Duck Duck Duck Goose!

When I was in the fourth grade I went to some hippy school for rich kids. My parents weren't rich but they valued education so they made the monetary sacrifice.

It was cool riding to school in my dad's rusted 1968 station wagon equipped with glass pack mufflers when everyone else arrived in Cadillacs or Mercedes.

Since we lived in New Mexico there was all kind of historical crap all around us. This made perfect field trip fodder.

We got to see burial grounds, Indian villages and neanderthal caves.

One day we went to an ancient town that had been restored for historical purposes.
The doorways were so small that all but the smallest 10 year old had to duck under.

We got to learn about food production, farm animals, and ancient farming techniques.

We all brought a sack lunch and ate it on the bank of a large mountain stream. My friend Aaron and I ate our sandwiches and watched a flock of geese swim up to us.

We ripped apart our sandwiches and threw them into the water. The geese gobbled them up like they had never eaten before.

Then Aaron took a bite out of his apple and spit it into the water. The geese ate this up like it was caviar and Dom Perigon. Instinctively and out of curiosity I threw my entire apple at the stream to see if the goose could take a bite.

The large apple flew through the air..The goose zigged and the apple zagged. The fruit hit the goose square in the back. The bird squawked and rose up then continued downstream normally.

After lunch we went down to listen to the hippy lady caretaker of this village. She told us how the geese had been living here for hundreds of years and how she knew all of them by name.

She went on and on about the majesty and beauty of the birds and the mystical connection they had with the Native Americans.

Just then a dead goose floated by. The hippy lady shrieked like a banshee. She pulled the goose out of the water and began attempting mouth to beak resuscitation.

I immediately knew what had happened. My apple had snapped the poor bird's spine like a twig.

The caretaker began asking... no demanding if we saw who had murdered "clancy". My friend was sitting next to me. I was screaming in my head with all the psychic power I had for Aaron to shut the fuck up.

By the grace of god he didn't say a word. Our class drove off in our Volkswagen minibus while Mrs hippy lady cradled the dead bird in her arms wailing and singing some ancient Indian song of mourning.