The Immigrant, the Anniversary, and the Goose I Did Not Eat

A July 4th Reflection on Home, Exile, and Misunderstood Appetites

As I've mentioned before today, I've reached the age by which most people go mad. I've discussed that subject at great length already; the short version is simply that we all go off the deep end eventually, and there's little any of us can do about it.

Many people are already there. They think there are immigrants within the community who are "eating the cats and dogs," for instance. And the only sensible recourse, to their addled minds, is to hand their democracy over to a small cadre of billionaires and just, you know, hope for the best.

I am not in agreement. I'm not bedeviled by immigrants; in fact, I've spent most of my adult life as an immigrant to the United States, where I ate very normal food and hardly even entered a Korean restaurant. But I mention all this because I had to return to Australia four years ago—on July 4th, 2021, incidentally—and I thought I'd explain why. Mostly, it comes down to me being a credulous sort of individual who was made to believe his mother was nearing her death.

She suffers from terrible asthma, as well as bronchiectasis and, somehow, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Or “bung lungs” as she calls it. She was also 78 back then, so I figured Covid would probably finish her off by year's end, so back I came. How long could my mother remain above ground? Two years? Three?

Well, today it is four years since my return, and somehow she's survived Covid a couple of times. My concerns multiply. It's possible my mother is immortal.

Meanwhile, I miss Cambridge, MA, which was my home for about fourteen years. I also spent a few years in Belmont, MA, and before that, a year in Washington, DC. But for whatever reason, I liked Cambridge the most. It might be because there are a lot of immigrants there—and immigrants, despite what politicians need you to believe, are reliably hard-working and interesting people. Also, the statistics are extremely clear about this—we commit fewer crimes, and anyone who tells you otherwise works for Rupert Murdoch.

But really, I just liked my life in Cambridge. There were a lot of clever people doing interesting things, and I appreciated that.

Whenever I took my dog over to the park, I would invariably meet people from MIT who were working on clean energy and that sort of thing, and if I wasn't careful, they'd tell me all about it. But my point is, you can exist in Cambridge and feel as if civilization is advancing into a better future.

I have one friend whose life is devoted entirely to curing a disease. His father was a refrigerator mechanic from Mexico. I worry about him and his family. And I worry about migrant families. This has, frankly, been affecting my sleep. Waking up in the middle of the night and worrying on behalf of others has become routine. This time last year, I just woke up and worried about being abducted by grey aliens. Now, I sort of hope I get abducted by grey aliens. "Have you considered conquering the Earth?" I want to ask them, because if so, now, it seems to me, would be a superb time.

But as I was saying, back in the day I lived in Cambridge, though I worked over the river in Longwood, at the medical school. Most days, we had lunch over near Fenway, and that meant we had to walk past an entire flock of geese who, for reasons known only to themselves, had taken up residence across the road from Simmons University at that western stretch of the Back Bay Fens.

Those geese gave me trouble. Of course, I've never been on the greatest terms with geese, but those... This one time, when I was passing by them, on my own and minding my own business, well, they chased me. I don't know what they wanted with me, or what they intended to do with me when they caught up with me, but I didn't like it. Maybe they were simply in a dark mood or something, but regardless, that day, the geese chose violence.

And I have never forgiven them. Did I fantasize about coming back and grabbing one by the neck? Reader, I admit it freely; I did. Did I wonder what goose tasted like? I wondered about that all the time!

I even spoke of it at lunch that day with my colleagues, and it didn't go down well. Everyone got weird at me for a little while, and I had to explain that I'd grown up in parts of rural Queensland and New South Wales, and how, a few times, when I was small, we had to butcher chickens and ducks. You know, for food.

Our family didn't have much money. Which is how I came to learn that butchering birds is truly a miserable task, and the memory of it stayed my hand, I'll admit. Also, getting the geese home with me would require carrying them on the M2 Shuttle Bus back to Cambridge. I'd also have to explain the entire matter to my wife, in such a way that wouldn't persuade her to go stay with her mother for a few days.

As I write these words, I somehow remember the sober advice of my friend who managed the Circulation Desk at the library.

"Don't do it, Kris," he told me flatly when I mentioned my plans for the geese. "It's not worth the trouble with HR. Besides, you're lucky they're not swans." Then he told me many things about swans that in retrospect I would prefer not to have learned. But at least he took me seriously, and the reason for that, I think, is that he, too, had grown up in reduced circumstances in a remote, rural area. In fact, I think he'd spent a portion of his formative years living in a yurt.

See, the staff at Harvard are not quite what you'd expect. One of my former colleagues had been a professional gambler. Another had been a member of a street gang in North-West China in the 1960s, during Mao's Cultural Revolution.

So, let me underscore this... I am well-disposed towards people, but even more so towards immigrants. Often enough, they've lived fascinating lives and can tell you wonderful stories. Now, having clarified my reasons, let me return to the matter of the geese.

