I'm even later than usual in posting, so this will be a long one.

I think I'm sick. My stomach is absolutely killing me lately. It hurts to eat. I'm dizzy in the mornings, and I have no energy whatsoever. Today I had to hold up a Styrofoam ball in physics for two minutes, and I actually had to stop and rest my arm 90 seconds through. My muscles wouldn't cooperate long enough to hold up Styrofoam, for Chrissakes. I walk home from school every day, and today I was winded enough that I had to stop and rest on the curb in front of my house. It's a two-block walk, and I didn't have any books to carry. I'm either sick or I have the endurance of a three-toed sloth. I make Charles Atlas cry.

I felt especially blech-y during history. Fortunately, I could probably die during American history, have my corpse do all the assignments and tests, and still ace the class. History is ridiculously easy for me. I sit by the window, so I usually stare outside all period. We're right under one of the main routes to the Central Flyway, so I watch the geese migrating.

I like geese. Geese aren't racist. I've been noticing lately that the snow geese and Canada geese have begun flying north together. They share gaggles and even intermingle in V's. I don't remember it being this way when I was a little kid, but then I don't remember seeing a snow goose until I was ten years old. At any rate, the geese have desegregated.

There are ten geese that live at the city pond all year. There are six Canada geese, two snow geese, and two farm geese. The farm geese were a drunken prank; a bunch of seniors stole them from some farmer and let them go at the pond. They (the geese, not the seniors) joined the little gaggle and have been there for the past two years.

(By the way, I'd just like to note how proud I am of my goose terminology. Three cheers for gaggles. Also, just to clarify, I'm not being stupid when I say 'Canada geese.' They're actually not called Canadian geese; they're Canada geese. I don't know why, and I wouldn't care, but the hunters around here have hissy fits if you call them Canadian geese.)

Now I'm feeling nostalgic, so I'm going to tell you a memory from my childhood. We didn't used to have geese at the pond. It was originally inhabited by mallard ducks. For a long time there was a man on my street whom everyone called Grandpa Sam. He had a real name; I don't remember what it was. Everyone, even adults, called him Grandpa Sam, and he was a rather mythic character to the children of the town. (Remember, population: 1008.)

Grandpa Sam was the unofficial caretaker of the ducks at the pond. Every single day he'd load a bucket of corn into the back of his golf cart and go down and feed them. He'd often have six or seven kids follow him down to watch. He'd let one kid ride in the passenger seat of the golf cart, and the rest would run or bicycle behind him.

Now, one day when I was about six years old, I remember Grandpa Sam had a goat trotting alongside his cart. It was tied to the cart somehow, and it was trotting with him. I have no idea why he had the goat; I do recall that it wasn't his goat. I assume he was taking care of it for somebody. Pet-sitting a goat and tying it to a golf cart seems a very small-town thing to do.

Anyway, he had the goat tied to the cart, and I was sitting on the corner of 3rd Street and Ash. I recall being on that street corner; I don't live there, so I don't know why I was sitting there. I don't remember what I was doing. Grandpa Sam pulled up his golf cart, and I got all excited. He let me pet the goat, and then he asked me if I wanted to come feed the ducks. I got in the cart with him (again, how small-town of me), and he and I went down to the pond and fed the ducks together. It was all very sweet and childlike.

Grandpa Sam died last year. He went to the nursing home five years ago. There was a big hubbub in the town a few days before he went. He had gone nearly blind, but he still drove his golf cart to the pond every day. A woman who ran a day care reported him, saying he was "a danger and a public menace," or something to that effect. His family took away his golf cart.

The next day he drove to the pond in his riding lawnmower.

His sister stuck him in the home the day after that.

Sometimes I think the world would be a better place if we just let the Grandpa Sams go on feeding their ducks. If old duck-obsessed men are Public Menaces, then we've got it pretty easy. For most of us, the ducks are the least of our worries. Let those kinds of Public Menaces be Public Menaces. It makes for good myths.