The Duck fought the law and the Duck won!

7/29/2019 The Duck fought the law and the Duck won!

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The DUCK FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE

DUCK WON!

By: John Hampton

Currently, America is having firearm fever. They

are in love with that hard metal killing machine, asif we were being invaded by Martians daily.

Everybody who seems to watching Fox news is

worried that the Government is going to take theirguns. For some strange reason, some Americansthink that we all inhabit the wild west. Although,

the Wild West was based on myth made inHollywood to sell tickets and keep Italian Indians

employed. We cling to this myth like it was aHollywood Starlet.


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As American we were sold a load of crap.

The movies promoted heroes with guns and had

everybody carrying a piece even when they took a

shit or went to bed. You have to wonder how many

idiots rolled over in bed and shot themselves or

how many gun-totting drunks went into the toilet

and forget to unload their pistol before taking a

leek. Imagine the guy who is pissing, and his gunfalls out the hostler and blows off his nuts.

Today, the myth of having a gun at all times is

making a big comeback, even though the old timers

of the West didn't actually carry guns everywhere.


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Actually, in the old west, such as Tombstone they

seemed more sensible about carrying a piece

around.Ordinance No.9:

To Provide against Carrying of Deadly Weapons

(effective April 19, 1881).Section 1. It is hereby declared to be unlawful for

any person to carry deadly weapons, concealed or

otherwise [except the same be carried openly in

sight, and in the hand] within the limits of the City

of Tombstone.Section 2: This prohibition does not extend to

persons immediately leaving or entering the city,

who, with good faith, and within reasonable time

are proceeding to deposit, or take from the place of

deposit such deadly weapon.Section 3: All fire-arms of every description, and

bowie knives and dirks, are included within the

prohibition of this ordinance.


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My town didn't post such a warning, but in thefuture it may be necessary, but back when I was a

kid in the 1960s guns were not seen or touted, until

one strange day.

I didn't live in Tombstone, but in the plain

Vanilla Midwest town of Mt. Prospect. Ironically,

labeled on entrance to our town, the dirty lie:Where friendliness is a way of life.

Even though I was seven, at the time, this town

motto myth had already been put to rest. Ironically,nobody really was that friendly, but they also didn't

have any firearms on my block.

Nobody at the time had any real guns on my

block, with the exclusion of kid guns, cap guns,

plastic guns. Maybe somebody had a gun, but we

never saw them until that weird spring day.


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The block itself consists of brick starter homes,

which are solidly built, cramped and aesthetically

ugly. Therefore, families would move in, and they

try to move up to a better side of town or out of the

town all together.

Some houses sold quite often, and a spate of new

neighbors arrived then would leave in about a year

or two without leaving a sign they had even been

here.

It was the third house from mine that already was

on its second family. A sheriff's car pulled in, and afamily got out. It was not normal for us, since

nobody on the block had previously been an

official or with law enforcement. They did not

speak a word and just entered their new house. I

was a little nervous, as neighbors can make

your life hell. The boy was older, taller and bigger

than me, so I said a little pray not to get a crazed

bully as a neighbor.


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Not a bully, Jesus, please not like at school.For once, give me a break.

There is a myth that people of this era were nicer

and more social. They were not,but because we

were bored there were more personal interactions.

It would take the advent of the personal computer

and iphone to turn personal interaction into

mystery, and it would take a social network to

change the dirty old guy in the raincoat exposing

himself in person to a new creepy typing away tostrangers and then showing naked pictures of

himself with a device called a web-cam.


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However, people were always weird even back

then. During the 1960s, people were ensconced in

their own tribe's safety. Meaning there was

mingling, but with conditions of class, religion and

status among the neighbors being blindly followed.

During this time, we kids would be outside,

farting about with baseball, kick the can, capture

the flag. Our world was a block with a park, our

suburban lawns and our houses.

GET OFF, my grass! Colonel Hazelton was

shouting his mantra about kids stayingoff his precious lawn.

We worried that he had a gun, but most likely his

civil war collection that hopefully had rusted shut.


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Being a only child, I played in my backyard if

there were no games going on in the neighbor kids'

yard or in our park. I would catch butterflies and

watch whatever small mammals entered my yard.

For some strange reason, I caught quite a few

butterflies, monarchs, the cabbage type ordinary

white or yellow, or even the rare swallowtail. I

would just release them.

One day, I accidentally discovered that whenremoving their powder off their wings they would

stay on my shirt like jewelry. The neighbor girls

were amazed and thought I had secret powers. For

a short time, I was Dr. Doolittle or even a little like

Jesus for this exploits.


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My family liked animal, but only had a fat house

cat. Nobody that I knew were wildlife experts in

the family or hunters.In my burbs, there was no big version of wildlife

like coyotes, foxes. My backyard only contained

just smaller mammals: Rabbits, squirrels, ordinary

birds like sparrows, crows, cardinals was the extent

of my wildlife viewing.

However, weirdly like a future cable TV show

featuring hillbillies making a calling mechanism for

attracting water fowl this image now magically

appeared in front my tiny brain and eyes; one

Mallard duck.It was a nice spring day, and we had just finished

a game of capture the flag. We were walking back

to our houses. My house is directly across from our

Park and the Talas house.

Hey, Look there is a duck in John's front yard.

Jimmy Talas points to my yard and we all run up

to the duck. The duck just sat there.

This is weird the bird didn't move an inch.


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Most birds fly away, when approached?

We circled around the Duck who just sat there.

He quacked once and then just sat there.

Kids now started petting the Duck, who looked

tired and sick. Although, I am no Duck expert, this

wild duck is a mallard. It just sat there still but

alive. There was no lake or river near by, so this

was very strange. Our gathering caused the then

noisy mother patrol to notice are strange behavior.

