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

listened. Then they chuckled, kind of laughed. They were still chuckling when the guy behind the counter picked up my duck call, blew on it, and said, “I see your problem with this duck call right off the bat.”
    “What’s the problem?” I asked him.
    “Air leaks a little bit around here,” he told me. “You’ve got an air leak.”
    “That’s the way it’s designed,” I responded. “Air leaks and all, it’s still closer to a duck than anybody’s.”
    I turned to the men at the table and asked if they duck-hunted.
    “Yeah, we do a little duck-hunting,” one of them told me.
    “These guys are world-champion duck callers,” explained the man behind the counter, with the proper amount of respect in his voice.
    “Well, good night!” I exclaimed. “Boys, let’s have us a contest right here. Get your duck calls and get up here. We’ll tape your duck calls beside that of these live ducks. I’ve already got mine onit. We’ll listen to the ducks, then all the calls. Then we’ll just vote on it. Whoever is closest to a duck wins!”
    The guy behind the counter looked and me and said, “You see that door there? Hit it!”
    He ran me out of there! But as I was driving out of town, frustrated and still fuming over my reception in a little nondescript sporting goods store, I saw a beer joint with about fifteen cars parked around it. On an impulse, I wheeled my car into the parking lot, squealing to a stop.
    I walked in the door and hollered, “Hey!”
    The customers were all sitting around drinking beer. They turned and looked at me.
    “Is there a duck caller in the house?” I asked loudly.
    They all looked at me like they were deaf.
    “Is there anybody in here who can blow a duck call?” I asked again.
    Several of the customers pointed to a man sitting and quietly having a beer. He looked around at me.
    “Come out here, I want to show you a duck call that I built,” I told him. “I want you to tell me how I can sell these things up here. They just ran me out of the sporting goods store down there.”
    “They did?” the man asked with bewilderment in his voice. “Yeah, let me listen to it.”
    He went outside with me. I blew my call for him.
    “Son, let me tell you something,” the man told me. “I’ve been blowing duck calls for a long time. My hunting call is a Yentzen—until now. How much you want for one of them things?”
    “Ten dollars,” I told him.
    “I want one right now,” he said.
    “No, I’m going to give it to you,” I told him.
    The man invited me to his house. I introduced myself to him and followed him back through town.
    “Robertson, let me tell you something,” he told me later. “These guys up here are making big money selling these world-championship duck calls. They don’t want any ten-dollar duck calls up here in their way. To them, they’re so far above you. What they are going to tell you is that unless you win the world championship blowing like they did, you’re never going to sell any duck calls.”
    “But their calls don’t sound like ducks,” I told him.
    “I know they don’t,” he replied. “But they have a deal going here, a clique, and they’re making big money.”
    “So what do you think I should do?” I asked him.
    “Aw, you’ll sell duck calls,” he replied. “You’ll end up selling way more than they will. I’ve heard a lot of duck calls. But I’ve never heard one that sounded closer to a duck than that. That thing is a duck! These guides up here, the ones that hunt, they’llbuy them. So will all serious duck hunters. You’re just going to have to stay the course.”
    You know what? I don’t remember the man’s name; I only recall that he was a rice farmer. But his advice and encouragement carried me a long way over the next few years. About ten years later, when I developed a mallard drake call, a few of them were ordered by that little sporting goods store in Stuttgart. I guess they finally realized my call sounded like a duck.
    The guy behind the counter in that store wasn’t the only one who had doubts about the Duck Commanders. It probably took me twenty-five years to convince the duck-calling world that there is a difference between meat calling and contest calling.
    The Duck Commander has come a long way. But it hasn’t been easy.

    It probably took me twenty-five years to convince the duck-calling world that there is a difference between meat calling and contest calling.

    Somehow, we stayed the course and