The Duck Commander Family Part 16

3. Fry in hot peanut oil until brown. BOILED SQUIRREL

This is the best way to cook older squirrel (big ones)! 1 large, older squirrel

salt and pepper to taste

One 12-ounce can evaporated milk

1/2 stick of b.u.t.ter 1. Skin the squirrel, then cut in half.

2. Boil squirrel in water seasoned generously with salt and pepper for about 15 minutes.

3. Touch with fork to make sure it is tender, then take out squirrel from broth and add evaporated milk and b.u.t.ter. Allow to simmer while making your dumplings. DUMPLINGS

4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

5 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons Crisco, b.u.t.ter Flavor

2 cups b.u.t.termilk 1. Sift all dry ingredients.

2. Add Crisco and mix with a pastry blender.

3. Add b.u.t.termilk a little at a time, stirring the mixture until a soft ball forms (like the consistency of biscuit dough).

4. Lay out wax paper or a pastry sheet and sprinkle with flour.

5. Make dough into 4 b.a.l.l.s and use a rolling pin to roll each ball out flat and thin If dough is too sticky add more flour. Cut into squares with a knife.

6. Bring squirrel broth to a boil. Make sure there is enough in the pot to fill at least half the pot. If there is not, add more water.

7. Drop dumplings into boiling broth a handful at a time. When they are all in, turn down heat to low, put lid on pot, and let simmer for 15 minutes.

8. Get out a bowl, add some dumplings and squirrel, and enjoy!

CHAPTER 15

DUCK WRAPS

TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE, BECAUSE THEY HAVE A GOOD RETURN FOR THEIR LABOR: IF EITHER OF THEM FALLS DOWN, ONE CAN HELP THE OTHER UP. BUT PITY ANYONE WHO FALLS AND HAS NO ONE TO HELP THEM UP. ALSO, IF TWO LIE DOWN TOGETHER, THEY WILL KEEP WARM. BUT HOW CAN ONE KEEP WARM ALONE? THOUGH ONE MAY BE OVERPOWERED, TWO CAN DEFEND THEMSELVES. A CORD OF THREE STRANDS IS NOT QUICKLY BROKEN.

-ECCLESIASTES 4:912 Someone once said to Korie that as the CEO of Duck Commander, I'm not accountable to anyone. But in reality, I'm accountable to everyone. If the company doesn't make it, then we're all out of work. And since most of our employees are also our relatives and friends, it's a heck of a lot of pressure to carry every day. I know the decisions I make affect everyone in my family, from Phil and Kay to Alan, Jase, and Jep and their families, as well as Korie and our children. Phil and Kay trust me to do the job because they know I recognize the burden and know I take the responsibility of running the family business very seriously.

It means a lot to me that my dad started this whole thing. Phil launched Duck Commander and poured his heart and soul into it. It's his life's work. But I also think he would have never gotten the credit and recognition he deserved if we hadn't taken Duck Commander to another level. Changes had to be made, or Duck Commander would have suffered the same fate as a lot of other duck-call companies. Many of the guys who started out in the hunting industry when Phil launched Duck Commander in 1973 aren't around anymore. Several of them went through the same cycle: a father with a love for the outdoors starts a company, it has some success in the beginning, but if the next generation doesn't pick up the torch, and they just dwindle back down to where they first started, with a couple of guys making duck calls, or they fade away altogether. They still go to hunting shows, set up a little table, and sell their goods, but they haven't reached the success or had the longevity Duck Commander has. Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with setting up a table and selling your wares. In fact it reminds me of the old days for us. We were not big back then, but we had some good times at those hunting festivals.

When Korie and I took over the company, Phil told us that Duck Commander had begun to slide after its peak a few years earlier. Walmart sales were starting to go away and there was not a whole lot of traction in other stores, either. Buyers were starting to go to "full line" companies, which could sell them not only duck calls but also many other calls. It was harder and harder for companies who sold only one product to even get a sales meeting. Phil wasn't panicked or upset, he just felt that it was the life cycle of business and was proud of what he had accomplished up to that point. Duck Commander would have ended up being a very small business, probably only employing Phil, Kay, Jase, and Missy and maybe one other person, like it did in the early days. The ideas were getting fewer and fewer, the market was changing, Kay was stressed out, and Phil and Kay were just weary. I think Korie and I came at the right time and brought a lot of energy and excitement because we were young and had an entirely fresh look at it. Once the ball started rolling, other people became energized and the excitement was kind of contagious.

