It’s duck season up here in the North (which is to say, the
market covered by Fox Sports North) and that means everyone is excited to eat
some delicious Teal or Mallard, the former of which I recently found out is
very good with a fine Cabernet Sauvignon. But one of the more satisfying
aspects of eating duck, of course is the fact that they have been hunted down
and brought to your table, and it is this whole endeavor to which Minnesota
grade schoolers pay tribute by playing a game known around here as Duck, Duck,
Gray Duck.
It has recently come to my attention
that not every state in the union knows the game as such. In fact, people
in every other state but Minnesota call the exact same game Duck, Duck, Goose,
which is completely wrong. The game has its origins in a very realistic
and distinctly Minnesotan philosophy, that we are all Ducks. We would
never single someone out so ostentatiously as to call them a Goose. Geese
and Ducks wouldn’t hang out in the same flock, waiting to be provoked by a
mysterious hand from above and then run in a very tight circle to track down
the target, the It, before It reaches the point from which the race
began. (“It”, suffice it to say, is also a Duck). A Goose
definitely wouldn’t abide by these strict rules. But Ducks follow the
rules and know when to give up, because they understand that they will not
always be the Gray Duck. They will hopefully be a different kind of Duck,
one that does not have to chase It. We Minnesotans know that sometimes it
is simply your day to be the Gray Duck.
This brings me to the next part of
this philosophy. Though we are all Ducks, we are also all unique.
The tradition of these gamers in our fair state is that it is the
responsibility of It to signify to each of the Ducks exactly what kind of Duck
they are. Just because one duck is Gray, doesn’t mean the other Ducks
don’t have adjectives. They all should. There is the requisite
Smelly Duck, Pretty Duck, Ugly Duck and others. The only reason the Gray
Duck is the type of Duck that has to chase is because that is the way it has
always been. It doesn’t mean he or she is any better or worse than the
others. We just need to know that we are being appreciated for our
attributes by the It Duck. And if the It Duck tilts our head back to get
a better look at us in order to figure out what kind of Duck we are, so much
the better. We are one community (which is what the circle signifies),
but we are also individuals, with names given to us based on the gifts we bring
to the table. We watch and wait for the impending race and root for the Gray
Duck because one day we may have to be him, and one day he might actually catch
It Duck, though the odds are against him.
Should he catch It Duck, we all
rejoice, because there will be a feast of Duck Soup (is Goose Soup even a
thing?), which is signified by the defeated Duck having to sit in the middle of
the circle and be observed by those who he once shared the ranks of. This
is not cannibalistic or barbaric, but it shows that someday we may have to
sacrifice something of ourselves for the good of others. It is not right
that some may have to leave us, but that is the way of things, and we know that
in some ways, they are still with us, silently staring back at us from the
center of our lives.
Does anyone have a good Cabernet to
share?
