Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl
Page 19
One of my good friends, Randy Kirby, told me one time that you should wake up every morning thinking about the cross, because it gives you the ability to start over again and forgive others. And then you should go to bed every night thinking about the resurrection, because no matter what happens in the end, you have hope of living again. The part in between is where God uses us to represent Him on earth. Christ has forgiven our past and secured our future, which enables us to make the most of the present opportunities to bring others to Christ.
I make duck calls, but I represent my Maker through what I do to make a living. I’ve always said that if He can use me, He can use anybody to make known the good news of His Son.
Is there hunting in heaven? I say, “Let’s go have breakfast.” Of course, the menu wouldn’t matter to me, but I would gladly volunteer to obtain 153 fish or even heavenly ducks. I yearn to see my close friends Angel Gist and Charlie Murray, my grandparents, and many members of my family and friends who have passed from this life. It is always sad to lose those you are close to on this earth, and I will have to continue to deal with it unless I go next.
I remember hearing Mr. McGuiggan relate what he deemed a curious story with a powerful message. He told the story of a young boy struggling with worry and grief because he had lost a loved one. The boy had a dream in which he met a flower, to which he declared, “I am scared to die.” The flower responded, “I am not, because even though I’m here for only a short time, I will come back next spring more beautiful than before.” The boy came across a caterpillar and exclaimed, “I am scared to die!” The caterpillar replied, “I am not, because I shall be transformed into a beautiful butterfly.” At last the little boy approached an angel and shouted, “I am scared to die!” The angel retorted, “You are dead!” The thing he feared the most had already happened, and he wasn’t even aware of it.
I truly believe the resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees those who trust Him eternal life free from pain, discomfort, and death. In the end we will win. Whether we are alive or dead when Jesus returns, we have nothing to worry about. First Thessalonians 4:13–18 describes our final journey, and Paul gives the reason we don’t grieve as those without hope: “We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him . . . We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
I’m going to enjoy the journey on earth with those around me. As far as what heaven will be like, I’m going to roll with my dad on that one. I hope heaven consists of no concrete, meals together around the table, and no game wardens!
A clean-shaven Phil from the mid-1970s, right after our family moved to the river. Phil made that old wooden boat himself.
Since I come from a family that doesn’t take a lot of pictures, this is the earliest photo of me (1972) that I know of. Showing Alan, me, Miss Kay, and Phil.
Me around first or second grade. I had just learned how to use a comb and was so proud of my hair.
At my birthday party. That’s my granny in the background and me looking at the camera as I stuff my face with cake—though Willie is the champion cake eater now. He’s the other one stuffing his face.
A flood hit West Monroe around 1979, so naturally we took the opportunity to go fishing right up under my grandmother’s house. Of course, we had no adult supervision. That’s me standing up; Willie’s in the middle next to one of our neighborhood friends.
My football picture from the fifth or sixth grade. I was on the community team and never showed up for practice because I never could catch a ride, but they let me play in the games because I was the fastest.
Me in about the seventh grade at Pinecrest Middle School. I was the shortest kid on the basketball team, so I worked to excel at the long-range shots—hey, it worked!
Here I am with my cousin playing dominoes. Well, I wasn’t actually playing, but my cousin was placing the dominoes down too gently. I had to jump in and show him the proper domino-slamming technique.
Taking a ride in the cool green Jeep. That’s me in the back with a random couple. Phil was driving, and Miss Kay held Jep in her lap, with Willie beside her.
Jep and I with our dog Gabe—my best buddy. When Gabe was older, he saved Jep’s life when Jep wandered out too deep in the river. I was about eleven years old when I caught this giant catfish.
Me out by the cook shack in front of Phil’s place. We actually cooked things out there—we had a fish fryer, a grill, and a smoker. Out in front you see a bunch of decoys, and I’m picking a duck.
Me as an intern at White’s Ferry Road Church right after high school. This was one of those self-discovery times in my life, and I quickly discovered I didn’t want to be cooped up in an office.
The guys out on an air boat in the winter of 1987. That’s me in the middle with the Mickey Mouse ears. This is a rare photo of Alan (right) with a beard and me without one. I was still courting Missy, so I kept my face clean for her. But that soon changed.
I had proposed to Missy not too long before this photo was taken. She was a senior in high school and I was twenty. I had my best handsome-dude face on to impress my girl.
I walked up the aisle with a smirk on my face, dreaming about the honeymoon. Missy seems pretty happy about what was coming, too.
