603 INFORMER / FIRST PERSON
Moose and Bad Breaks BY BRION O’CONNOR / ILLUSTRATION BY IZZY USLE
L
ike many others motoring through New Hampshire, I’ve often snickered at the signs lining the highways and byways with this important caveat: “Brake for Moose. It Could Save Your Life.” My typical reply is some variation of, “Gee, ya think?” Not any more. And I learned my lesson the hard way. It was a bluebird day in early June, almost 15 years ago. Literally, there was not a cloud in the sky. I was on the road in upstate New Hampshire, and the only thing I could have wished for to improve my mood was to be behind the wheel of
36 New Hampshire Magazine | May 2022
a convertible. I’d met an old friend for an early lunch in North Conway, and then began making my way along one of my favorite stretches of road anywhere — Route 16 through Pinkham Notch and Gorham and Berlin — on my way toward Errol. There, the plan was to head west on Route 26 toward Dixville Notch and my destination, The Balsams resort. My early evening, however, didn’t go according to plan. Shortly after 2, just past the tiny town of Dummer (population, 306), I noticed that I seemed to have the road all to myself. That’s the major reason
why the huge 18-wheel logging truck, fully loaded with fresh timber and heading south, caught my eye. “Man, that’s an enormous rig,” I thought. As the truck got closer, something else grabbed my attention — a large, dark blur off to my left. They say things sometimes slow down during a traumatic event, and that clearly was the case for me on this ill-fated evening. I recognized that the blur was a large animal — either bear or moose — and immediately began hitting my brakes. I distinctly remember thinking, “That 18-wheeler is going to obliterate that