Every one of our employees at Duck Commander had an integral role in getting the company to where it is today. As I told you earlier, I'm a big baseball fan and Duck Commander is like a team. You have your flas.h.i.+er players, but you still need your utility men and middle relievers. You see people like Jase and Si on Duck Dynasty every week, but there are a lot of people doing really important jobs behind the scenes to make Duck Commander work.

When I took over, I was able to watch what was going on from afar and make some big changes, some that were popular and some that weren't. I had to fire some people and hired some people that others didn't think we needed. Everybody wanted to make more money than they were getting, and they thought they were probably going to get even less because we were bringing in additional people. One of the first hires I made that proved to be a really good one was Becky McDaniel, our accountant. After looking at Duck Commander's financial books, I realized Kay was spending about $35,000 a year on late fees, penalties, and finance charges. It wasn't Kay's fault; she was only trying to keep the company open when it was stretched to the max. Kay was doing the best she could and was simply overwhelmed. But in the end, hiring Becky was worth eliminating the monthly late fees and finance charges we'd been paying for so long. Becky has become an integral part of Duck Commander, doing much more than just accounting. She knows every part of the business and I can trust her to keep things rolling while Korie and I start new projects like making television shows.

Of course, it's never easy when you're related to most of your employees. You saw on the show what happened when I tried to put the guys through team-building exercises. They don't always listen to what I say or do what I want, but it's a lot more fun working with the people you care about the most. It also has its challenges. Like Uncle Si says, it's never a good family reunion when you start firing relatives.

LIKE UNCLE SI SAYS, IT'S NEVER A GOOD FAMILY REUNION WHEN YOU START FIRING RELATIVES.

My brother Jase is Phil's right-hand man in the blind and mine at Duck Commander. He went to seminary after high school, then worked for the church for a little while, but essentially came straight to work at Duck Commander. He loves ducks as much as Phil does and is the expert when it comes to duck calls. He takes what he does very seriously. He studies ducks and knows how to imitate their exact sounds. He doesn't settle for Duck Commander calls sounding okay. He wants them to be perfect. He'll spend the same amount of time tuning a call for a beginner duck caller who doesn't know what he's doing as he will for an expert caller who has been hunting for years. Making duck calls is one of his pa.s.sions, and he just loves doing it. I think he especially likes the camaraderie of all the guys sitting around blowing a little smoke between blowing the duck calls. He doesn't like the stress of things changing and being different. Sitting in a chair and doing the same thing every day would drive me absolutely crazy, but I think that's part of what Jase likes about his work. Korie: Jase lives right across the street from us, and he and his wife, Missy, have three kids: Reed, Cole, and Mia. Jase and Missy like to joke that our oldest son, John Luke, is like Kramer from Seinfeld. On nights when we're not cooking at our house, John Luke busts through their front door as soon as he sees the dining room light go on to join them for dinner. He seems to know exactly when Missy pulls the rolls out of the oven. Our baby girl, Bella, and their daughter, Mia, are great friends. We say Mia is like the ghost of our house. She appears in our house at all times. You'll turn around in your recliner, and she'll be standing there. As soon as we pull in the driveway, she's in our house, waiting to play with Bella. Our entire neighborhood is actually family. My parents are next door, along with four aunts and uncles and two grandparents. That's the absolute best thing about where we live. It's all about family. I'm really proud of my youngest brother, Jep, who has grown up and become a good man. Jep was always like a little tree in a big forest. He was the youngest Robertson son, and his older brothers never lacked confidence. And of course, Phil was bigger than life, so Jep always kind of grew up in our shadows. Jep came along at a different time, too. When he was born, my mom and dad finally had a little bit of money. You know how poor people are when they get their hands on money. Everything had to be the nicest and the best for Jep, so he had a much different experience growing up than the rest of us. He didn't have to work like we did when we were younger, and I think a lot of things were handed to him. I think Jep probably needed more guidance and didn't get it. He ended up a little wayward and was kind of just hanging around.

