THE ROCKWOOD FILES

Getting My Ducks In A Row

WRITER AND WINGED FRIENDS SHARE A HOMECOMING

Last weekend, I followed the ducks home to the little town where I grew up - Stuttgart. I was there for a book signing event, but the ducks had their own reasons. Author Thomas Wolfe once wrote a famous novel called “You Can’t Go Home Again,” but ducks are not big readers and tend to go wherever the food is.

They find plenty of it in this farming town, with its huge, flooded rice fi elds stretching out in every direction. Stuttgart is like a Golden Corral restaurant for ducks, and every year in the fall, thousands of them flock in for a place at the buff et.

One of my favorite parts of going back to Stuttgart is driving that last 10 minutes into town. On the outskirts of the city, you can see rice mills rising above the vast fields that stretch out green and smooth for miles. Rolling hills are nice, but I love those big, fl at fi elds that run right into a dark red sunset. They tell me I’m home again.

This particular homecoming came at a peak time because late November in Stuttgart is a bustling party. It’s their Daytona 500, their Mardi Gras, their Super Bowl.

People don camoufl age clothes and come from all over the country to crouch down in fi elds and wait for the ducks to come home again. A carnival comes to town and expert duck callers come from all over to compete in the World Championship Duck Calling Contest. There’s even a beauty pageant in town where the winner is crowned “Queen Mallard.”

As we turned onto Main Street, we spotted a billboard from a local jewelry store that reads, “Buy her a diamond and get a free shotgun!”

It might be a ludicrous combination anywhere else, but at this time of year in Stuttgart, a gift package with diamonds and fi rearms makes perfect sense.

Seemingly oblivious to the influx of hunters and shotguns, the ducks came in droves this year, too. I spent 18 years growing up there, but I’ve never seen so manyducks swarm the skies as I saw last weekend. We saw huge flocks of them and watched as they circled the flooded rice fi elds, scanning for predators before settling down on the water. The vast numbers of them moving together in a circle creates a funnel cloud of birds - black and swirling in the sky and then suddenly disappearing as they glide down onto the water. Once they land, hundreds of white geese make it look as though snow has blanketed the fi eld.

Despite the plentitude of ducks in my native Stuttgart, I’ve never once had duck for dinner or a bowl of the famous duck gumbo. When I was little, we fed stale pieces of bread to ducks on sunny Saturday afternoons at the local duck pond. And a street sign in town warns drivers to yield the right of way as the ducks waddle across the highway with their ducklings following behind. I don’t judge people who love duck for dinner, but for me, they’re closer to pets than they are to menu items.

I’m glad I followed the ducks home last weekend. It had been too long since I’d seen those beautiful fi elds and driven the familiar streets and talked to old friends.

It made me think of a few lines from the book “You Can’t Go Home Again” where Thomas Wolfe writes, “Peace fell upon her spirit. Strong comfort and assurance bathed her whole being. Life was so solid and splendid, and so good.” GWEN ROCKWOOD IS A SYNDICATED FREELANCE COLUMNIST. HER NEW BOOK, “REPORTING LIVE FROM THE LAUNDRY PILE: THE ROCKWOOD FILES COLLECTION” IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON AND IN NIGHTBIRD BOOKS.

Life, Pages 9 on 11/28/2012

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