ALAN writes:

Indeed I do remember when you wrote before about the bird who knocked at your door.  Enjoyed reading it so much I printed a copy and placed it in my “Best of T.T.H.” folder.

A dozen or more ducks and four geese live at one of the lakes in a public park in St. Louis.  Two older women walk through there often and bring feed for the ducks and geese, as does a young man who walks through there with his dog.

I had been feeding the squirrels, so one day I offered a few crackers to the four geese. They were delighted. Then I began to do that every week or so. There are two Chinese geese, a snow-white goose, and a Ross’s goose, the smallest of the four. The two Chinese geese are highly attentive to sound. If they hear or see a potential menace to them, they are quick to respond and head for the lake, where they know they will be safe.  They do not wear signs reading, “All creatures are equal.”  They practice extreme discrimination.  They do not celebrate “the joys of diversity” with cats, dogs, and obnoxious children.

They stick together.  They swim together, groom together, dine together, and graze together on the hillsides around the lake.  If they see me walking anywhere near the lake, they approach me to say hello and renew our friendship.  They recognize me instantly.  They are not in the least aggressive or loud.  Neither they nor I like anything loud.

One day I saw a woman approach them, representing the notorious group Do-Gooders Anonymous.  She held four masks in front of them and said she wanted them to wear those masks and keep away from each other.  They laughed at her and swam away, thereby proving that their perspicacity is considerably greater than hers.

They walk right up to me, expecting a friendly voice and a treat.  I do not disappoint them.  They understand why I am there, and I am grateful to them for their trust and their beauty.  They carry themselves with more dignity than many of the homo saps I observe in the park.

Increasingly so over the past year, most homo saps disgust me to the point of revulsion.  I felt that way several times last summer when I saw a child, perhaps 4 or 5, screaming with delight as it ran after ducks and geese.  A group of Canada geese sounded the alarm and took to the air to get away from the menace.  The mother of the menace, clad from head to foot in the heat of summer and therefore obviously an alien in South St. Louis, walked casually some distance beyond, wholly unconcerned.

The fault, of course, is not that of the child but of its parents or guardians who fail to teach it the difference between liberty and license and that it has no moral right to disturb animals who are minding their own business and not bothering anyone.

Such contempt for rules is paralleled by that of dog owners who bring their animals to the park and then remove the leash—in complete contempt for signs that state no dogs allowed without leashes.  It would warm my heart to see leashes placed upon such people.

The three large geese will talk to me, but the Ross’s goose remains mostly quiet.  At times, she (I assume it is a she) will make a pleasant murmuring sound, which I take to mean that she is content at that moment.  The snow-white goose is the friendliest.  She walks up to me and stands right there coaxing me, as if to say, “How about a cracker, pal?”  She likes it when I hold a cracker in my hand in front of her in such a way that she can eye it carefully and then crunch it.

They have visited me as I walk around the lake or sit on park benches at either end of the lake.  I visit them at the spot where they rest overnight and sit there near them, seldom talking, usually “just” (!) meditating.  We have an unspoken understanding:  As they have never annoyed me, so too will I never annoy them.

I am well aware that offering crackers to ducks and geese is frowned upon by some people who claim that, in the long run, it “may” have this or that bad effect on their health.  So I asked the four geese what they thought about such contentions.

“We don’t worry about such things,” they told me.  “We know that life is short and there is no guarantee that we or you will be here next year or even next month.  We are grateful for your company and your crackers.”

I offer them a little something that makes them happy for a short while in  a fairly decent park in a decadent city at a moment in time filled with ugliness and uncertainty.

In return, they have given me many hours of serenity on summer mornings and just before twilight on autumn evenings.  And all they expect in return are a few crackers.  Their beauty and their dignity—free, as you say, just for the watching—are one of only a few things today that sustain my will to live.

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