Lesson in Evolution

This past summer, my family and a select group of friends, had the privilege of experiencing evolution in action.  I realize it is nothing more than a theory concocted by a bearded man who spent a large amount of time communing with animals in a remote location.  But, that is hardly the point.

We had some friends up to the family lake house one weekend this summer.  It is a trip we do every year with this group of friends.  Between the three families that attend, there are twelve children ranging in age from one year to around 13 or so.  I am never sure about the age of other people's kids.  Anyway, all that to say, it is at best organized chaos.  We cooked out, watched movies, went skiing, caught countless bream and bass, and did a lot of swimming.  On the final day of our sojourn, we had lunch on the dock so we could soak up the last of the weekend.  Docks on our lake are not your typical dock.  They are more like extravagant garages.  They have at least two boat slips to put ski boats and pontoon boats into that can be hoisted out of the water.  They are all double decker so you can hang out on the top, have a high dive, that kind of thing.  It also gives you a good vantage point to see over the water.  We all simultaneously looked up to see a large flock of geese come around the corner in our general direction.  

Perfect!  We had sandwiches, which when you have as many children around as we had, means you have plenty of crusts and extras to throw into the water to attract waterfowl.  We lured the unsuspecting prey to our dock by dropping the crusts and some chips into the water.  Then, my eldest son, much to my surprise, jumped in, right in the middle of them.  I did not even have to say anything.  He just took it upon himself to scare the hell out of that flock of geese.  It was incredible.  They scattered and dodged and ducked like someone had yelled "Fire" in the middle of church.  What he was not prepared for was the leader of the group to turn on him and start attacking.  My son handled it well, got out of the way and came up laughing.  It was hilarious.  I jumped in just because he seemed to be enjoying it so much.  

We climbed out of the water so we could do it again.  We lured the geese back over and this time I jumped first.  This time it did not go so well.  One of the younger geese, full grown but part of this year's brood, did not get out of the way.  I landed on that thing with my foot and power drove it into the depths.  It was awful.

The big goose started attacking me before it took off to join the remnants of its flock.  That poor goose that I landed on was not in good shape.  I looked up to see all, and mean all, of the kids leaning over the railing, their eyes the size of potatoes, watching this whole thing unfold.  The LW, always the first one into action, quickly shooed them away with the promise of candy and sweets and did her best to distract them with song and dance.  Those are not always her greatest attributes, but they do distract.  I think they were too shocked to truly move on.  Two words for you: trau-ma.

The neighbors were watching the events unfold as well.  I think they called animal control on me, and would have called PETA and the police and had me arrested had I not gone over and apologized.

My friend David Bennett couldn't look me in the eye for the rest of the summer.  All he could do was light a cigarette with shaky fingers.  

After it was all said and done, I had to spend some time with the kids, explaining what accidents are.  They, amazingly, bounced back rather quickly and moved on to what they would normally do.  Not me. I was green for hours and could not talk about it for 4 days.  I am just now about to write about it, and it has been three months.  

I was recounting this story to a friend of mine over lunch.  He laughed at my pain and generally mocked what he did not understand.  He then said, "Well, all I can say is that he must have been a slow one and would not have made it anyway.  I mean, if that goose did not have the sense to get out of the way of a falling human, he did not have a chance in the wild."  And all of a sudden, I felt much better, suddenly vindicated by that crazy man on the obscure island in the middle of nowhere.

What I have not told you, kind reader, is that I tried to sink that thing, but geese are bouyant and cannot be sunk in a traditional manner.  I put a large rock on it, hoping a few turtles and schools of catfish would come by and strip it clean.  My plan did not work very well.  Basically I left it for my sister to clean up when she was up there the following weekend with her friends.