At our family reunion in 2013 my cousin Gerald Kirkland and his daughter Shannon came from Arkansas. After the reunion was over they came to visit Madeline and me in Corpus Christi for a couple of days. To give them a look at the Gulf Coast we drove out to the Padre Island National Seashore to hunt for seashells and look around.

It’s a very primitive area where there are few people unlike other areas of the beach on Padre or Mustang Island’s.

It was in turtle hatching season. The US Park Service hires college students that they have out on Turtle Patrol riding RTV’s and ATV’s.

When we headed back north on our way back from our 15 mile drive down the beach, we were following behind one of the Turtle Patrollers. I was keeping a nice distance behind, 20 to 30 yards. We were traveling at about 15 mph. It was a leisurely drive. We were just visiting and enjoying taking in the

Suddenly I saw the RTV stop. Then it started coming backward toward us. I sensed that it was picking up speed. I started honking. Then I shoved it in reverse but in the sand, the lack of traction just wouldn’t let me go.

Wham. A young girl jumped out, startled. She still had her earbuds plugged in.

She was a Texas A&M – CC student and was hired for the summer to help insure the safety of the turtles. She thought he had seen tracks and was backing up to check it out.

The plastic grill and bumper cover on my almost brand new beautiful black GMC Denali Truck was really mangled.

She was upset. The RTV was just fine. She was crying and afraid she would be fired.

Would I be willing to say it happened somewhere else and she had backed into me with her personal car? Maybe at Walmart.

I got her contact information and told her I’d call her later. We would figure something out.

After getting back home and making some calls, I figured out that we could buy a few pieces and snap them on at our shop in Austin. The total parts bill was around $1,000.

So rather than her losing her job or us both committing insurance fraud, I called her and told her to just forget it. She sounded very relieved.

So the lesson in this – Girls when something bad happens, just cry a little. It may get you out of a jam.