The Goose Lady Lays a Golden Egg for Pierce’s Ag Dept.

The efforts of the Goose Lady of Woodland Hills have added about $2,000 to the coffers of the Pierce College agricultural department.

This Goose Lady is not to be confused with the Goose Girl, who used to dress up in twee costumes and be chased around by goosey ganders at Hollywood Park.

She’s Mary Lee, the Pierce College president, who’s on a mission to preserve the school’s agrarian sod.

Lee was the impetus behind the college’s first Goose Walk. The recent early-morning event was aimed at familiarizing the community with the fascinations of farming while helping to alleviate the ag department’s underfunding woes.

About 2,000 people joined Lee in the birding adventure, many contributing $1 or more for the experience of walking around the grounds and looking at visiting geese. The money is earmarked for reseeding pastures and maintenance of the farm.

What the visitors saw was about 1,000 hungry Canada geese who dropped in for breakfast, foraging through the school’s tender grasses and picking up whatever succulent seeds they could find.

These geese rate an American passport because they actually come from Utah or Colorado, according to Pierce biologist Ralph Kinchloe.

The geese, who winter in reservoirs and lakes in the San Fernando Valley, started coming to Pierce once the pastures in the West Valley were developed into housing and what is now Warner Center, Kinchloe says.

For Lee, their annual visit is a ritual she has appreciated since she first came to Pierce College as an administrator in 1977.

“I remember being interested in the geese from those years during the ‘70s, as well as the agricultural program, which is unique in the Los Angeles Community College system,” Lee says.

“When I came back as president this year and saw how underfunded the agricultural program is, I thought that maybe there would be a way to turn the visiting geese into financial aid for the agricultural department.”

Stuffing and roasting them was definitely not on her mind. However, starting with this first Goose Walk, and at least once a year from now on, the geese will be on display and earning what amounts to their daily bread, she says.

Lee, a resident of Chatsworth, says she’s always had animals around her, so it’s natural to put her energies into saving the agricultural program at Pierce.

“It’s been said before, but the farm is not just a place where students who want to go into the agriculture programs at Cal Poly or UC Davis can get started,” Lee says. “It is a resource for schoolchildren who can come and see that their food does not grow in the market, as well as a place for all of us to remember our agricultural heritage in the San Fernando Valley.”

The next of Lee’s quarterly open houses at the farm will be a walk through the citrus orchards during springtime, when the blossoms will be perfuming the air the way they used to throughout the Valley.

Sometimes it’s hard now to remember that the Valley used to smell like one big citrus orchard, along with some other less aromatic odors caused by the handsome horses that used to be bred and raised around these parts.

It’s Boxing Day, So Everyone Into the Ring

No. No.

Boxing Day is not when people bloody each other while thrashing about in some sweaty arena.

Dec. 26 is the old English holiday where people like the queen used to box up all the stuff they got but didn’t want for Christmas and foist it off on poor people like the palace help.

In England, now, the royals don’t do that kind of thing.

It would cause a scandal.

Another scandal for the Windsors would redefine the concept of overkill.

Now the royals and others spend the day flopping about with the family.

The kids run around like maniacs breaking up all the toys they got for Christmas, while the adults fall on any couch or floor that’s handy after scarfing up all the caloric remains of the day before.

In the Valley, there used to be a Boxing Day tradition among the ink-stained wretches. These media types would go to Laurel Canyon Park and try to remember how to play soccer. Since most of them hadn’t run any farther than to the telephone in more than a decade, it was often a pitiful sight to behold.

This same gang would then motor down to the North Hollywood home of one David Gritten, a reporter at the former Herald Examiner, to see how much holiday cheer they could imbibe before falling on the nearest couch or floor.

Gritten--in an effort to distance himself from this debacle--moved back to his native England, where his endeavors now include writing entertainment pieces for the Calendar section of The Times.

Every year since his departure, one or more of the remaining motley crew makes noises about reviving the tradition.

This year plans were actually made to hold the soccer game in Balboa Park.

But then someone pointed out that whomever now lives in Gritten’s home would probably not appreciate being invaded with dirty, bruised people demanding holiday bubbly.

All is forgiven, David: Please come back.

Thank-You Notes

This seems like a good time to send a blanket thank you to all the folks who have written or called to suggest items for Valley Chronicle. You know who you are.

Most of you have suggested writing about neighbors or people who are out there doing good deeds.

Since the purpose of the column is to spotlight the praiseworthy adventures and occasionally funny misadventures of folks in our valleys, having this friendly spy system is helpful indeed.

Thanks should also go out to those who have taken the time to be interviewed and are then often kind enough to write or call to say what they thought about seeing themselves in print.

Most particularly, thanks should go to Cheryl Crooks, who is the newspaper adviser at Calahan Street Elementary School in Reseda, for passing along the remarks of her students after their paper was profiled in this column.

Many thanks, also, to teacher Holly Dye at Pinecrest School in Northridge.

Dye not only sent along a thank-you card in response to an item about her class’ pet program but had her pupils sign it and include their own remarks.

Overheard:

“I can’t wait for 1995. It’s going to be the best year ever, with the possibility of the baseball and hockey season being canceled. That should give my husband time to get acquainted with our kids.”

--Woman to friend in Calabasas.