The Duck Commander Family (26 page)

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A
WIFE OF NOBLE CHARACTER WHO CAN FIND?
S
HE IS WORTH FAR MORE THAN RUBIES.
H
ER HUSBAND HAS FULL CONFIDENCE IN HER AND LACKS NOTHING OF VALUE
 . . . H
ER CHILDREN ARISE AND CALL HER BLESSED; HER HUSBAND ALSO, AND HE PRAISES HER
.

—P
ROVERBS
31:10–11, 28

B
efore Korie and I started running Duck Commander, everything happened at Phil and Kay’s house. That’s where all of the duck-call manufacturing, packaging, shipping, and billing took place. Every Duck Commander employee worked at Phil and Kay’s house, which is a pretty good ways out of town and not the ideal working situation. They are too far out of town to get regular cable or Internet service, so everything was on satellite. Every time it rained
hard we would lose service. We’d be waiting on a big order and the lights would go out. Plus, the “offices” were only old buildings and old trailers that were pieced together as the company grew. About six years ago, Korie and I moved to a new house and relocated most of Duck Commander’s business operations to our old house. We ran the website and did all of the clerical work there. The manufacturing was still taking place at Phil’s house because that’s where the machinery was located. But in the winter of 2008, the Ouachita River flooded its banks, and the water slowly made its way up to my parents’ house.

I can still remember asking Phil how he was going to ship orders if his property flooded.

“Well, I guess we’ll put them on a boat,” Phil told me, with a scary sense of seriousness in his voice.

It was right in the middle of duck-hunting season, and Duck Commander was very busy. We couldn’t afford to take a chance on my parents’ house flooding, along with all of the duck calls that were being made down there. If there were any delays in our manufacturing or shipping, it would cost us a lot of money. So Korie and I purchased a warehouse from her father, Johnny. Duck Commander’s employees were excited about working at the new warehouse because most of them lived in town and their drive wasn’t going to be nearly as far. But they were also a little sad about leaving my parents’ house because Kay had been cooking them lunch every workday for nearly four decades.

When Duck Commander was working out of Phil and Kay’s
house, it was a very casual work atmosphere. Kay would cook a big meal for lunch every day, and they would all eat and then most of the employees would take a nap. Then they’d all sit around and talk. Eventually, they would get back to working. But if somebody got a hankering to go fishing, everybody just went fishing. I think moving to our old house was a good transition before moving it all to a warehouse in town. If we had gone straight to a big warehouse, everyone would have had a hard time adjusting. We’ve always strived to keep that family atmosphere that Kay and Phil started, while finding ways to become more efficient and productive. I think we’ve achieved that. If you ask around our offices, people will tell you that they actually like coming to work. It’s a fun environment with people who love each other, have interesting personalities, and enjoy what they do. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Kay was a little relieved to get everybody out of her kitchen and out of her house, but I think she felt a little sadness, too. She and Phil were so used to having so many people around the house all the time. They were kind of like, “Wait a minute. What are we going to do now?” Now Kay brings her grandkids down to the house and plans outings and fun things for them. And, of course, if Phil or Jase runs the nets and catches a big mess of catfish, all work stops at the warehouse while everyone heads down to Phil and Kay’s for an impromptu fish fry. Kay still enjoys cooking for anyone who drops by, and the
whole family joins in for dinner often. Kay’s not getting off that easy!

At everyone’s birthdays, Kay will cook the birthday girl or boy her or his favorite meal. Some of the meals that people always want Kay to cook are the ones she made when I was younger, like hot-water cornbread, dumplings, and fried squirrels. Those are still some of my favorites, too, and they always take me back to my childhood when I eat them. When I was little, we didn’t have much money to buy groceries, so Kay made meals that were inexpensive and didn’t require a lot of ingredients. She could make a meal for Phil and her four growing boys with about five bucks’ worth of food, and there would usually be seconds for all of us.

Kay makes hot-water cornbread with cornmeal, salt, sugar, boiling water, and oil. Her cornbread is an old-fashioned recipe; she fries the cornbread cakes, rather than baking them, and they’re delicious. Kay’s dumplings involve simple ingredients as well (all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, Crisco, and buttermilk), and the only things she needs to make fried squirrels are flour, seasoning, and oil. Of course, the squirrels are free and you can eat as many as you can shoot. You know what Kay says about squirrel brains—they make you smart! I guess Jase never ate enough of them when we were younger.

