When Ducks Threatened to Shut Down School

It all started from one dumb mistake, but it escalated into a total disaster. In the fall of 1943, in the middle of World War II, my buddy Pinhead and I were in the seventh grade at the regional high school. We hunted together, and in those meat-short days we were able to add to the family food budget. Both of us were named Robert, but Pinhead’s pointed head shape had earned him that nickname. He was smart, cocky and that never seemed to bother him.
 
The dumb mistake occurred when we shot our neighbor’s prized mallard duck decoys, taking them for a live flock. We had to spend our hard-earned fur-trapping money to replace the damaged decoys, and we never did forgive the owner. He simply took our money and then patched and repainted the old decoys. Meanwhile, we were subjected to local embarrassment as the story spread around our small town. My dad, for instance, would say, “Watch out for the splinters in that game stew!”
 
We endured this, but it was nothing compared to the serious problems that lay ahead.
 
When we entered our bus for the six-mile ride to the regional high school, we were met by a storm of quacking and Donald Duck imitations. We were lowly seventh-graders outnumbered by a lot of upperclassmen, so this was especially hard to take.  When we arrived at the school, the bus driver went to the principal and threatened to quit if the quacking wasn’t stopped. On the way home on the bus the quacking started again. But it quickly came to a halt when the driver kicked several boys off the bus, which the principal had given him permission to do.
 
The problem then moved to our classrooms. When a teacher turned her back to write on the board, some kid would quack and the classroom would erupt with more quacks and Donald Duck talk. This sent teachers crying to the principal. At first, this seemed to make things worse for Pinhead and me. But as it turned out, it actually helped us. Our tormentors had pushed things too far.

This quacking continued wherever we were, and when an eighth-grader said I was beginning to look and sound like a duck, I broke his nose. Not 30 minutes later, Pinhead pushed another quacker off the school steps and broke his arm. We were both quickly sent to the principal’s office. It was us against the world.
 
We were suspended from school for the rest of the week and told to start walking home. School principals had a lot more power back in those days. When the principal mentioned reform school, Pinhead didn’t help our situation by saying “Reform school? You need to reform this school! It probably would be better there than here without the duck calls!” That got us out of there in a hurry.
 
As we walked home in the rain, a local logging truck stopped. One of my dad’s friends leaned out of the passenger side window and called out, “Do you quackers want a ride?” We told him where to go. And as we both started to pick up rocks, the truck sped off.

Things seemed to get worse from there. A meeting was set up in the high school auditorium for the following Saturday morning. Present were the school district superintendent, the principal, a lot of mad teachers, the parents of the two boys that Pinhead and I had injured—one with a big nose bandage and the other with a cast on his arm—and a lot of other parents. In the front row were our four worried parents and the two of us, both looking like we were on our way to jail.

The auditorium was standing-room only. And when things settled down, the principal got up to speak. He said, “I am here to make a statement, not to answer questions. I called this meeting as I want everyone to know what has been going on and what I propose to do about it. It is my job to correct this situation, and I want to assure everyone that I have the solution.
 
 “First, Robert and Pinhead were wrong to take matters into their own hands. Second, group harassment is wrong, too, and they were subjected to a great deal of it. In addition to that, our classrooms were disrupted and our teachers were prevented from teaching effectively.
 
“Those two situations are like offsetting penalties in football—one cancels the other. We will start school Monday with a clean slate. I am going to tell every class that if there is any more quacking or other harassment I am going to cancel every school activity, including spring break and the senior prom. And you parents had better police your children too. Now go home.”
 
He kept his word. This stopped the harassment completely, as no one wanted to be the cause of losing those important events. The girls helped too, as they told the boys that if they lost the senior prom they could forget about dates.
 
We were ignored for a while by some. But we were heroes to others. There were a couple of muttered threats, but Pinhead would say, “You can get your nose broke, too!” and that usually ended that. Big words from seventh-graders, but we knew that they were all afraid to start any trouble.
 
Years later, at our 50th class reunion, I was asked if I had shot any wooden ducks lately. It was funny then—but it wasn’t more than 65 years earlier! Some things you never live down.

Walshaw is a master naturalist, retired business executive and a school volunteer who teaches about nature. He lives in Oklahoma.