It is the end of summer, and the birds have grown quiet. No need to sing for a mate when you’ve already mated, nor to protect your territory when the young have fledged and you will soon fly to the tropics. No need to announce your presence when you are molting half of your beautiful feathers, leaving you plain and clumsy. The only birds still singing are doves who sound so sad and the late breeding goldfinch and waxwings who migrate as far as Mexico or Georgia or White River Junction. I look up and see the goldfinch, yellow males undulating in circles above the yard singing, Chee-checheche.
This reminds me that summer is almost over, and I must fulfill the promise I made while living in land-locked Missouri to go to the shore at least once every summer, tasting the salt, wiggling toes in the warm sand and riding waves on some sort of board until my knees go raw. There are some wonderful ocean beaches not far from Vermont, so off we went.
The air was salty, breezy and warm. Children chased each other and played in pits with trucks and dolls. They pulled their small boogie boards out to the first set of waves and rode them into the shallows, tossed and tumbled. The big kids and the adults who act like kids rode waves farther out or dug bigger holes in the sand or chased the young ones, making them scream and laugh. Those adults who were just plain tired, sat and talked, sipping seltzers, one eye focused on the children, keeping everyone safe. White and grey gulls hovered over us like drones, looking for a sandwich to steal.
An almost perfect afternoon—good friends, happy families, my own little ones, Italian sandwiches— a day at the beach. Except something dangerous was unfolding. An elderly woman, near my age, sat under her umbrella, alone, drinking beer—lots of beer. I first noticed her when she was packing up, stumbling and swaying side to side, struggling to walk to her big white SUV parked at the beach road’s dead end.
I first thought she might be handicapped, and got up to help, but then I noticed the beer cans and the signature drunken swaying and unfocused eyes. The couple sitting on the other side of her was noticing too, watching with concern over her driving. They had been hearing the beers pop all day. We shared our concern and our moral dilemma. Do we get involved or walk away and hope for the best? We both looked at our families playing in the sand and decided to act.
If the woman had put her car in drive instead of reverse, she could have turned this beautiful day into a tragedy. There is no cell reception on the beach, so we photographed the license plate, and she ran out to the main road to call 911. I approached the woman sitting in her car and tried to convince her not to drive, biding time until the police might arrive. I grew up surrounded by the culture of heavy drinking and have a strong radar for denial and lies. She claimed she was fine, that she had only had a couple of beers, that she was a grandma and would never hurt anyone, that she had MS. She asked me please not to do this.
At one point she reached into her armrest for her phone, but instead came out with another beer, then tried to hide it. I warned her that we had reported her to the police, and she would be pulled over. I asked her to please call someone to come and get her. I ran out of things to say and walked away warning the pedestrians to watch out. She backed up and almost hit one of them, then pulled forward bending a metal sign pole. The forward and backward task took a long time as she was in a spot that would have been hard for a sober driver to maneuver.
Eventually, she turned around and drove off. My friend returned and said the Rye police were on their way. We heard the sirens as they caught up with her. She was arrested and charged with a DUI. The officers were grateful that we may have prevented a serious accident. She had planned on driving home to Massachusetts, a long way on the interstate.
Generally, I choose not to get involved in arguments and divorces and other ugly situations where supporters on both sides are slinging mud. It is hard to know the actual details of who has been harmed by whom. Sometimes we get things wrong and do more harm. Like Galileo, I don’t believe in astrology, but I do believe, as a Libra, to consider both sides and be cautious. But in the case of the woman who drank too much and tried to drive home, I am glad we got involved. Glad we took a risk.
Micki Colbeck is a writer and naturalist and chairs the Strafford Conservation Commission. Write to her at mjcolbeck@gmail.com.