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XBT
05-30-2005, 12:53 PM
I once watched a duck sneak across one hundred yards of semi-open terrain, taking advantage of every scrap of cover, to launch an attack on my son and his little friend who were playing in the sandbox. Cries of fright and outrage filled the neighborhood. It’s too bad we didn’t have video cameras in those days.

The duck started life as an “Easter Duck”, dyed pink at one day old and sold as a gift for young children at Easter. The same thing was also done to day-old chickens. Strange custom, huh?
This experience understandably soured the duck on children and he devoted his life to paying them back. When he became too much for the kids, he was dropped off at a farm in my neighborhood.

A few days later the little boy who lived next door was on his way to my house to play and as he walked across the back yard he was ambushed and treed on the corral fence. There he stayed until the farmer’s wife heard his cries for help and rescued him. He’s still the only person I have ever known that was treed by a duck.

That duck terrified all the children (and delighted all the adults) in the area. I tried to buy him twice, but the farmer wouldn’t sell. “It’s the best duck I ever owned,” He said.

The duck died long ago but is still fondly remembered in the neighborhood (except by those children he tormented, of course).

The little boy from next door still lives here and grew up to become the town mayor. I occasionally tell the “treed by a duck” story to keep him humble.

waksupi
05-30-2005, 04:48 PM
That reminds me of a story a friend of mine tells. He does primitive technology lectures and demonstrations. He said one time, he made a rush duck decoy, and covered it with a mallard skin. Then, he gets in a pond where ducks frequent, and using a reed to breathe through, slowly snuck up on a mallard drake.

He says that right up to the moment that he grabbed the duck to pull it underwater, that he never realized that ducks have fangs and claws.