When I took over Duck Commander, Jep was working at the company but wasn't really super ambitious and wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life. Jep was my brother, so I was going to give him some breaks for sure, but I wasn't going to let him keep making the same mistakes and keep getting away with what he was doing. He was coming to work whenever he felt like it. I remember one time Jep was gone for like a month. Everybody thought that maybe he was out of town, but n.o.body knew for sure. I called Jep into my office when he finally came back to the warehouse. He was my brother, so I knew I couldn't fire him. But I couldn't allow Jep to keep making the same mistakes because it wasn't fair to our other employees and was bad for morale.

"Let me tell you something," I told him. "I ain't going to fire you. But what I am going to do is put a time clock in here. You're going to clock in and clock out every day. You're going to start out at your full salary. But if your time slip goes down, you're going to get less money. I'm not going to fire you, but if you're only making a thousand dollars per year, you're going to want to go work someplace else."

After a few months, Jep decided he wanted to go to work on the offsh.o.r.e oil rigs because he wanted to make more money. I thought it was maybe what Jep needed to do because he'd never worked anyplace other than Duck Commander. I thought maybe Jep needed to go find out what it was like to have a boss who wasn't part of his family.

"Hey, do what you've got to do, brother," I told him.

But the next day, I called Jep back into my office. "You've got to do what you've got to do," I told him again. "But let me tell you this: you're a stupid idiot if you leave this company. I'm fixin' to turn this thing around and you won't be here. You're going to miss out. Phil has four boys, and your last name is Robertson. There's an advantage you have in life just because you're Phil Robertson's son. You can take advantage of that working here, or you can go work in an oil field. They don't care what your last name is out there. You're going to lose every advantage you have in life and what Dad built for you. You're going to go trade it all for something like that?" I knew that if the dreams I had for our company came to fruition, I wanted Jep to be a part of it, and I couldn't just let him give it all up without saying something.

Fortunately, Jep didn't leave the company. We just had to find out what his talents were and take advantage of them. For a while, Jep decided that to make extra money he was going to start doing sales calls. I handed Jep a list of clients and told him to knock himself out. After two or three days, he came back into my office and said sales wasn't his cup of tea. But we found his gift. Jep has turned into an excellent cameraman. He shoots our Duckmen videos and does a lot of editing. Phil brags about how no one can capture ducks like Jep does. You have to be a hunter to do it, and Jep knows exactly how ducks fly and where he needs to be at all times to capture them on film. Plus, Jep isn't as outgoing as Jase and me, so he works well behind a camera. He loves to hunt but doesn't mind being a guy who sits and watches the action, and that's something Jase and I could never do. WE JUST HAD TO FIND OUT WHAT HIS TALENTS WERE AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM.

Plus, I really like hanging out with Jep. He and I share a love for cooking and coming up with new recipes. He's the brother I would always choose first to accompany me on a road trip for a hunt or business deal. He's quieter than the rest of us, but his sense of humor is epic, and he is an awesome deer hunter. He accompanies me on many trips for deer and gets everything set up for me. I guess I have kind of prided myself on seeing value in people, no matter how big or small. When people are more outspoken about their talents, anyone can see the value, but for others you have to help them along to really unleash their potential. And, hey, life is too short to spend it with boring people. Jep and I have the same spirit of adventure. When we travel, Jase and Phil will just sit in their rooms, eat some ham and cheese, and do nothing. Jep and I always need to kick it up a notch.

