What the DUCK!

Okay! Okay! Okay! I am gonna find it impossible to put Spring Break behind me and get back to work unless I address the situation we VOLUNTARILY  found ourselves in West Monroe, LA.

In order to do so, I have to make a confession: I am a fan and I do watch the fine work of the Roberston Family on A&E's Duck Dynasty. I kind of hate to admit that on the World Wide Web. But it's true. I was pretty much drawn in from Week 1 and even find myself watching reruns when A&E airs their marathons as they are so prone to do.

If you've never seen the show, you should probably just exit this blog and wait for another topic. I'm not gonna take the time to try and describe, explain, or pitch this Reality Show to you. Aren't they all the same, anyway?

Apparently not! I have no documentation to back this up. But I heard in an interview that Duck Dynasty is the highest rated "non-scripted" reality show in the history of ever. And I have no idea as to why! No, maybe I do.

Evidently, there is a TEMPLATE for reality shows that they all follow pretty closely. Show lots of dysfunction! Cuss, Cuss, and Cuss! (I mean really Cuss! Try to embarrass Sailors!) Stay pissed OFF! Make sure tension always exist among the cast! Have Sex. Lots of Sex! (Try to make jungle animals BLUSH).

Winning combination, huh? Trust me. It's there. I will not recommend that anyone watch these shows. But Jersey Shore and the new hit series Buckwild on VH1 are stellar examples. As a matter of fact, those kids on Buckwild (set in the Appalachian Mountains) make Jersey Shore look like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

But Duck Dynasty? None of the above. No four letter words. No animosity. They are married. The adults are the adults and seem to make the decisions. The kids are the kids and respect their parents. (Am I the only one that's noticed that, with the exception of Cosby, the kids are ALWAYS smarter than the parents and the parents are made to look like TOTAL baffoons in all television entertainment!) They pray at the end of every show and this Willie character always concludes the episode with a lesson learned.

And America LOVES it! And about a thousand Americans were just walking around the parking lot of that Duck Call business when we drove up over there last Wednesday. It was totally unbelievable! Church vans, youth groups, young and old were crawling all over this warehouse parking lot. There are no tours. There is nothing really to see. A small gift shop is there. And everyone is leaving with a couple hundred dollars of merchandise! But the rest are just standing there, hoping maybe one of these rednecks will poke his head out the door and say hello!

And seemingly, these travellers have journeyed to a parking lot because they remember! They remember a simpler place in time. They remember when they sat around a table for dinner. They remember when the parents actually ran the household. They remember their crazy Uncle! (Duck Dynasty does have the crazy uncle) And you almost sense, when they leave without meeting anyone famous, that they grieve a little.....but their grief runs deeper than we can imagine!