A motherly scream could be heard. Get away

from that duck.

The shout was clearly distantly one Betty

McNabster, a horrid fat version of one pissed off

Betty Davis in that movie Whatever happened to

Baby Jane. This woman did not need a weapon

just her personality made people run and hide.


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Now ever more Mothers screamed along with

some Moms showing up to investigate. The crowdwas watching with rapt attention at the duck.

Some Mothers had compassion and now started

worrying about the Duck.

Oh, that poor thing, he doesn't move.

Don't touch, it may be carrying diseases.

Nobody had a solution for the Duck problem,

until the new neighbor showed up. The Sheriff.

His official Sheriff car pulled into his driveway at

3:00 pm. The sun was setting and I imagined wewere now in the old west, but didn't know that I

was going to witness something from the Buffalo

Bill's wild west show. Until this day the Sheriff had

been more silent than Gary Cooper, whose dialogue

was just Yep.

As a new neighbor, the Sheriff hadn't even

bothered to introduce himself, but with the crowd

gathered we had got his interest. I was assuming


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he thought a crowd meant no good. He strode up to

us, with his mirrored sun glasses on, just like the

Prison Guard in Cool Hand Luke. This was my first

look into how a lawman worked.Except my Father was pulled over for a speeding

ticket; we had never been this close to a law man.

At this point, most kids and some adults didn't

know what that meant. However, if you had

farmers in your family or watched enough cowboy

movies, they shoot the animal that is suffering.I looked down at the duck and knew what the

Sheriff meant. He is going to shoot the

duck.

I thought that this was extreme, but as a kid, I

kept my mouth shut. The hippie anti-cop trend did

not start yet. We were taught to obey, any sort of

uniformed schmuck.

STAND BACK, WHILE I PUT THIS DUCK


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DOWN!

Back up, stay back. The Sheriff commanded.

We did as we were told.

The Sheriff took his pistol out of the holster,

slowly and with deadly intent.

Some looked away; others like myself kept on

watching, feeling a tad guilty and squeamish.Beads of sweat formed on his brow, and then

he squinted like one those TV sheriffs and pulled

the trigger. The bang shocked the crowd. There

were gasps, and some kids said. WOO COOL!

We all then looked down, and the duck was still

alive, in fact; he didn't even get

nicked by the shot. The duck, just quacked once but

didn't move.


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The sheriff now looked and muttered some

obscenity, then tried again. Now he was

holding the 38 revolver closer toward the duck. Heaimed once more, with a grimace on his face that

he wanted this law-breaking duck dead.

He fired again. The bang went off, and once

again; he missed. SHIT! The sheriff

said.

Mother's in the crowd gave him a dirty look for the

swear word. Now, he orderedeverybody back into their homes.

Some of the kids started laughing, while worried

mothers didn't want to get this Sheriff mad at them.

You never know what a rogue officer of the law

might do to you.

Drudging back, I watched as the Cop seemed to

be getting totally unhinged and pissed off. He knew


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he looked like a dufus. Especially, when little kids

were laughing as they left for home.

HA, HE COULDN'T EVEN HIT THE DUCKFROM SIX INCHES.

The truth confronted him and shriveled his

manhood. I was now in the living room

with my Mother and Granny, watching as the Cop

went full on crazed version of Barney

Fife, also a TV version of an incompetent lawman.

The Sheriff red in the face took his pistol aimedand fired. But now he kept firing, one more shot

and then a next. He had pulled the trigger four

more times, now he was out of bullets.

The duck unfazed survived. Not a feather out of

place, but my lawn now had six bullet holes in it.

Just as the Sheriff was cussing and reloading my

Father pulled into our driveway. Dad seemed

shocked to see the Sheriff, most likely I had done


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something incredible bad this time. This could have

been my second arrest, as I and my gang the Tallas

kids did get arrested for blowing through a stop

sign on our bikes. The Mt. Prospect Cop actuallygave us all tickets. This ticket got me a wasted

Saturday watching a bike safety movie at the police

station.

My Father slowly got out of the car and looked

at the Sheriff, as he was reloading his 38 revolver.

Dad looked at the Sheriff and was now trying to

figure out why this guy was loading a pistol on our

front yard. Excuse me, Sheriff, but what are youdoing with the gun.

The Sheriff already pissed off, glared at my

Father. I am trying to put this Duck down.

He then pointed to the Duck who remained sitting

there as still as the Buddha.

My Father was aware of firearms and their

uses, as he had been a Marine in World War II, so it


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wasn't strange what he did next. But it truly pissed

off the Sheriff.

The Sheriff had finished reloading the pistol, when

my Father bent down and picked up the duck.

My Dad looked on, as the Sheriff almost blew off

real steam. The Sheriff was here an hour trying to

kill the Duck.

You CAN'T DO THAT SIR! THIS DUCK HAS

TO BE PUT DOWN!

My Father then solved the duck problem with

a belief in science. Sheriff, I am taking the Duck

to the local Vet and see what can

be done. Don't you worry a bit, Thank you, officer


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and have a good night?"

Dad carried the duck into the garage and

grabbed an old grocery box and put the

duck in his new carrying case. He then came to

kitchen and informed us that he was taking the

duck to the vet.

Granny who lived with us chimed in with a

laugh, bring him in here, and we can

have duck for dinner.

Well, Granny. Since the duck fought the law, I

think we should give him one more fighting

chance. Dad said this with a chuckle and then

drove off with a boxed up duck.

So there you have it the Duck Fought The Law, and


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the Duck won.

The duck survived after the trip to the vet, but

mostly likely flew south. Asfor its future, who knows it could have been

gunned down by one of those future TV

stars: Those members of the Duck Dynasty, those

millionaire hill folks.

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The Duck fought the law and the Duck won!