Welfare Geese and the Entitlement Mentality

Kenneth James Crist

In 1994, two years after retiring from a law enforcement career and about the same time I decided to try my hand at writing, my wife and I came to the conclusion that we could afford a better house. Suddenly, I had started receiving my pension, in addition to my new paycheck and we were now wealthy.

After a rigorous three-month search, we located and bought our dream home on Wichita’s west side in West Millbrook addition, immediately adjacent to Hidden Lakes.

As one might surmise from the name, Hidden Lakes addition involves several small, man-made lakes and picturesque homes and winding, nicely paved streets. I quickly found myself riding through Hidden Lakes every day on my commute to work. It was especially nice on the way home, helping me decompress from a day of dealing with other people’s problems.

Within a few days, I noticed the geese. Ah yes, the plot thickens. The lakes, of course, draw waterfowl, among them numerous Mallard ducks, a few Teal, maybe a Canvasback or two thrown in. But I was especially intrigued by the Canada Geese. I did some reading and found out some interesting facts: That they migrate yearly, always finding their way back to the same places in their journeys, that they mate for life, unlike ducks, who are known to be openly and unabashedly promiscuous. And that, when in flight, they will honk encouragement to their leaders and each other and that they will routinely fly at altitudes that ensure they cannot be shot down by hunters. Smart damn birds…

At some point I decided it might be pretty cool to leave a little early every day and take along a baggie of shelled corn and feed the geese. Fatten them up a little. Give them a little added energy for their next long-distance trek.

Did I mention I commute by motorcycle? At that time I had a big ol’ honkin’ Gold Wing with all the bells and whistles, so it was no trick to just shell an ear of corn into a baggie and toss it in the trunk before I left the house.

First couple days, this worked out great. I would pull up wherever the geese happened to be that day and park the bike, get out the corn, fling it out along the shoreline and talk to these big, magnificent birds. They would talk back, too. They seem to have their own language and they communicate well. So well, in fact, that within a few days I noticed the number of geese looking for a handout had increased by quite a few. The Canada Geese had now been joined by a number of common brown farm geese and there was one big old gander with a huge bulbous growth above his beak who seemed to be the most aggressive of them all.

At the end of a week, the entire goose population of Hidden Lakes would be waiting for me at the same spot and they had learned to recognize the motorcycle. On day eight I wasn’t quite quick enough getting parked to suit my new friends and the old gander gave me a particularly snotty couple of honks and bit me square in the ass. Trust me, that hurts.

In my citified, gentrified comfort I had forgotten things I had learned as a child on the farm in Michigan; rule number one being that you always approach geese from a position of strength—in other words carrying a weapon. When I was a kid, we used a chunk of mop handle to get their attention and make them behave.

After the gander gave me the ass-bruise, I still gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried it another time or two. By the time I finally gave up on the idea, they were meeting me in the road, and blocking it completely, having changed their role from beggars to that of highwaymen. I began to consider carrying a stagecoach gun.