Truth being fully told, I kind of expected writing about it would fully wreck everything.
It is the nature of life now. If you say “right,” a bunch of people are bound to, for no good reason, reply “wrong.”
It was supposed to be a simple goose hunt, for crying out, open only to the better-heeled among us who belong to the Meridian Golf Club.
Geese, many of whom are now making their annual trek to the Canadian tundra, are sticking around Meridian and the rest of Colorado long enough to make a mess of much of both.
The geese are eating Meridian’s greens and fairways, and leaving behind untold pounds of what geese, well, will leave behind.
The folks who run Meridian in unincorporated Douglas County decided for economic and pure sporting reasons to thin the flocks a bit.
So I wrote last week of the club’s decision to have for a fifth year a members-only twilight goose hunt. It triggered howls of protest from home owners’ associations and businesses in the area, who brought enough pressure to get it called off.
Maybe I was a bit too enthusiastic as an avid water-fowler and golfer at the prospect of getting off work, bagging a limit of geese and playing at least nine holes at the twilight rate.
More than a few people took offense to such a thing, berating me as though I had written that just for fun, I nightly beat with a bull whip each of my children.
“I used to think you were a decent, caring human being,” a woman who did not leave her name called to tell me. “After what you wrote, I will never, ever read you again.”
Now see, I hate that.
Even the goose hunters whose hunt I killed were more understanding.
“Goose hunting has been canceled forever at Meridian Golf Club,” wrote Bob Spicer, who identified himself as a “disappointed Meridian member.”
He rightly noted that the state Division of Wildlife and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office blessed the hunt this year and during the previous four years.
“The anti-gun, anti-hunting fanatics just couldn’t stand it,” he wrote. “For me, not only was it fun hunting geese, but in a small way, it made Centennial Airport just a little safer for passengers and pilots from potentially dangerous geese strikes.”
It turned out that the source of the greatest heat came from Meridian International Business Center, which apparently is the biggest cheese of all the course’s neighbors.
“Frankly, we are astonished that either the state Division of Wildlife or the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department is permitting use of firearms within an urbanized area such as Meridian,” scolded Raymond A. Bullock, chairman of the business center, in a letter to course managers.
“Bottom line, this type of activity certainly does not comport to the spirit of the Meridian Restrictive Covenants, and we must again ask that this practice be discontinued immediately.”
I called Jim Shoemaker, the Meridian general manager, to apologize profusely for killing his goose hunt.
“The only thing I would say is we did everything right and by the book,” he said a bit resignedly. “I just thought it was a nice amenity for our members to participate in.”
It was, pal.
And it would have hurt no one — well, other than the geese. You and I both know, of course, that was the whole point.
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
