I don't know about the rest of you,but fall and the flocking geese always bring me to think of things past.
It's a time of year that Dad and i used to share with a great passion. A time of year that signaled the yearly migration of Canada Geese and ducks. He and mom lived just west of ottawa, in Kanata, and i would visit him during this time of year and we would always sneak away to go and see huge flocks of geese resting and eating in the vast cut cornfields of the experimental farm.literally thousands of them creating a ruckus that you could hear for miles. we would get out of the car and walk along the fences seperating the fields from the road, and just stand there in silence listening and watching them come and go.
Some of the bigger ones at the edge of the flock would lift their heads atop long necks and stare at us as intently as we stared at them.Those are the lookouts he would say.They tend the flock and protect them from danager as they eat. He would go off in great descriptive monologues of how he and gramps would hike into the many marshes west of Ottawa and hunt.I got a chance to hunt with him only once, and i had a hard time keeping up with him, and he would say i sounded like a bull moose crashing through the brush and laff his butt off at me.
I still remember all of the stories, word for word, and every year since he passed, when i hear the geese calling overhead, i think of him and thank god for the time we had, be it ever so short.
here's to you Doug White. You have made me who i am today. Be Proud of what you have left behind.