My Story
Hi my name is Paul R Messerschmidt also know as the “Gooseman”. this story starts from when I was a small boy. I born in a small town of Logan, Iowa just north of Omaha, Nebraska . I lived with my mother and father and 8 sisters plus one brother and of course me. My family were farmers of Harrison county and we raised every thing that farmers would raise, when I was throw school I worked different jobs till I got a job through the rail road; I got marred in 1981 and we had two children Josh and Amanda’ I worked 21 years for the rail road as a trackman and Forman working different road gangs all over the mid west ; working and raising two children was one of the hardest jobs I ever encountered in my life without my families help without knowing how it would turn out; well then one day I fell ill to the every day grime that the rail road put out and my lungs fell ill . Now I have C.O.P.D. lung disease which isn’t good for the long haul. Maybe some day I will have to have a transplant but that will be an option So things were getting so bad I could not even wake with out oxygen 24 seven so the doctor wanted me to walk every day well that was too much work and my dog walked to fast and I just could not kept this up. So one day I had seen the move fly away home ; well anyway I all ready raised chickens and turkeys a ferret and different birds I thought what the heck ;baby geese would not be hard to raise so I started with 3 the first week then I though I would get 3 more so after two weeks I started to walk the babes down on the sidewalk and in the yard and I would sound like a goose every time that I went around the baby’s. so walking very day now is getting better and I am starting to walk farther each day with the baby’s in tow people are driving behind us every time they see the baby’s walking they drive by the house just waiting to see them do their walk with me in the lead. Some said it was like seeing Moses with the disciples’ one day I had went to the feed store there in the pen were 6 other babies of the same breed of geese’s I didn’t really want any more but I couldn’t resist the things so home they went to live with the others that had taken over my every day life just like the children that I had raised I started to teach them things about the streets of Missouri Valley by stopping at stop signs and to watch for cars and people on the side walks that we traveled on then I would stop and talk to people the babies some times would stop and wait for me and then some times they would head for home. We had walked the same route so much that if you let them go the babies would walk the same route no mater were they started from and several times this happened when I started to talk to one of the reporters that was interviewing us for the paper. In designing the outfits my sister and I tried different ideas before using the design of a toddlers outfit with out the inseams left out. The first parade was Pisgah, Iowa we stayed out of sight until we got dressed just in time for the parade when we walked up to the start of the parade the people were taking and pointing at the geese and when we started the parade it was a standing ovation during the whole route.
More to come