Doc, my friend’s crazy. He thinks he's a goose.

A Saturday diversion: There’s a diminutive park by the river in Amesbury that I like to visit this time of year. I’ll sip a cup of coffee while sitting on a bench and watch the mini-bergs of ice flow towards the ocean from ice-outs upriver. I bring my binoculars because there’s always an excellent chance an eagle will soar by.

But one needs to be single-minded when entering that park, because there are two snow geese that will try their best to drive you away. Beverly has named them Ben and Jen because of a little incident last year. We had visited the park one spring day and saw them there for the very first time. I tried being a comic and began shouting “Affleck Affleck” at them. The male lowered his long neck like a battering ram, commenced to honk up a storm, and started running towards me with criminal intent to gnaw. I ran.

So now I do my best to disregard them. The male will crane his neck and start to honk out a warning, but will not threaten in any other fashion. I walk straight to my bench. We accommodate each other now, though I’ve not apologized for calling him Affleck. But I never referred to his significant other as Lopez. And he’s never called Beverly Annie Hall either. I guess we both need the eggs.