Happy Waddles Chuck

I’m truly bummed. On Christmas Eve our duck Chuck met his demise. Something swooped in or crept up on him just before midnight down by the pond and carried him off. No sign of him, or of a struggle. Rosy quacked up a fuss, but by then the damage had been done. Chuck’s goose had been cooked.

Chuck was our first duck. We now have six others but he was the first. And it’s like they say, you never forget your first. While I don’t think they were talking about ducks, ehhh, close enough.

I had become accustomed to his quack. Attached to him. It sounds strange, being attached to a duck but he was a good little buddy. He made me smile when I was down and I loved that he waddled around after me, suspecting that I was holding out on him with the corn. His example inspired the other ducks to follow me around as well.

Chuck, your Pekin companions, Rosy and Buck, are missing you.

So are your humans.

The Trouble With Turkey Fat

It’s Black Friday.

That’s the day after American Thanksgiving when it is tradition to shop for the best deals of the year. It’s similar to Boxing Day in Canada.

Black Friday. Sounds kind of, well, dark, doesn’t it? Like the Black Plague or Black Death. Apparently it’s because profits are in the black that day.

The title is unimaginative but appropriate. I know any time I have to line up to go shopping, it's like being sucked into a Black Hole. I’ll bet a man came up with the name.

My American buddies have been asking how Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving. I’ve been telling them the celebration is similar but Canadians DO have one different custom. You know, the one where we take the turkey fat, strip down, grease ourselves up and engage in some friendly after-dinner wrasslin’. That’s a Canadian custom, right? Surely that can’t be just my family? The only problem is that it’s colder in Canada so the turkey fat tends to congeal in … um… uncomfortable places.

You see, I’m pulling more than just turkey legs this Thanksgiving.

I have no photos from this Thanksgiving, which was warm and filling and oh so pleasant, so I'll show you a photo from last year when we spent the holiday in Chattanooga TN.

This is Lookout Mountain and from this vantage point, you can gaze into five different states. It was a strategic spot during the Civil War, and three major battles took place nearby.

Gunfire Makes Me Jumpy

I regularly hear gunfire in the hood. And by regularly I don’t mean once an hour like a cuckoo clock. Just boom, boom, boom every so often. It’s like living next door to Yosemite Sam.

Granted, I live in the country and it’s hunting season so I’m hearing more gunfire than usual these days. I hear tell that if I wanted to, I could sit on my back porch and shoot any game that appeared on my land. In fact, when we moved in, we found .22 caliber shell casings in the dirt by said porch.

Having lived in the big city for so many years, I’ve lost touch with the violent hobbies of rural life and I am utterly fascinated by the photos featured in the Sports Section of the local newspaper of kids with their kills. There’s a proud 11-year old Bradley who killed his first deer, a four-pointer. And there’s 9-year old Courtney, a cute little girl, who killed an eight-pointer with a muzzle-loader. Holy crap, a 9-year old with a muzzle-loader! And there’s 3-year old Seth, barely out of diapers, who killed a twelve-pointer by gnawing on its neck with his baby teeth!

OK, I made the last one up. But this is, after all, the land where Daniel Boone “killed him a bar when he was only 3”. An hour from here, World War I hero Sergeant York became a crack shot by shooting turkeys in the head (just like a gaggle of German soldiers, you shoot the last one in line first so they don’t know they are being hit).

It’s funny what you get used to. My friend Pickle (currently at Kandahar) is routinely shaken from a sound sleep by exploding mortars on the runway and he seems to take it in his stride. It’s just annoying. Another day at the office. Ho hum. So I suspect it won’t take long before my feeble-by-comparison gunshot noises fade into my expectations and my background.

Now I am no shrinking flower. Nor am I a timid forest creature (let me make that perfectly clear as they shoot timid forest creatures around here) and I am not against teaching kids to handle and respect weapons. Respect is a good thing.

But I’ve been told that every year, over-zealous hunters mistake local residents for game. The victims go for a walk in the woods and ka-boom. The year before last, it was a kid from my wife’s class. It isn’t the children, who seem to be dead shots, we should be worrying about. It is the dumb-asses who are teaching them.

Which makes me wonder WHAT they are teaching them.

And so you will excuse me if the shootin’ and such that I hear every so often makes me a mite jumpy. Or if I skip the brisk walk in the woods.

This is a deer I proudly shot with a rapid-fire Nikon camera and a muzzle loading 80 – 200 mm. lens from my office window.

The deer is a no-pointer.

I’m fine with that.

Canucks Amok

I want to make raise a glass to my Canadian visitors this year. You brought me a touch of Canada when my heart was longing for the great white north. Like, beauty way to go, eh?

To my good friend Terry, who has graced us with his smiling face twice now. Sorry about that blind date man! I hope you'll come back and try again. I found one for you who has store-bought teeth and is even a snappier dresser. If that is possible.


To my good ole Dad, who finally realized his dream to sing at the Grand Ole Opry. Too bad they wouldn't let him sing inside.


To my pal Stan. One minute we're hanging out at the University Library Lounge, drinking chocolate milk and ogling girls and the next minute, give or take 30 years, we are watching you barf in Bucksnort. Ahhhh, good times!

To Chris with the soft lilt to her voice and whose terrific idea it was to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving in the South. Thanks for bringing that big turkey... oh, and the poultry too.


To my friend Pickle, who as a child, bit me so hard, I am still looking for the baby teeth in my wrist. He followed up a couple of years later by stabbing me in the leg with a pocket knife. Thanks for not hurting me too much this time buddy.