Once on a duck-hunting road trip in California, Jase, Phil, Si, and the rest of the crew were gonna stay in this nasty little house with no TV and eat ham sandwiches every day. Jep and I refused and went to a casino to get a room. The best part was the casino had only one room left, and it was a suite and was the nicest one in the joint. The bad news was it was only available for one night. We took it. I went down to play a little poker to see if I could win enough money to pay for the room. Well, that didn't go like I planned. When I got back to the room, Jep was sitting in the oversized bathtub that was right in the middle of the main room, watching TV. We laughed so hard because we had never seen a bathtub in a living room before. We sat up half the night laughing about the other guys in that awful house while we lived it up. When they kicked us out the next day, we had to go find another place, and it was the worst motel I have ever stayed at in my life. The owners lived in the room behind the front desk. When I went to get ice, one of their kids got it out of their personal fridge. We went from the penthouse to the outhouse, but it sure beat sleeping on the floor at a c.r.a.ppy house with no TV. That's why I love running with Jep. When I feel like doing something crazy, he asks no questions and just says, "I'm in." Korie: Jep and Jessica have four precious kids. They had three girls, Lily, Merritt, and Priscilla, then Jep had the boy he was hoping for, River. Bella and the girls love to play together. Mamaw Kay has the little girls spend the night together often and they have the best time, playing school, restaurant, or whatever. I think no matter how old our daughters get, we'll still call them the "little girls." And River is so cute with our Will. He looks up to him and thinks he's the best big cousin, and Will lets him play with all of his big-boy toys.

AFTER HIGH SCHOOL, ALAN MOVED TO NEW ORLEANS AND FOUND SOME TROUBLE.

My oldest brother, Alan, only recently started working for Duck Commander. After high school, Alan moved to New Orleans and found some trouble. A guy beat him up with a crowbar and messed him up pretty badly. He moved back to Monroe and worked for Duck Commander for a few years. Kay and Phil always talk about how important Al was to the early years of Duck Commander. He and his wife, Lisa, lived in a little house right beside Phil and Kay's that later became the Duck Commander office for a while. Al and Lisa both worked for Duck Commander and helped to get it off the ground. Al eventually decided to go to seminary school and started working for a local church. Alan has been an incredible preacher for our church for nearly twenty-five years. He's still preaching and teaching now when he can, but it's great to have him back in the family business. When we started growing exponentially when Duck Dynasty came along, Korie and I started thinking about who we would need to hire to help us navigate the next steps and Alan was the only one who came to mind. We knew he was the missing piece to the puzzle. It's great to have all the brothers working at Duck Commander once again!

Alan's oldest daughter, Anna, has been working with us since she was in high school. After she graduated, she started working full-time and helps in s.h.i.+pping. Her husband, Jay, was a teacher and coach at a high school and up until this year he only worked for us in the summer. But we became so busy that we needed more guys who could build calls. Jay is a good hunter and has a knack for putting the calls together. If you have that skill and are kin, you got a good chance of being a Duck Commander employee. Korie: I always say that what's worked well between the Robertson brothers is that none of them wants to do what another brother is doing, nor do they think they can do what another one is doing. There's no way Willie could do what Jase does. Willie doesn't have the patience to sit in a chair every day. It's not his personality. Willie couldn't do what Jep does, either. Likewise, Jase doesn't want the responsibility that Willie has because he wants to spend a lot of time hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. He doesn't want to travel all the time going to the business meetings like Willie does. They all value each other's talent, and they each have their own special skills. Willie uses the team a.n.a.logy, but I think of it like a band. If you take out one of the instruments, the song just doesn't sound as good. Everyone has their roles and they are all equally valuable. Thankfully each one really respects the others' roles in the group. Otherwise, working together would not be fun. I think what Willie brought to the family business was energy, innovation, direction, and motivation, which are attributes that a leader has to have. But Willie knows he couldn't have gotten Duck Commander to where it is today without his parents, brothers, and everyone else working for the company. A good band doesn't just consist of the lead singer. Of course, Phil's brother, Si, has been working with us forever. Si served in the army for twenty-four years, including a stint in Vietnam. When Si retired from the army, he started putting reeds together for the calls. One of the first things I did when I took over Duck Commander was to look at our efficiency and our workload to see where I could eliminate waste. I found out Si was taking naps every day on Kay's couch! I went to Phil and told him it was a problem. I FOUND OUT SI WAS TAKING NAPS EVERY DAY ON KAY'S COUCH!

"Look, I know he's your brother and he's my uncle, but he's not the kind of worker we need to have," I told Phil, while trying to make a good first impression.

I was trying to instill a new work ethic and culture in Duck Commander, and I couldn't have Si sleeping on the job!

"Don't touch Si," Phil told me. "You leave him alone. He's making reeds and that's the hardest thing we do. Si is the only guy who wants to do it, and he's good at it. Si is fine."

