The Canada geese have returned for spring and the last couple of weeks we’ve had a steady population of them hanging around in the Monroe Times parking lot.

They sure are a noisy bunch – honking constantly.

We held a couple of job interviews last week and it was really interesting to get into the question-and-answer portion of the interview and watch those being interviewed distracted by the honking.

I held the job interviews in my office, which is in the southeast corner of the building, which is closest to the area on our property where the geese like to congregate.

Having the geese here each spring has become so common that I don’t notice them. However, watching somebody trying to formulate their best answer to a job interview question while all they can hear is “honk, honk, honk, honk” is amusing.

Many people have taken their children to petting zoos throughout the area. When my son was young our family would go to Peck’s Market along Highway 14. We always gave the children corn to feed the ducks and geese. The most aggressive feeders in the petting zoo were the geese.

I recall one goose had left the imprint of its bill on my son’s little fingers as it went after the corn. 

I’d like to think that karma in some way would be involved since I’ve been an outdoor person all my life and went duck and goose hunting a number of times in my youth. The issue with that is when hunting we never saw geese.

In fact, we always had bad luck goose hunting. I recall hopping in our 12-foot aluminum boat and starting to motor toward a spot where there was a good blind in the Lake Mills Wildlife Area. We had motored only 100 yards toward the hunting spot when the shear pin in the ancient Evinrude motor broke. And unfortunately, we did not have an extra. That brought a quick end to the duck/goose hunt.

We had those kinds of odd adventures all the time.

After I turned 12 my dad upgraded our 12-foot boat to a 14-footer and put a 9.9-horsepower Chrysler engine on the back. My dad worked for Chrysler and was loyal to his brand. If only Chrysler had made a better outboard motor …

That motor broke down on us in just about every situation possible. We would be fishing on Lake Petenwell and after we had motored out to our favorite fishing spot, about a quarter-mile off shore, the engine decided it didn’t want to work anymore. We went through a regular ritual which included checking the fuel, fuel connection, fuel intake to the carburetor, spark plugs … That engine had its cover off more than it was on.

After an hour of tinkering, I got my exercise by rowing us back to the landing. If you’ve never rowed a fully-loaded fishing boat ¼ mile, I would say you’re quite lucky. It’s tough, especially in wind and whitecaps.

My dad never gave up on fishing and upgraded to an 18-horsepower Evinrude, which was the first boat motor we had that was reliable. After that, dad invested in a fully decked-out bass boat with live wells, a captain’s console, trolling motors and a 55-horsepower Yamaha outboard. That motor ran like a top and dad used it to fish all over Wisconsin, Minnesota and on the Lake of the Woods in Ontario.

The more my dad enjoyed fishing, the less we went waterfowl hunting. Now I only have my memories of short boat rides and sitting in a boat in the rain waiting for some geese to fly past.

Because I never so much as pointed my gun at a goose, I don’t think, they’d hold a grudge against me. In fact, the geese in our parking lot are more like comic relief, and we just can’t get enough of that these days. 

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.