usadeepsouth.com
Jim’s Duck
by Don Drane
In memory of our dear friend, James E. Bailey
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It was probably about 1979, 1980 at the most. Jim Bailey dropped by the house one day and, as usual, he had a gift in the trunk of his Chevrolet. He had just gotten back from a trip over into Arkansas and had stopped at one of those street-corner vendors who sells everything from junk to turquoise. He presented us with his gift and we went out back to find a proper place to display it.
Jim’s gift this time was a handmade, wooden, mallard duck, about a foot and a half long, painted brilliant green, red, and white with real-looking glass bead eyes. And it had those thin, curved, sheet metal wings that flap and spin at the speed of light when the breeze blows just right. We displayed that duck on a four-foot tall post in the back yard under an oak tree till we moved from Greenville in ‘92.
Like everything else we had ever collected, we moved the duck with us to Madison that year where it took a place of prominence out back between two tall pines beside the red azalea.
Our duck, like the rest of us, got a little bit more tired and bent out of shape with each passing year. Like an old uncle, I never gave a thought to the possibility that the duck would “crash and die” one day. His metal wings spun and spun, around and around, faster and faster, day after day, year after year, singing to us from way out in the back yard. Its wings became bent and nicked from slapping against its body over a period of twenty-two years. I suppose that’s pretty old in duck years, even wooden duck years.
Mid-December 2001, while grilling out back, I sensed something was missing. I didn’t hear those sheet metal wings tapping in the breeze. Our duck, whom we had never actually named, had fallen from his stick-post. I investigated and retrieved him in three parts. The little metal rod that joined the duck to its post and allowed him to twist with changing wind directions had come out of its socket, and one of the wings was bent so much it wouldn’t spin anymore.
I told myself the weather was still too cold to work on things. Those jobs wait for warmer weather. I laid the duck pieces on my workbench in a pile.
But last week, with a bit of free time, I spent an hour totally refurbishing the duck with a new, pressure-treated stick, a new metal rod and carefully reshaped wings with the help of a pair of pliers. I replanted the post right in its usual place. After one or two adjustments, the bird seemed to come to life again, wings flapping, spinning in a fast circle, the body twisting in response to changing wind direction. I thought about repainting him with the original colors, but decided instead to leave him weather-aged. He’s right back spinning 24 hours a day when the wind blows, just like he did in 1979, the day Jim brought him to us.
I’ll never put him in a garage sale or a junk pile. One way or another, I’ll keep fixing him up so he’ll always spin his same old tune in the wind. It’s mighty strange that the duck would finally give up and come apart in Mid-December 2001. Mighty strange. The same month and year our dear friend Jim went home to be with the Lord.
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Note from Don Drane:
Jim and his wife Lou, moved to Washington County, Mississippi, around 1977 and settled at Glen Allan, smack on the East bank of beautiful Lake Washington. Jim played football at Mississippi State A & M (now Miss. State University) in the 40's, served in the military, worked a stint with the FBI, and spent many years with the National Rice Council in promotional work.
Jim never saw a stranger. Nobody alive can say a bad word about the gentleman. He was a mover and shaker among the farming community in the Southeast; the Mississippi Secretary of Agriculture and Governor knew better than not to take Jim's call or have a staff member say they were not in the office when he was in the capitol city.
Especially noteworthy was Jim's love for children. With a handful of grandchildren of his own, he worked as a part time Santa at the Greenville Mall for a period of about 6 years. He was ageless, perfectly comfortable with a group of 10 year olds, 30 year olds or 70 year olds!
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More Don Drane articles at USADEEPSOUTH.COM:
Southern Fried Turkey
Dempsey's Cold Plastic Couch
Bottle trees
Drane graduated from Delta State University and holds a M.Ed from MSU. His main vice is motorcycle rides on long weekend days with crackers and viennas in the saddlebags and a 2-beer limit. (There's no recovery from droppin' a motorcycle wheel off the shoulder of the road, he says.) Write Don at msudrd@aol.com
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