Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander

there always seems to be a large number of people eating at our house. For years Kay prepared a big meal at the noon hour for anywhere from six to fifteen or more people. She jokes that we could have built ten mansions with the money we’ve spent feeding everybody over the years. But we don’t regret it one bit, and she’s enjoyed doing it every day. As it says in Romans 12:13: “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
    Because both of her parents worked, Kay spent many childhood hours alone. She filled them with activities like taking in stray cats and other animals. Some of the cats were wild, and she would give them milk and tame them. Her father had bird dogs, and she made friends with them. Her family also had chickens, turkeys, canaries, turtles, baby alligators, and a pony. She likes to joke that she had her own circus while growing up, but she didn’t know she was going to marry into one!
    Kay’s father hunted and fished, and she always loved thosethings about him. When I came along with the same attributes, she was naturally drawn to me. Her love for animals also came into play in our relationship. We were soul mates from the very beginning.
    It wasn’t long before I started taking her with me on fishing or hunting expeditions. My qualms about taking Kay into the woods were quickly relieved. And Kay wasn’t only a spectator. She helped catch baitfish, gather worms, hook them onto trotlines, and of course, pick ducks by plucking their feathers to prepare them for cooking. You know you have a good woman when you return home from a hunt and she’s standing on the front porch, yelling, “Did y’all get anything?” Before I repented, Kay also drove my getaway car when I was hunting out of season. I always knew my woman was waiting for me on the other side of the woods if I got into trouble.

    Before I repented, Kay also drove my getaway car when I was hunting out of season.

    When I received a football scholarship to Louisiana Tech, we moved to Ruston and rented an apartment in the same complex as my brother Tommy, who had received a scholarship to play for the Bulldogs two years earlier. Tommy and his wife, the former Nancy Dennig (they were also high school sweethearts), had been living there for more than a year. With their company, thetransition to Louisiana Tech was much easier for us. Kay had not yet graduated from high school, so she finished her senior year at Ruston High School. She was pregnant with our first son, Alan.
    We lived in the Vetville Apartments, which the school built in 1945 to accommodate married veterans coming home from World War II. The red-brick apartments were located on south campus, about a mile from the main campus. For Tommy and me, it was like reviving old times. Tommy bought a boat, and I bought a motor for it. We began fishing and hunting in the area waters and woods: the upper Ouachita River and Bayou D’Arbonne Lake, a recently impounded reservoir just north of town. We would usually take someone fishing with us and come home with the daily limit. Kay and Nancy carried a black iron skillet between our apartments until the grease burned it from frying so much fish and other game.
    Tommy and I even arranged our schedules so he went to class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I went on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tommy would fish while I was in class, and I fished when he was at school. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that a few of my instructors loved crappie, or white perch, as they’re called in Louisiana. A judicious gift of fresh, filleted white perch to certain instructors, particularly in subjects where I was having difficulty, greatly improved my grades.
    One particular class in sports medicine—which was abouttaping ankles, diminishing the effects of bumps and bruises, and such—held little interest for me. It was primarily for athletes who were planning to become coaches, which I wasn’t sure I wanted to do. Those white perch allowed me to make a passing grade in the course without even attending classes. For whatever reason, the instructor only gave me a C. I thought those fish were worth at least a B. Shoot! Maybe even an A—all those fish!
    Generally, I was a quick enough study that I didn’t have difficulties in many classes. I basically looked for a strong C average, and I made sure I maintained it. I paid attention in class and took good notes—when I was there. Occasionally, I had to buckle down