Thursday, October 1, 2009

An amazing story about a white goose


This is one of those amazing stories you feel the need to share even though it probably won’t mean much to anyone else.

For years, about once a week, I have gone out to Long Island, picked up my mother in Great Neck and driven her out to see her sister in Glen Cove. And for years, almost every time we passed the park between East Shore Road and Maple Street in Manhasset, we would see a flock of Canada geese on the grass with one pure white goose among them.

I know it may seem strange, but I came to look forward to seeing that goose. I often wondered if he (or she) thought he was also a Canada Goose. Or whether the other geese even noticed. But basically, I just liked to see it year after year and know that it was thriving.

But earlier this summer, disappoint struck. Week after week we would pass the park and not only was the white goose gone, but so were all the others. I wondered if the town had found a way to get rid of them. Recently some Canada geese have begun to return. But not the white goose. Had it died? I sadly wondered.

This morning I was speaking to my friend Glen. He was telling me that the other day he took a walk by himself at Greenwich Point in Greenwich, CT. He said he noticed a flock of Canada geese … with one white goose among them.

And then he told me he wondered whether that white goose thought it was a Canada goose.
Greenwich Point is about 12 miles north, across Long Island Sound, from Manhasset, as the crow (or should I say, goose?) flies.

This is an absolute true story. I’m not all that surprised that, upon seeing the white goose among the others, Glen thought the same thing I thought. But really, what are the chances that he would see the white goose at all? And what are the chances that, having seen it, he would bring it up on the phone with me?

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