YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street, and pardon me, but I am still re-living memories of the Great Goose Roundup which took place back in 2009 at Nashville’s Wastewater Treatment Plant located just a few fragrant sniffs south of the stoplight at Walsmart.
I have been in touch with Liz McDaniel who, at the time, was the Unofficial Chief Disinformation Spokesperson at the plant.
Liz recalls that an Arkansas Game & Fish Commission team planned to use an explosive device to launch a huge net over the Geese once they were all herded mostly together.
!Que Problemo!! The explosive devise was waaaaay too powerful. The blast not only scared the geese away, it also shattered windows in the nearby treatment plant and at the adjoining Animal Control facility setting off a chorus of dog — and employee — barking.
The G&FC team had to postpone the exercise for another time so that the geese — and Liz — could calm down.
A newspaper article at the time said there were roughly 238 geese residing rather loudly on the banks of the pond and on the shoulder of the nearby highway —- my Unofficial name was Lake Chiffon, but it was sometimes crudely called Lake Lottahockey.
I have no idea who counted the geese.
When the G&FC guys returned, they captured most of the geese by hand because they (the geese) were molting and were unable to fly.
The G&FC guys were also unable to fly, but that’s another story and I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested.
The unhappy birds were loaded into a cattle trailer and were taken to a secret lake location down near the Louisiana Line.
Many of the birds had lived nowhere else but at Lake Chiffon, and amazingly, as soon as they regained their ability to fly they found their way back here.
Can you imagine, they preferred Lake Chiffon to the bright lights of Bossier City!
“Even the ducks were glad to see them back,” Liz told the newspaper.
To this very day she STILL declines to comment on whether or not the Lake Chiffon Monster, it it exists, was also glad to see the return of the geese.
If the Lake Chiffon Monster is more than a product of some twisted mind, it might explain why it also declines to eat those geese.
They’re too tough and they taste like ….. like they’ve spent their lives floating around on Lake Chiffon.
I am repeating a multiple choice quiz the newspaper helpfully printed at the time.
Circle one:
1. All
2. Most
3. Some
4. None
…. of the city wastewater plant employees were sorry to see their feathered buddies taken away by the G&FC guys.
The birds are called Canada Geese because once upon a time the species migrated to the Far North to escape the summer heat of the South. Then, six months later they’d head back south to escape the cold of winter.
These birds are pretty smart and at some point some of them realized that enduring summer’s heat was much better than flying uphill for a couple thousand miles. Plus a return trip.
Because of this summer weather I’d challenge that idea now.
Many of us remember hearing and watching in wonder as huge V flights of geese headed north in the fall. Honking, honking overhead on a moonlight night.
Do they still do that?
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MORE THINGS I LEARNED from opening an email: To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
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AN OBITUARY in today’s newspaper for my classmate Gary ‘Buddy’ Martindale. He was the salutatorian of the NHS class of 1961. Our valedictorian is also deceased — Navy doctor Jim Chandler.
These accomplished guys were products of a two-room schoolhouse at Bingen. After their completion of the seventh grade (or sixth) the school was closed and the students transferred to Nashville. The school was located where the Bingen VFD is today.
Wonderful memories of both men.
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A FRIEND SAYS she feels she was tricked into joining a local gym. She says their advertisement said “Silver Slippers,” an exercise program for seniors. HOWEVER, she THOUGHT it said “Silver Snickers.”
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HE SAID: “One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.” Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch artist
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SHE SAID: “Because of media hype and woefully inadequate information, too many people nowadays are deathly afraid of their food, and what does fear of food do to the digestive system? I am sure that an unhappy or suspicious stomach, constricted and uneasy with worry, cannot digest properly.” Julia Child, tv chef
Julia, have you cut back on lettuce?
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
