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Who first taught me that tale, of the goose and her golden egg? This I do not recall, but I’m fairly certain of the pictures in my mind as the story was related to young Bryan. Among the more pleasant of my early memories is a short video clip (saved in that hard drive between my ears) in which I am walking through a farm yard with my daddy. The house, and indeed all the buildings, were old. Chickens darted about, and at my feet was a red corn cob, pecked clean. Something about that simple scene, likely within ten miles of Preston, remains special to me.
More important to who I am was the place I grew up, that house on Seaman Road with a big front yard and lots of trees; a man-made pond off to the side. We never had a goose, but Dad kept some ducks and I’d seen their nest. So, when that fable was relayed to little Boy Bryan, he pictured a white goose on that old farm, pecking at corn, and nesting along a pond betwixt some bushes.
I never thought of it back then, but what if we did have a goose, and it did lay golden eggs? I really don’t think my pop would have just up and slaughtered it. No, I suppose instead he would have talked it over with my Mom (always the voice of reason!) and probably Uncle Bob (perhaps a little less so?) Then he would have asked someone, maybe Russell Dukes, where he could borrow some oyster tongs. Dad then would have taken his little homemade boat and launched into the pond, spending a warm Saturday tonging for gold. At day’s end I suspect he would have instead had a bunch of muck, a boat filled with Pabst Blue Ribbon cans (mostly because he loved to poke holes in the empties and toss them in the water, watching them drop) and, oh, a terrible backache. This would be followed by an attempt to dam up the stream feeding the pond; once low enough, Dad would put on his waders and go in search of the illusive gold, all while the silly goose looked on.
What would I have thought of all this? Once, my father told me there was a “pike” in there, but I misunderstood and thought he meant “pipe”. I interpreted it somehow that there was a drain, right at the center, and that you could reach down with a rake or a hoe and lift it up. Just where it would empty into, I don’t know. Anyway, I suppose I would have asked my daddy why he didn’t just open the drain, but maybe I would be smart enough to figure out that the gold might get sucked out with it?
While none of this may have actually happened, there was something back in my childhood that I oft relate to the golden goose. Our road, back then, was dirt. This meant that on regular occasions I could stand out in the yard and peer into the distance to see that marvelous road grader coming our way! Mustard yellow, proud safety triangle on the front, a Caterpillar that I always loved to watch. Down it would go, north to south, and then back again. I would imitate it, making sounds like its diesel engine, pushing my foot or hand through the sand just like it did with its blade. There came a point where I received a real first class show, thus the pivot of my tale: other heavy equipment showed up, for days on end. Big dump trucks, that I recall. Before I knew it, Seaman Road was tar-and-chip. At the time, I’m sure I was in “little boy heaven”, but once they were done I would never see that road grader again. And I’m still a little sad about it! Unlike the farmer in that old story, of course, I had no say in the matter. I didn’t tell them I wanted it paved. I can only say, once it happened, the goose was cooked.
Is there some moral to all this? I guess I would say: we are too often in a hurry for “progress”, for gratification now. I’ve spent nearly fifty years wishing I was back on that narrow, bumpy dirt road, a place that exemplifies what I think Caroline County should be about. Someplace simple, friendly, quiet. A place to take your time and enjoy the holly, the dogwood, the soybeans and, yes, the corn. Not a place to scurry in a hurry, honking and weaving along six lanes of high-speed asphalt, late for your appointment at Starbucks before you go to Wally World and stand in line to buy vegetables from a thousand miles away. Give me kids riding in the back of a pickup truck, old men in faded denim overalls, a filling station at the edge of town where the fellas gather ‘round and swap lies and flies. Give me all that, and take away your solar farms and stop lights, “Bawl-more Farms” convenience stores and the smell of marijuana all about. Give me back the real gold.
