Season One · Episode Four
The Duck Call Convention
Another mostly true story. Three hundred grown men blowing on whistles, and the ducks still came. That's the truest part, so I put it first.
A 45-minute ride
Chapter One: Getting Seen
Frankie'd been after me since Christmas about the ducks.
Y'all know the ducks. Papaw Ferd Tatum carved decoys at the Whistle landing his whole life and sold them off a tailgate for two dollars, and he died when I was five, and the family's got four of his birds left — three that never left us, plus the mallard hen that went to Sweetbay for fifty-eight years and came home the night an old woman handed her to me in front of three hundred dinner jackets, and if you don't know that story I don't know what to tell you, it's the first one on the shelf, go on, we'll wait.
The hen lives at Dewey's, behind the counter, NOT FOR SALE, ASK US WHY. The other three are spread through the family like outposts: a pintail drake at my mama's, up on the shelf where a TV should go and don't. A little green-wing teal at Mamaw Pearl's, setting on the doily like it might get cold. And a canvasback that stays with me, and I check him like other people check the weather, y'all know this about me, it's in the file.
Letters first
The rest rides by letter
Episodes Two through Five are for the letter folks. Put your address on the route and The Duck Call Convention opens right here, right now. Already on the route? Same box — it'll know you.
One letter per story. No spam — promised on Mamaw Pearl's pie crust.