Me and my dapper-looking groomsmen. (Back row, left to right) My good friend W. E. Phillips; my frog-hunting partner in crime Mike Williams; me—the man of the hour; my good friend Rovance Lewis; the first guy I converted to Christ, Blake Gaston; Al on his knee, sporting a mullet. (Front row, left to right) A young Jep; Missy’s cousin Chris; and Willie, doing his best to look debonair.
This is Missy in our second year of marriage and the beginnings of our Robertson family tradition of annual vacations together. Missy had to learn early on that if she was going to be married to an outdoors guy like me, alligators would be a part of her life. I was in the pond hunting for frogs.
This was a typical scene in 1996 after we bought our first house on Swiss Street, as we shared together in Bible study.
I was actually Duck Commander’s first paid employee. Here I am looking less than happy, happy, happy because I was overworked and underpaid. I needed more help!
In the early days (around 2004), the Duck Commander business and workshop was at Phil’s place. We’ve always tested every call we make—even from the start—and I always prided myself on my organizational skills. You can see the insulation on the wall next to me—we never did finish the place out. Years later, Miss Kay turned this building into a playhouse for the grandchildren—pretty cool.
Christmas morning, early 1990s, and fresh from the hunt. Phil and I are peeling shrimp in the kitchen and preparing to make crawfish pie.
At Gulf Shores, Alabama, the redneck beach, in 2005, with me looking kind of studly. We’d just finished hunting season, and it was a tradition back then to shave our beards every year once we got to the beach.
Here’s a first picture of me as a dad with Reed right after he was born. I must have been thinking, “Well, I’m a father now. I sure did enjoy the process, but I’m now learning the reality of what comes after.”
My little guy Reed, around age four or five, caught his first fish at a family outing at Camp Ch-Yo-Ca—a Christian camp outside West Monroe.
Reed with his first duck and the BB gun he used to shoot it. A proud little guy.
Reed and I were out scouting for ducks when I bagged this eight-point.
In Louisiana parents have to teach their children how to “read” alligators. Here Reed, age eleven, showed us what not to do.
Our Gulf Shores family photo, summer 2004. Holidays and Gulf Shores are the only times I cooperate with organized photos. The Robertsons have been going to this beach for more than twenty years now.
In 2007 down at Gulf Shores, Alabama, we learned to fish for red fish. When I asked four-year-old Mia what she wa
s thinking in this photo, she said, “Oh brother! That fish is bigger than me!”
The next day I caught this near record-breaking red fish. He weighed around thirty-five to forty pounds.
This is what happens when the mother of your children is a yuppie—posed pictures. Mia, Reed, and Cole had to put up with it but not me. I had to apologize to the kids for the setup.
Here’s my Mia with her cute smile after one of her surgeries in the summer of 2009 at a school event.
Me motoring alone in a boat right in front of Phil’s house. It was freezing that day, but I still went hunting. That old, empty camp house in the background was often the target of our boyhood mischief. My brothers and I used to drive golf balls across the river and try to hit it.
Missy sang the national anthem at the 2011 Class A Championship game in the New Orleans Superdome, with Cole and Reed by her side.
Here’s our Duck Commander Little League Dream Team. We were the 2012 league champions. Cole was on the team (sixth from left in the back row). Four of us were coaches that year: Justin Martin standing next to Paul Stevens (in the back left) and I’m on the right end. Jay Stone, also a coach, is not pictured.
This year Reed made his first touchdown at the same game Mia sang the national anthem. I was one proud papa.
JASE ROBERTSON is the second oldest Robertson son and one of the favorite stars of A&E’s Duck Dynasty. Jase has been involved in the family business making duck calls since he was a boy. He graduated from a Bible college after high school and worked part-time in ministry for two years before becoming Duck Commander’s first paid employee in the mid-’90s. Now, family, hunting, and helping the family business succeed consume most of Jas’s time. Jase runs the manufacturing part of Duck Commander, making sure that every call is hand-tuned to be the best it can be. He and his wife, Missy, live in West Monroe, Louisiana, with their children and the rest of the Robertson clan.
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Copyright © 2014 by Jase Robertson
Scripture quotations are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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First Howard Books hardcover edition May 2014
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Interior design by Jaime Putorti
Jacket design by Bruce Gore
Jacket photographs by Russell A. Graves
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robertson, Jase.
Reflections on faith, family, and fowl / Jase Robertson With Mark Schlabach. — First Howard Books hardcover edition.
pages cm
1. Robertson, Jase. 2. Robertson, Jase—Family. 3. Television personalities—United States—Biography. 4. Duck dynasty (Television program) I. Title.
PN1992.4.R532A3 2014
070.92—dc23
[B]
2013046006
ISBN 978-1-4767-6353-8
ISBN 978-1-4767-6356-9 (ebook)