As you might guess, Kay takes quite a bit of pride in her cooking, and everyone brags about her food. But the Robertson men are not easy on her when she messes a meal up. Phil says the best way to ensure someone will continue to be a bad
cook is to brag on bad cooking. That will never happen in the Robertson house.

A Robertson family tradition is eating seafood for Christmas dinner, and it’s usually better than you could get at any five-star restaurant. But at our Christmas dinner in 1998, Kay fried the shrimp for way too long. Kay and Phil’s shrimp are usually fried lightly, but not these; they were dark brown and tasted like rubber.

“Whoa, Kay, what happened, did you forget how to cook?” I asked her.

Phil was even more critical, but it was all in good fun.

“Don’t you know you’re only supposed to cook shrimp for three minutes?” Phil asked her. “These are terrible. I wouldn’t even put them in my crawfish nets.”

At every Christmas dinner since, we always ask Kay if she’s going to serve overcooked shrimp and everyone has a good laugh at Kay’s expense. She doesn’t mind; she can dish it up as good as she can take it.

Korie:
I ate those shrimp and thought they were delicious. But in the Robertson family you can’t get away with anything. I think I burned the bread like once and Willie loves to joke that you know when dinner’s ready at our house when you hear me scraping the bread! They’re a tough crowd in the kitchen, but it’s all in good fun. I tell people you have to have healthy self-esteem to be married to a Robertson.

Kay lived in a house full of Robertson boys and men, and I’m still not sure how she survived. There were Phil, me, and my three brothers, and there were usually a couple of our friends hanging around. But Kay has a lot of patience and has always been very funny—I think that’s where I get my sense of humor—and she has a mechanism for turning anything into fun. I’m not sure Phil has ever really understood her humor. Jase and Phil are a lot more serious and have a much more dry sense of humor, so Kay and I are always making fun of them and have our inside jokes about them. Sometimes, Kay and I will be in the kitchen laughing together, and Phil will walk in and tell us we’re being too noisy. He’ll be trying to watch the late news and will say, “Hey,
Saturday Night Live
is over.” Every time Phil walks out of the room, I’ll make a face at him, almost behind his back. Phil says he doesn’t even know how to laugh, while Kay is always jovial and constantly has a big smile on her face. You know what they say about how opposites attract.

Korie:
The thing that has impressed me most about Kay is that she really rarely gets truly aggravated or mad at Phil and the boys. She knows how to not sweat the small stuff. She’s been through a lot in her and Phil’s marriage, and I think it taught her that most things are really not worth getting mad at. She has a really fun side to her. Willie and Jep are always putting food down her back, grabbing her from behind, or throwing something into her hair, and I’m sure it got pretty old about twenty years ago. At some point, most people would
be like, “Okay, enough already.” But Kay laughs every time. She doesn’t take herself very seriously, which I think is one of the most important qualities for enjoying life and one I have made sure to try to pass on to our children.

One of the reasons Kay laughs so much now is because in the beginning, when Phil was drinking and they didn’t have much money, there wasn’t a lot of laughing going on. But now we laugh at almost everything together. On our birthdays, Kay likes to send us very random cards, like Earth Day or graduation cards. Her favorite thing to do at Christmas is to give us gag gifts. After we’ve exchanged gifts as a family, she’ll give everybody a joke gift. Kay will often forget why she thought it was funny when she bought it. She’ll give someone salt and pepper shakers and won’t even remember why she gave them!

Of course, Kay’s gifts always say they’re from her dogs. If you get a present from her rat terriers—or some random famous person whose name is on the tag—you know it’s actually one of Kay’s gag gifts. Every one of Kay’s rat terriers has been named Jesse James or some version of his name, because if one dies she’ll still have another one with her. Somehow, that helps her cope with the trauma of losing one of her pets. She’s had like twenty of those dogs and they’ve all been named Jesse, JJ, or Jesse James II. She calls one of her dogs Bo-Bo, but his real name is Jesse James.