and I could tell that this crow was not going to budge. If we were to win this game of chicken, we'd have to hit the crow.



At the last second, I swerved out of the way and drove past the crow. The crow did not move. As I drove away, up and over the hill, I looked in the rearview mirror. Shivers still go down my spine as I recall the icy stare of that crow in that mirror.



Yes, I was beaten by a crow.



2 comments:

Wayne said...

More importantly, what did you shoot?

Rob said...

I was also beaten by the golf course.