when nobody's in charge...

I love it when public officials/bureaucrats (many in my own agency) can’t just follow common sense and ACT but have to sit around waiting for someone else because it’s not their task, or this situation needs A,B,C, …. completed first before something is done, or just plain being lazy a@@es because there is no “down” for them (“because I’m not in charge, I can’t get in trouble”). This has gotten me on the “wrong side” of various power structures sometimes as I like to be a man of action when needed. Unfortunately, I’ve been in situations where I have substantial amount of responsibility but without any authority to make decisions (perhaps we’ve all been in such situations before). The following case may seem trivial but I think it underscores where we are as a society that, unless it’s a life or death situation, nothing gets done until later because, “it’s not my problem”…

We came home from a family outing last night about 10 PM and drove through our bedroom town. Although we technically live within the city limits (they want our property taxes), we are physically separated from the main town by a ways. Between our subdivision and town there is farmland and a river. Our white-tail deer love such edge environments especially where there are crop fields and we often see deer in the area. No dead deer at 10 PM last night on the road 2/3rds mile west of main town.

This morning I head in to my storage locker a little after 7 (it’s on my edge of bedroom town so fairly convenient for me) and there is a nice dead doe laying on the side of the road, with its one eye up still looking glassy. My bedroom town has a police force of over 30 officers and I know they patrol this section of road regularly (love to set up “traps” Fri and Sat nights to try to pick up drunks) so just because its technically not in the city limits, they cruise by here all the time. Generally, there are probably at least 2 cops on duty Sunday mornings in bedroom town and basically they have nothing to do, mostly very quiet. I know at least one of the local law saw this dead animal before I did but nothing is done because it’s Sunday and well, the general apparatus of local & state gov is ramped down on the weekends.

If someone would have made a decision around the first couple hours of light, the hind quarters of the deer probably could have been salvaged for their meat (been there, done that in my younger days). As a civilian, I can’t pick up a dead deer without the state wildlife agency’s permission and if I would have really wanted that meat, I could have called law enforcement and a state conservation officer would have showed up sooner or later (one of them is sort of always on call) but I really didn’t need this meat and dragging the critter home (or some side road) to cut off the back quarters probably would have increased my rep as being semi-crazy, so I passed. But this doesn’t mean that the local law and the state CO couldn’t have done it on their own decision. But remember, it’s Sunday, and they certainly don’t have to do it, so why bother harvesting 30+ pounds of venison that could have been gotten without even having to field dress the animal?? 30 years ago, they would harvest meat from road-killed deer (although usually in the cool months) and donate it after processing to needy people (got some of that meat after my dad retired on SS Disability). Maybe they still do that, but probably not in the summer time because can’t risk the chance of getting any poor people sick from “fresh” meat and certainly not on a nice Sunday morning when the people on duty can just sit or drive around and do basically nothing.

So the doe was laying there when I went to church at 1020 and still there at a little after noon when I came back, and again at 3:45 this afternoon when I ran in to do an errand. Tonight, many families will drive by the deer as they return to bedroom town from their weekend being gone and tomorrow morning hundreds, if not a thousand or two cars will drive by the doe. Eventually, the rendering truck will come by (maybe sometime on Monday) and scrape up what’s left but by that time what once would have been an easy and not a very nasty job for two guys to throw the animal in a pickup will become more onerous after the carcass bloats, blows open from the building decomposition gases, and basically falls apart in a nostril busting stench. But, hey, it’s not my job, especially on the weekend. Or if you can’t get the simple sh** done, what hope is there for solving truly complex problems?? But, hey, I’m not in charge…

Now see if you lived in Tennessee like me you could have put that in the back of your truck, took it home and had it for supper.

I can't remember when they passed it but we have a Road Kill Law here.

If you kill it you can grill it.

Follow up- Someone tied a mylar balloon to the doe's leg between late yesterday afternoon and this morning. Some little kids and moms were probably sad seeing a nice doe dead on the road. Starting to bloat pretty good now. Last of the blow-by-blow until they pick it up (if they do).

P.S.S. I didn't see it but others have, the mylar balloon tied to the deer's leg reads, "Get Well Soon"