Country man and award-winning humor writer Jim Mize recalls the day his dad stopped a flock of aggressive geese from overtaking a farm.
Visiting Uncle Abe’s farm was like going to a rural Disneyland, or maybe more like following Alice down the rabbit hole. Nothing was quite what you would expect.
For starters, Uncle Abe had a sense of humor and I never saw him without a grin. It was a contagious grin on a wiry little man whose energy level belied his age. Just take a farm tour with him and you would be laughing before you made it back to the porch.
He would get you going just by telling you the names of his animals. All the males had girls’ names and vice versa. His milk cow, for instance, was named Earl.
Abe and his wife, Susie, made their living on this small farm. They raised food crops, canned them, churned butter and had a small patch of tobacco to sell or trade for a few things from the store. They set a feast on the table when you visited and no one ever left hungry.
For refrigeration, they used a natural spring, cool enough in the summer to keep milk and butter chilled. That spring turned into a point of contention that Abe brought to our attention on the farm tour one summer afternoon.
We visited on a Sunday, taking our stroll around the yard when Abe explained to Dad he was having a problem with his spring.
“Going dry?” asked Dad.
“No, my dang geese have taken it over. They won’t let Susie go near it. Those things are so mean it makes me want to cuss. I don’t want to shoot them, but I may have to.”
“Well, let me go see,” said Dad.
We walked back around the corner of the house, and as soon as we did, a pair of large, white geese came honking toward him with their wings out like flags.
“See?” said Abe. “They do that every time we go out there. If we get too close they come flapping and flogging and try to peck you.”
My Dad thought for a minute.
“Want me to break them of that?” asked Dad.
“Sure,” said Abe, “but don’t hurt yourself.”
Dad was a World War II veteran who made it through a couple campaigns, including the Battle of the Bulge, and then sustained injuries just before the war ended. He recovered but lost a leg just above the knee. The technology for artificial limbs at the time involved duplicating the shape of the leg and foot using metal. So from the thigh down, Dad was the Man of Steel.
He proceeded back around the corner of the house and the honking started. I poked my head around the edge and watched. Instead of backing away, Dad walked straight for the lead goose. The goose drew his head back, lunged and gave a mighty peck. Dad turned the artificial leg forward and the metal rang from the blow of the goose’s beak. The goose backed up, wobbled a little looking dazed, and the second one lunged forward.
“Clang,” rang out the second goose’s effort.
This went on for a few minutes more, but each time a goose struck it did so more reluctantly until finally they had enough. Dad sauntered on down to the spring without incident.
From that day forward, Abe and Susie had no trouble going to the spring for milk and butter. I don’t remember what Uncle Abe named those geese, but in hindsight, what I’d really like to know is what those geese named my Dad.
My guess is Superman.
