Duck, Duck, GOOOOSE!!!!!

While browsing blogs this past weekend I noticed a few Father's Day blogs focused one way or another on dad as hero. I guess every dad's dream is to be hero. The interpreter of dreams himself, Sigmund Freud, opined that "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection."

So let me think--what have I done to protect my youngsters as they were growing up? I guess I never lived at a time when I could confront a live wolf at the threshhold. There was this goose, however . . .

When my oldest son Greg was about four, Wendy and I brought him to Carroll Park in Bay City to feed the ducks. For that we carried a grocery bag of lettuce and bread. As we neared the park pond, there was a line of ducks waddling about in the nearby grass.

Off toddled Greg with a leaf of lettuce clasped in his tiny fingers. The ducks scattered at his approach. Not so one large goose who hurried to confront the young interloper.

Greg offered his lettuce to the goose who stood as tall as he. The goose sniffed the lettuce, then snapped at Greg's hand several times in quick succession. When our youngster backed off, the goose lunged forward, repeatedly biting him in the mid-section until he fell.

Wendy and I rushed over as the goose continued to pummel Greg on the ground, biting at his leg and ankle. I confronted the upstart fowl, shooing him off with the grocery bag. The goose was not cowed, looking at me as if to say, "You want some of what I just gave to your son? Step up."

Some tense moments passed as I stared down our adversary who still stalked about while Wendy tended to her fallen son. Eventually the bird bully lost interest and drifted off.

For a few years afterwards, Greg vividly could recall, "the goose who bit my belly." And how I smacked that goose with a grocery bag. Okay, okay . . . not the stuff of fables. Maybe even Freud would scoff. But, hea, that goose was mean!