That same afternoon, after I was chased by those geese, I was forced into one of those interminable meetings that seem to last nine billion years. So, to prevent myself from snapping and pulling the fire alarm, I started doing a bit of sketching and somehow, for no reason whatsoever, I drew a picture of a goose. When I showed the person sitting next to me, they said, "Hey, nice drawing of a goose," to which I replied, "It's not a goose, it's a duck," because I guess that's the sort of person I am. Then later that day, after work, I took that drawing of a duck and made it into a wrongcard. Here it is below.

I'm not even sure what the card was about; I mean, I barely even drink alcohol. But I mention the whole incident because you can see that very same picture of a duck (yes, I'm still calling it a duck) on the cover of the box of Wrongcard postcards I made, and which I told you all about in my last newsletter.

And why am I talking about all this? Well, today is July 4, 2025, and when I woke up this morning, I looked at my phone and there was a message from that friend I mentioned—the former manager of the Circulation Desk at the library. He'd sent me the following picture.

It was that box of postcards I mentioned! He'd received his in the mail. And there it is, right on the cover—the duck I drew the day I was chased by geese! Somehow, I just haven't really looked closely at one of those boxes in a while.

But my friend revealed to me, this morning, that he'd bought two postcard boxes off Amazon back in the day when I was still selling them. One box was to send to friends and enemies, the other to keep for himself. I hadn't known about any of that, so that was nice!

Anyway, I had sent him a box of postcards this week (or at least, my friend Zoya in Maine had done so on my behalf) because he's now a paid supporter of my Substack. You see that, aside from my reluctant-though-fairly-justified antipathy towards geese, I am a steadfast individual who makes good on his promises.

Here's a stack she sent out on Monday.

In case you're interested, the postage for each of those boxes turned out to be $4.67 USD, which I thought was incredibly reasonable. This whole thing has made me very happy.

There was one box I sent to a paid subscriber who lives perhaps 20 minutes from me. Australia Post charged me $7.22 USD ($11 AUD) for that, because, well, ever since they privatized Australia Post, Australia Post has absolutely sucked. My disposition towards them these days bears close similarity to my disposition towards geese.

Now, the other matter is that today is the four-year anniversary of my arrival back in Australia, which is a poignant day for me, personally. I miss America and I wish I was there nowadays. Also, somehow I sense my adopted country needs me. I'm supposed to be there for my friends when times are tough. On the other hand, they need me there, and not in a prison in El Salvador for the crime of besmirching a certain politician's hair on social media.

On July 4, what I used to do was go with my mate, Andy, down the street to the top storey of a car park in East Cambridge and watch the fireworks across the river. Some day, I hope for us to do that again, but I can't do that safely anymore. Much depends on the outcome of the next election.

I suppose I will always be an immigrant at heart. I felt most at home in Cambridge, MA, but now it seems I must wander the Earth like that guy in the Bible, the one whose mother stole a piece of fruit and thus annoyed God so thoroughly that we're all still dealing with the consequences. (Who knew God liked fruit so much?)

My mother stole oysters one time. Actually, she made me help her do it. Don't worry, I was only nine years old, which isn't an important age in terms of the formation of one's moral character. What happened, you see, is she woke me up in the middle of the night and took me down a river in a rowboat, so we could steal some oysters from a nearby oyster farm. Let the record show I did like oysters then, just as I rather dislike them now. But maybe all this explains why I seem to think that wild geese should be fair game?

...

Did you see what I did there? No? Well, then, let's recap.

Today, on the four-year anniversary of my departure from North America, I must accept that I'm unable to return to my adopted home because a significant minority of Americans now believe that immigrants like me are eating domestic animals. Also, they believe this because a politician told them it was true.

Except that it's not true because, as I have now explained thoroughly, the only animals who are at risk are geese. And turkeys, on thanksgiving. Also, with thanks to industrial agriculture, every conceivable variety of livestock.

But, worst still, and in consequence of me explaining my attitude to geese in such a thorough and matter-of-fact manner, I somehow doubt I'll ever be able to visit Canada. Because, and maybe this is just my experience with Canadians, they get very weird and serious whenever you talk about eating their geese. One time, a Canadian, who seemed to like me at first, got all withdrawn and muttered, "How would YOU like it if people started talking about eating kangaroos?!"

I wasn't trying to win an argument, or even have an argument, because, well, who wants to get into a row with Canadians, anyway? But I couldn't help mentioning that they do, in fact, sell kangaroo meat in shops in Australia, but this only made him turn around and storm off.

So I guess what I'm getting at is that... well, whenever people spout off about the evilness of immigrants in America, it makes me want to throw my hands up in despair. I mean, I didn't even eat that goose, I just pondered the subject as a possibility. Because I was annoyed, and because I'd been chased by a goose! Clearly, my mistake was that I told people. I simply placed too much trust in people's capacity for nuance. But I promise to be more circumspect in future.

The next time something like that happens, I'm not going to say anything about eating geese. The next time some irritated bird decides to chase me through a public park and somebody subsequently asks me what I'm thinking about, I'm just going to lie, instead, and say something like, "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about that time I ate a bat."

With chaste affection,

Kris St.Gabriel