And to his lovely photo-taking, quilt buying, shoe hauling Mary-Anne - old whats-his-name from the back seat thanks you for making us your first major trip. I hope to see you drinking tea in the kitchen again before too long.

So here's to my friends from north of the 49th, both those who have visited and those who have yet to make the trip. All y'all warm my old Canuckian cockles.

Which really is not as disgusting as it sounds.

Fifteen Months Later

When the steel door near the front of the room swung open, sixty-three pairs of eyes turned toward it. A woman appeared. Relaxed, short black hair, a smile on her oval face, her body leaning into the space, hand on the door handle.

“Boo,” she said.

She wasn’t the least bit scary. Well, maybe a little.

The waiting room at Homeland Security in Memphis held rows of office chairs. Two columns, five rows, seven chairs per row. They all faced a TV, much too humble for the size of the room, which hung from the ceiling and broadcast CNN’s latest non-news about Obama and McCain.

Waiting in those chairs for their U.S. immigration interviews were a rainbow of citizens from all over the world. E and I were the palest of the colors. Even paler because of the open sewer breath of the old man sitting next to E.

The garb of the group ranged from semi-formal to ethnic to American casual. E and I had complied with the instructions for the interview, indicating that applicants should wear their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes. On the other end of the spectrum, one Chinese fellow was wearing an underwear shirt, flip-flops and jeans, looking like he just crawled out of bed. If those were his best clothes, I’d hate to see his casual look.

“Boo” the woman called again, her voice a little louder.

I guess she wasn’t trying to scare us after all. Another better-dressed Chinese man jumped to his feet, and nodding, beetled toward the door. He held a file folder, not unlike the one in my lap. It was no doubt filled with the heaps of paperwork and records and correspondence and all of the papers to prove to the rest of the world that he was indeed Boo.

The woman at the door smiled warmly and invited him into the outer-inner sanctum. E and I turned to each other.

“She seems nice. I hope we get her,” she said. I nodded in agreement. She reached over and rubbed my ear. Like a big ole yellow lab, I’m always up for an ear rub.

Logically, there was no reason to be apprehensive. My Mom once told me that I am the best boy ever, and she was an excellent judge of character.

But you never know, do you? It had been a year and three months of jumping hurdles, filling out paperwork, passing medicals, shelling out five grand, getting shots, being fingerprinted and photographed and vetted, writing Canada for records and waiting and waiting with no real indication of how long we would have to wait. And I know I'm lucky. I waited in comfort, surrounded by people who cared about me. And in all fairness, the wait is justified, given the horrors of 9/11 and the other atrocities happening around the globe. Still, allow me a small whine. Fifteen months of waiting is no picnic.

It all boiled down to this interview. So maybe, just maybe, I was a tiny bit apprehensive.

An hour and a bit later, a young man appeared at the door and called my name. I put on a pleasant face and strode to the door, shaking his hand and wishing him a good day. I liked his demeanor. Smiling, affable. This wouldn’t be so bad.

He ushered E and I through the door and led us to one of many offices. Where there waited another man. Mature, stern looking, glasses, bald. Like one of those guys on TV that always plays an FBI agent. You know, like Muldar and Scully’s boss from the X Files. Apparently he was training the younger guy. When you are training someone, when a trainee is watching every move you make, every question you ask, you always try to be a good role model.

He was.

He did not introduce himself. We simply called him sir. We were sworn in and provided all the necessary documentation from the file folder. No questions about what kind of toothpaste E uses (Crest but sometimes Colgate – I enjoy kid’s fruity tasting toothpaste myself) or her middle name or her birthday. He did not want to see the wedding album, and told us that we would be surprised at how many people faked wedding photos.

He shot from the hip and we shot answers right back. When did you come into the country? What did E do for a living? What did I do? What’s our story?

And in the end, after not all that many questions, he simply said, “Congratulations and welcome to the U.S.A. Your Green Card will be arriving in a couple of weeks.”

Just like that.

That was October 9th. The card has not yet arrived. I’ve heard it isn’t actually green but I don’t care if it’s purple with pink polka dots. I AM grateful that the U.S. is letting me stay. They won’t regret it. I am, after all, the best boy ever.

So my friends, the next time y’all hoist a tall, cool beverage, whether it be beer or milk or maple syrup, think of me sitting down here with my polka-dot card and send a little toast my way. I like toast.

The Extortionists

Every morning around 7 AM, Rosy the Moll, Buck the Henchduck and Chuck, the maniacal laughing Duckfather, waddle determinedly up from the depths of the pond to demand their cut of the action. This trio means business. Don't be trying to give them no jive bread crumbs or some stupid seed either. They demand only the best. Corn. And not ordinary corn. The heavy stuff. Cracked corn.

Now if you decide to hole up and hoard your corn, these gangsta ducks will do something worse to you than break a wing or pluck you. They'll waddle around your house quacking and honking and driving you stark raving mad. And for good measure, they'll poop all over your lawn so that you'll slip and fall when you go out to chase them. This is no idle threat. I've seen it go down man. Don't let the Charlie Chaplin waddle or the Phyllis Diller quack fool you. These are genuine web footed poop slinging bad-asses. They haven't developed a taste for human flesh yet but if you mess with them, it will only be a matter of time.

So a word to the wise. If you are down by the pond and you run into Rosy and Buck and the maniacal Chuck, be prepared or suffer the consequences. Carry corn.