Goose Goose Duck

A few weeks ago, during what I assume was their nesting season, I started writing about an experience I had (or didn’t have, depending on your point of view) with a family of Canada Geese. This family had taken up residence, as defined by protective little walls of goose poop, on the path around a local lake where I take what used to be called a “constitutional” before that term took on a somewhat more scatological connotation.

When the gander first spotted me walking his way, there on the path, he puffed up his chest aggressively. I took a few tentative steps closer. He spread his wings and hissed, his message clear: “I remember what your father did to a Canada Goose, or maybe it was a swan, at the Meadowbridge Cemetery twenty-five years ago and I’m not happy about it.” This was no AFLAC commercial, is what I’m saying; this was a little drunk barbershop redneck doing his level best to imitate Schwarzenegger.

Now, it’s not like that patch of ground was somehow sacred to me, and a battle for it would not have been pretty (I, too, remember that confrontation at Meadowbridge Cemetery--frankly, I'm sure it was a swan, but I wasn't about to try to explain); opting for discretion, I turned and walked back the way I’d come.

So I wanted to write about the (non)encounter, a touching piece, perhaps, about family values or something, a father diligently protecting his family in the face of…whatever. This idea, almost needless to say, died young.

Not long ago—this was one of those ideas that just will not go away, very much like the song “It’s a Small !*&#ing World After !*&#ing All” if you take that first ride in Disney world immediately after smoking a joint, which I am not suggesting I ever did—I decided to try a different tack.

I had, now that I thought about it, taken a more or less Libertarian approach to the whole goose situation—Let ‘em be—and it occurred to me that it might be fun to imagine what a Democrat would’ve done, or a Republican—that there was, in short, metaphorical gold in them thar hills of goose poop.

A Democrat would have had the path blocked off by whack jobs like-minded volunteers, carrying placards demanding state and possibly federal support for the goslings, and gone on TV to point out that our current (Republican!) governor isn’t doing nearly enough on the aquatic waterfowl front. Look at these conditions! Goose poop everywhere! (I live in Maryland, where our state government is, traditionally, a large corruption-oriented Democratic sandbox, in which a few equally mercenary—I like to think there’s a test—Republicans are allowed, from time to time, to play. So we’re not talking about some sissy-pants Democrats here; they are drunk with power and go all out. Calling in coif-impaired Reverend Al Sharpton or, god help us, George Stept...Steptha..stefa... James Carville, would not be out of the question.)

A Republican—pointing out that they (the geese) were loitering, possibly panhandling, and that the gander, a criminal sort if ever there was one, had acted in a life-threatening manner—would have shot them dead, unless of course it was Pam Coulter, who would have shot a nearby widow instead.

At that point, the story went out of control, degenerating into a scathing attack on both major parties, with shots at (why not?) Communists, the Green Party, whatever the hell that thing is that Nader is part of, and Ross Perot.

It was the Perot thing that stopped me cold.

If nothing else, Perot—and to a certain extent Nader—was entertaining. Plus, people like Ross point up the absurd, lumbering zombie qualities of the Major Parties.

The geese have left and there are no hard feelings; the gander, after all, was only doing what instinct told it to do, there behind his protective walls of goose poop. It’s all just an oddly amusing memory anymore, and maybe that’s the point: It ain’t about the geese; it’s about the poop they leave behind.