Three Geese, a Bunch of Boys and an Idiom…

This past Friday, Pop-up and I had 4 of our grandsons at our home for the day. It was an exceptionally lovely February day in Rhode Island, so we decided to take a walk along our bike path.

This bike path heads North, 15 miles, all the way to Providence and then some.

We would be heading South, just about a mile…

Oh, the adventures!

But there was also a little learning lesson about geese… more of a lesson for Grandma, it turns out.

This is what happened: We were meandering along when 7-year old Henry asked about all the broken shells on the bike path. Pop-up explained that the seagulls dive for quahogs, grab one in their beaks, then fly up in the air, drop the shell and hope the shell opens. Then the feast begins with picking out the “meat” from its shell… for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

This was all kinds of fascinating, but the seagulls don’t normally dive for their dinners when lots of people are around. On this lovely morning, lots of people were on the bike path.

But there was something just as interesting.

Bird Poop.

The boys, of course, noted its gross greenish color, its mushy consistency and how really gross it would be if stuck in the crevices of their sneakers.

Yep. All kinds of learning!

But then we bumped into these 3 geese, and this is where Grandma learned a great lesson from and about my grandsons…

Pop-up and I moved the boys off the path a bit to allow for these geese to do their little scoping out the harbor thing. Were they studying the tides? The winds? The sky? The competition for food?

The boys thought they were just chillin’… but why all together, 8-year old Ben asked.

I offered, “Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

What?????? they asked.

I explained the little idiom about a gander being the name for a male goose, and goose generally referring to a female goose. And although these terms are not often used anymore, it means what is good or appropriate for the female is also appropriate for the male — equality of the sexes — or what’s good for one is good for all in people terms, you might say.

Well, the boys were a bit perplexed by this idiom.

10-year old Alex offered, “Well, yeah! Of course!”

And that’s how this Grandma learned just how fair-minded these guys are. There’s no goose/gander inequality or divisions of people equality in their minds.

What’s good for one is good for all.

Simple.

And I learned that poop would dominate discussions for the rest of the day – fowl poop, that is – bringing lots of laughs with the fowl/foul thing!

Ah. Grandsons!