Denney Herr never dreamed she would be befriended by a goose.
But that’s exactly what happened during her occasional reading escapes to Lake Miramar.
A Chinese goose, from a small flock that perhaps once had a home in someone’s garden pond, took a liking to her. At the sight – or sound – of her approaching car, “Blanco,” as she named him, issued his distinctive unmelodious honk, then paddled to shore, waddled to her lawn chair where he settled atop her feet.
Lori Felchlin was a longtime reservoir keeper there. She says she doesn’t know where these geese, identifiable by a distinctive knob at the top of their beaks, came from, but says they were year-round residents when she first was assigned to Miramar Lake about 20 years ago.
While, like Blanco, they take a fancy to some folks, Lori says they can attack others with equal gusto.
Blanco and Herr first bonded many years ago when she was living in University City. After eight years, however, Herr’s life got busier and her relaxing sojourns at the lake ceased.
After an 11-year absence she returned, hardly expecting to see Blanco. But, once again, she was greeted upon arrival by that distinctive honk, a little weaker, but the unmmistakeable voice of Blanco. It’s not unusual, Herr learned, for Chinese geese to live for more than 20 years.
After raucously scolding her, the goose, a bit slower moving, once again settled atop her feet.
As the unlikely pair rekindled their relationship, another car pulled in. Herr heard a disjointed honk from another goose. Blanco Jr., perhaps? The honker paddled up to an arriving motorist, whose name was Frank. Together the mismatched pair walked and waddled away side-by-side along part of the five-mile lake loop enjoying their own special friendship.
The New York branch of Christie’s is auctioning off the handwritten “secret of life” letter on April 10.
Because it unveils the revolutionary discovery of the structure of DNA, Tom Lecky, head of Christie’s books and manuscripts, likens it to Albert Einstein’s 1939 letter to FDR that sparked America’s effort to built the atomic bomb. It last sold for $2.1 million.
Crick was born and educated in England but lived the latter part of his life in San Diego where he moved in 1976 to join Salk researchers in exploring brain function.
In 1962, he and his colleague James D. Watson shared the Nobel Prize as co-discoverers of the structure of DNA.
Just days after they made their breakthrough discovery 60 years ago, Crick penned a seven-page letter conveying his excitement to his son, Michael, 12, at boarding school. “We think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life,” wrote Crick. He included a sketch of DNA’s distinctive double helix structure in his letter. At the end, he wrote: “When you come home, we will show you the model. Lots of love, Daddy.”
Michael’s letter predated official publication of the scientists’ discovery in Nature magazine. Michael, who now lives in Washington state, said, “As far as we know, this is the first public description of these ideas that have become the keystone of molecular biology…” The letter summarizes “the nub of the discovery in seven simple pages.”