The Christmas Goose

As long as I have been with my beloved wife Dawn, we have had a customary Christmas Eve dinner. As a rule, we have roasted a domestic goose for this ritual. There is nothing like the taste of this bird. The closest thing I can compare in the flavor it to is RoastBeef- Chicken (everything tastes like chicken!). We would buy our bird fresh killed from the Iacono Poultry Farm on Long Lane in East Hampton. It has been a regular traditional journey for me on this glorious Christmas Eve morning, to pick up the goose and finish up my shopping with stocking stuffers, and candy for the girls

As I reminisce, I recall that I once was given a wild goose that was taken by a co-worker. We prepared this bird with all the trimmings and I found it delicious! My wife, on the other hand, did not enjoy it because someone (that bastard, as she called him) shot the poor thing. I will never understand this twisted form of feminine logic. In my mind, it would seem to be more humane to be killed in the wild as a free spirit, as apposed to being penned up for six months and then have your head whacked off!

God loves all the women of the world. I know that I would have been dead many years ago without my darling’s even keel to keep me on course, no matter how rough the sea. She is my converse, an opposite opinion in almost every situation. I am sure this has kept me from diving head first, into the shallow end of the pool many times. But for her form of pretzel logic, I don’t think that my life could be finer. We have been together for 34 years. I must have been thirteen when we married, (It seems so…) she had robbed me from my cradle…

Before my children were issued forth, wet and screaming into the world (this was another one of her swell ideas) my wife and I would take long walks on the beach, each Christmas Eve to enjoy nature and combing for flotsam, jetsam and believe it or not, coal.

Coal on the beach you say? Well, it seems that some time in the early sixties, a coal barge had sunk off the shore at Ditch Plains. On a regular basis, usually after a storm, chunks of coal would wash up in the surf. These hunks of carbon would range from an inch to ten inches in diameter. As most young couples, we had a tough time making ends meet for these early years. We could pinch every penny dry. I don’t need to tell all you old timers how expensive oil was back in the seventies, after “That Carter Regime” screwed up Iran and consequentially, the entire Middle East.

With inflation, in comparison with the cost of living of today, the equivalent price in ’07 dollars would be about $4.25 a gallon for gasoline. There were lines of cars around the block to buy the stuff! So, to supplement our fuel expenses, we picked these smooth black gems from the sand to burn in our wood stove. They would sparkle in the afternoon sun. We would gather these oblong treasures, weathered in the surf in buckets as the dog romped in search of dead things to roll in. A good haul could be a garbage can full. On a good day, we could pick this peck within a half mile of the car. This coal would burn like uranium and could heat our home for a week!

On one cold winter solstice day, we found ourselves particularly wanting on the income scale of life. We were so poor during this particular Christmas that we were supplementing our goose with a big chicken. So wanting, were we that we had to go into the woods and cut our own Christmas tree. You might think that I would feel self conscious about this event, but I truly enjoy this memory. It was a scrub white pine which we chose and dragged from the depths of Hither Woods. The smell of that fresh pinewood will always lead me to reminisce. The mid morning sun beamed through the pines causing shimmering light to form broad patches between the low and twisted pines, illuminating the sandy soil. We swept a path of dark brown pine needles as our tree-broom was dragged along the wooded trail. I can remember the clouds of vapor that our breath sent streaming that cold morning, but we were kept quite warm from the task. Our hearts were warmed too. But I digress…

That afternoon, after trimming the little tree (bush?) we went to the beach to take a nativity constitutional and hunt for coal. At the time we were childless except for my surrogate son, Quill, our 165 pound black Great Dane. Quill would adore running the beach! He would bolt from one rock or log to another, leaping about on his long legs and depositing as much scat as his metabolism could muster. His bowels were bottomless. Dawn and I walked hand in hand, daydreaming as young lovers will do. We were bundled up like Eskimos. The thermometer had dropped well to below zero. Quill, being of short hair, wore one of my sweatshirts to keep him from the cold. You know, he looked better than I did in it, with a rope tide around his waist to act as a sash.

There was no wind on this frigid afternoon. Any breeze would have made it impossible to walk through the arctic blast that had sat on the East End for days. The air was so cold that the ocean was steaming, like a stew pot, with long tendrils of wispy white vapor. It gave the impression that the sea was on fire… There was actually a layer of slush rolling in the surf which collected at the tide-line.

We rounded the bend with our bucket of coal and there saw the dog barking and hopping around a peculiar downy lump huddled next to the bluff. As we moved in to investigate I saw that it was a wild goose! It was an enormous beast which was flapping its wings and hissing at the dog. As I neared to it I noticed that the creature could not move on its feet.

“Look Dawn! A goose!”

“Oh Paul, don’t let the dog hurt the poor thing!”

Poor thing? I was waiting for Quill to snap it’s neck! By god, this would be our Christmas dinner!

“Paul, the poor thing is sick! What do yah think we should do?”

“Do? Why, we’re gonna eat it! Good dog, Quill, Good Dog!”

“Don’t you dare! Quill get away from that bird!” The dog moved away from my dinner, more attuned to my wife’s commands than mine, traitor that he was…

“Oh Paul, we have to do something about the poor beast… You go and grab it. We’ll take it home and I’ll call the Vet…”

Take it home? Yeah! It is sure to die on the way! I was that much closer to my roast…

Have you ever tried to grab a goose? The creature, even though it was lame, was biting and snapping at me like a cornered Lobster! It grabbed a hold of my glove and I thought my finger was in a mousetrap!

“Gimme the shirt off the dog. I’ll cover it’s head with it.”, sure enough, that did the trick and I had the beastie covered up and docile. I swear, that goose had blue feet, ice-cold and clammy. We got back to the car and I sat with the goose on my lap. Quill sniffed at it from between the seats and moaned like a lost child.

“Shut up you bad dog.”

Traitor….

The goose perched on my legs with it’s frozen tootsies chilling my thighs but they seened to warm up a bit by the time we took it into the house.

There are no Veterinarians open at 5pm on Christmas Eve. There would be no Vet till December 26th. The bird went into the shower stall with a dish of water and an open can of corn. We ate that Dad blamed stupid chicken for dinner, although I have got to agree that it was good with the yams, cheese stuffing, and gravy. Not as good as that goose would have been…

The goose was silent all the Eve. I got up to look at the poor thing a couple of times during the night. When I would open the shower door, it would flap it’s wings at me. It’s feet were now a nice shade of black and it was hopping around.

Along with the a meager pile of gifts under the decorated scrub pine, Christmas morning brought with it a vast change in the weather, The temperature had risen to a balmy 30 degrees in the night. The sky had opened with rain. We had a happy time.

You know, that goose seemed to have recovered during the night. I swear it had eaten some of the corn. It was now honking and prancing around in the stall. I began to like the stupid thing, Good Samaritan that I am. We named it the “Honker”. That was that. Have you ever put name to a farm animal? There would definitely not be a goose dinner now. By noon I was thinking...

“Dawn, let’s put him outside and see what happens.”

“Ya think?”

Yeah, I think. You ever hear the expression “Like shit through a goose”? Well you should have seen the shower. The goosie’s feet were now green! I took the goose out the door, wrapped in a towel. Dawn followed. I put the goose on the ground and removed the towel. The goose took off in a run and hit the air like a B-52. It circled the house once and made for due south, making that low honk that geese will do as they fly.

“Oh Paul, how wonderful! This is a Christmas we’ll never forget…” I got a big kiss.

You know, it was a wonderful Christmas after all, even without the goose dinner…