Amazingly enough, in the ten years I've been running Duck Commander, we've never once run out of reeds. Six years ago, Si suffered a heart attack. He smoked cigarettes for almost forty years and then quit after his heart attack, so we were all so proud of him. Even before his heart attack, I wasn't sure about putting Si on our DVDs because I thought he would just come across too crazy. He cracked us up in the duck blind and we all loved him, but I told Jep and the other camera guys to film around him. Honestly, I didn't think anyone would understand what he was saying. When we finally tried to put him on the DVDs, he clammed up in front of the camera and looked like a frog in a cartoon just sitting there. He wouldn't perform. Finally, we put a hidden camera under a s.h.i.+rt on Si's desk. We were near the end of editing a DVD and showed a shooting scene to Si. He always takes credit for shooting more ducks than he really did. He's said before that he killed three ducks with one shot! We were watching the patterns. .h.i.tting the water, and Si started claiming the ducks like he always does and going off on one of his long tangents. After we recorded him, we ran the DVD back and showed it to him. I think Si saw that he was actually pretty funny and entertaining if he acted like himself. We started putting Si on the DVDs and he got more and more popular. Now he's the star of Duck Dynasty!

Even though Si still takes long naps every day, he's making up for it on our DVDs. The naps don't bother me as much anymore, either, because I usually get back one-third of his paycheck in our Friday-night poker games. We begged Si to play poker with us for a long time, but he would never play because he said he loved it too much. Once Si finally showed up at our game, he never stopped coming. I guess he really does love poker that much. His wife, Christine, loves the fact that Si is getting out more and she's so proud of him. Si has one daughter, Trasa, and a son, Scott. After his heart attack, he decided he was going to start having a lot more fun and saw the bigger picture. In all the years Si has worked for us, never once has he ever really complained. He'll go off on his little tangents, but he's never come to me with a real gripe or a complaint. Phil has often said that Si is one of the best men he's ever seen. He's right; Si is as good as gold.

Some of my best friends work for us, too. Justin Martin, or Martin as we call him, played football at West Monroe High School. I pick on him, joking that he's the only man I know who looks dumb but is really smart and looks old but is really young. If you've seen him on the show, you know exactly what I'm talking about. He only lacks his thesis to complete a master's degree in wildlife biology, and he had a full scholars.h.i.+p to college. Martin is actually the only employee we have who ever worked in a sporting goods store that sold hunting products. He understands compet.i.tive pricing and inventory. I met Martin when he came to play poker at our house one Friday night. While on summer break from college, Martin was looking for some work. I was going out of town the next week, but I told him to come in and start calling sporting goods stores. About three days later, I received an e-mail from The guy already had a Duck Commander e-mail with his name on it! I really thought he was only going to be with us for a few days and then go back to what he was doing. I never really hired him; he just ended up staying. But Martin is an excellent hunter-which gave him an advantage-and he knows all about animals. Martin will do anything for you, and he is my liaison in the blind. I'll give him new products that companies want us to try out, and he'll come back to me with everyone's feedback. Most important, Martin learned how to make our duck calls, which made him invaluable. Plus, he's another guy I enjoy hanging out with, and what's it all worth if you can't work with people you like? I NEVER REALLY HIRED MARTIN; HE JUST ENDED UP STAYING.

John G.o.dwin also works with Jase, Jep, and Martin in the duck-call a.s.sembly room. G.o.dwin used to be in the rodeo and worked the graveyard s.h.i.+ft at the local paper mill, which is the lifeblood of West Monroe. G.o.dwin worked at the mill for sixteen years before he started working with us. John started going to Bible study at Phil's house and hung around long enough to get a job with Duck Commander. John is a big hunter and knows about calls. Phil has more than forty duck blinds on his property, and G.o.dwin is the guy who sets up and organizes the decoys and makes sure everything is working properly. He's also Mr. Fix-It and can fix about anything, from the four-wheelers to the RV. But John is also smart enough to put in the accounting to Walmart and has overseen our s.h.i.+pping department for years. John and his wife, Paula, have been best friends with my oldest brother, Alan, and his wife, Lisa, for years. He's got a great att.i.tude and is an overall great guy.