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

bar, injuring both of them pretty badly. By the time the fight was over, there were four police cars out front. Ambulances were also on the way to take the bar owners to the hospital; I’d whipped both of them pretty good. I went out the back door and jumped in my truck before the police could arrest me. Before I left, I told Kay, “I’m going to the swamps or somewhere. You’re not going to see me for a few months.”
    Of course I left Kay behind to clean up my mess. The police issued a warrant for my arrest, but Kay persuaded the bar owners to drop criminal charges against me. The plea bargain came with a hefty price: the bar owners took nearly all the money we’d saved while operating the honky-tonk. They wouldn’t even let Kay get our personal belongings—a washer and dryer and photographs and keepsakes of our boys—out of a storage shed in back. Fortunately, Kay had hidden about two thousand dollars in a lockbox and used that money to move our trailer—which we were still paying for—back to Louisiana.
    After the fight, I got out of Arkansas. Even though Kay paid off the bar owners, I didn’t know whether there were still arrest warrants out for me—assault and all that stuff. The bar owners had a restraining order against me, so I couldn’t go anywhere near them. I stayed out of Arkansas for about a decade because I didn’t know whether they were going to try to get me, put me in jail, or what.
    Kay moved our trailer to a spot beside Lake D’Arbonne at Farmerville, Louisiana, as she and I had discussed during a phone conversation. I eventually got a job working in the oil fields offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. In the meantime, Kay had to handle everything concerning the move back to Louisiana. For about the next year, she and I somehow endured, though our marriage was under tremendous strain.
    While I was a fugitive, I kept hunting and fishing as much as I could—sandwiching the activities I loved around my offshore job. The incident at the bar didn’t stop me from romping, stomping, and ripping with my drinking buddies. Kay later said I wasn’t an alcoholic, only a problem drunk. But it was pretty clear I had a problem. She always held out hope that I would change my ways, and she believed that if we moved to a new location and met new people, things would get better. But they never did; things only got worse.

    Kay said I wasn’t an alcoholic, only a problem drunk. But it was pretty clear I had a problem.

    One rainy night, Kay came home late from work, and I accused her of running around on me, which I knew she would never do. It was a life-changing event for Kay, and she remembers the details and aftermath of the incident better than I do:
    I think Phil’s problems really started during our first year at Louisiana Tech. He was playing football but had a wife and baby at home. It was a lot of grown-up responsibility for an eighteen-year-old, and he really wasn’t ready for it. He saw his teammates going out and partying all the time, and he wanted to go out, too. I think that’s why he so easily got in with the wrong group—he wanted to be like the single guys who had all the freedom. He’d never really experienced the single lifesince we married so young. I tried to do the party scene with him, but I couldn’t leave Alan, who was only a baby. I didn’t think it was right. I didn’t like drunkenness. I didn’t think it was wrong to have a drink, but I just didn’t like the whole scene.
    I really thought that after Phil graduated from Louisiana Tech and we moved to Junction City, Arkansas, he would settle down. After all, he was going to be a coach and teacher, which came with a lot of responsibility. But Al Bolen, the man who hired him, was as big a party guy as Phil, so the partying and running around only continued.
    When Phil leased the bar, people couldn’t believe that I went out and stayed with him. I worked as a barmaid, and the people there really respected me and told everybody, “Don’t you talk ugly to her. She doesn’t drink and she’s a nice lady.” It surprised me that those people were so protective of me. They always asked me why I was in the bar if I didn’t drink, but when I decided to stay with Phil and remain faithful to him, I felt it was my duty to protect him. With me at the bar, I felt he wouldn’t get in as much trouble as he would if I wasn’t there.
    The year after the bar fight was probably the worst time of my life. Phil was working offshore