Meet Your Neighbors: Pro-Avian Menace Avoids Conviction, $68 Fine

Some heroes are born; others have greatness thrust upon them. Reston resident Jozsef Vamosi -- presumably pictured at left -- will become an instant legend, we predict, for "beating the rap" and "sticking it to the man" by dodging a jaywalking ticket after being charged by Fairfax County Police for blocking traffic to usher a gaggle of geese off the Fairfax County Parkway in June.

Fortunately, as we ease back into our regular workaday production of snark after a much-deserved hiatus, we have the Washington Post to do our dirty work for us. Here's their breathtaking account of what happened that fateful day:

"Make Way for Ducklings"?

Not if the Fairfax County police are around.

The popular children's book, about a family of ducks escorted across a busy street by a Boston police officer, apparently is not on the reading list in Fairfax. When Jozsef Vamosi, 60, tried to help a family of Canada geese cross the Fairfax County Parkway, he was given a ticket by a Fairfax officer -- for jaywalking.

The episode unfolded in Reston on June 18, a Thursday, about 9:30 a.m., Vamosi said. Vamosi was driving north on the parkway approaching the Dulles Toll Road when he spotted several smaller geese edging toward the pavement, a full gaggle behind them.

"They were walking like gentlemen," Vamosi said, upright and confident. "Like the Beatles on 'Abbey Road.' "

Vamosi said he pulled his car to the left lane, got out and stood in the right lane. "I showed them my hand," Vamosi said, "and said, 'Move, move, move!' " Vamosi said he grew up in the countryside of Hungary and felt he knew how to approach the animals without spooking them.

The three larger and eight smaller geese waddled to the parkway's wide median, mission halfway accomplished. Vamosi then stepped into the southbound lanes, held up his hands to signal approaching cars, and the cars stopped, he said. Again he urged the feathered pedestrians to make haste. They did, ducked under a guardrail and continued on their way, Vamosi said.

"Everything came out fantastic," Vamosi said. Then an officer sped to the scene.

"He jumped out the car, yelling at me," Vamosi said of the officer, identified in court records as Kevin J. Rusin. Vamosi said that he asked the officer if he was there to help and that Rusin responded by questioning Vamosi's sanity. The officer said Vamosi's priorities were misplaced on a busy highway, Vamosi said. Vamosi added that he had previously helped a Fairfax officer chase some geese off Interstate 395 and was not ticketed.

He said Rusin instructed him to sit in his car and eventually gave him the jaywalking summons. Vamosi said he told the officer that he would fight the ticket. "And if I had the chance, I'd do it again," he said. "That's the way I'm raised."

Wow! He clearly won over the reporter at the Post, who pointed out the following Fun Fact:

In Massachusetts, "Make Way for Ducklings" is the state's official children's book, and statues of the ducklings stand in Boston's Public Garden.

And in gleefully pointing out the denouement to this timeless tale of a man beating the system, the Post used the following headline: "Va. Geese Guardian Given Six Months to Fly Straight." Get it?

Jozsef Vamosi, 60, was not formally convicted or acquitted after a brief trial before Fairfax General District Court Judge Thomas E. Gallahue. The judge did order Vamosi to pay court costs, normally about $68. But when Vamosi went to the clerk's window, he was told he owed nothing. The costs might also be dismissed when Vamosi returns to court in January.

If not, $68 is a small price to pay for the number of column inches the Post usually reserves for presidential resignations and/or moon landings.