The Duck Commander Family (6 page)

My family has been very successful in business, but none of that would have mattered without our faith in God. While we were growing up, my parents would often tell us that all the blessings we had were nice, but if we lost it all tomorrow, we would still be just fine. And I always believed it. I think that is one of the reasons Willie and I were willing to take the risks we needed to with Duck Commander. We always had the faith that if we failed, if we lost it all, we would just shake ourselves off and get right back up. As long as we had our faith and our family, nothing could really hurt us. God has blessed us, life is good, but if the fame and fortune that we’ve enjoyed through Duck Commander were all gone tomorrow, I would still say the same thing: that God is good.

4

I
AM NOT SAYING THIS BECAUSE
I
AM IN NEED, FOR
I
HAVE LEARNED TO BE CONTENT WHATEVER THE CIRCUMSTANCES.
I
KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE IN NEED, AND
I
KNOW WHAT IT IS TO HAVE PLENTY.
I
HAVE LEARNED THE SECRET OF BEING CONTENT IN ANY AND EVERY SITUATION, WHETHER WELL FED OR HUNGRY, WHETHER LIVING IN PLENTY OR IN WANT.
I
CAN DO ALL THIS THROUGH HIM WHO GIVES ME STRENGTH.

—P
HILIPPIANS
4:11–13

I
still remember my first day of school. Kay put me on the school bus and waved good-bye.

Korie:
Willie rode the school bus on his very first day of kindergarten! And he wasn’t even scarred for life! I’m kidding, of course, but this did shock me when I first heard it. It was so different from my experience. At our house, the first day of school was a big deal every year, not just kindergarten. Mom would take pictures of us in our “first day” outfits, drive us there, go in and meet the teacher, and make sure we had all of our supplies.

Today, we make a big deal out of the first day of school in
our home as well. We got together with my mom on the first day for a prayer before the kids start the new school year, asking God to bless them and to allow them to be a light for Him to their friends throughout the school year. We’ve been doing that ever since John Luke started his first day of kindergarten. He doesn’t let me take his picture with his teachers anymore, but I still take whatever pictures I can. I, at least, make him take one picture with his brother and sisters on the first day of school and he appeases me, because I’m his mom, and he loves me!

I can just imagine little Willie getting on that school bus for his first day all by himself, full of confidence and certain that if he just flashed those dimples, the world would be his. And it usually was.

Somehow I made it to Pinecrest Elementary School and jumped off the bus with my little book satchel. The principal was standing there when I got off the bus.

“Hey, I’m Willie Jess Robertson and I’m looking for the kindergarten room,” I told him in the most professional way I could.

The principal pointed down a hall and said, “It’s right down there.”

I got to my teacher’s room and one of my best friends, Mel Hamilton, was crying because I wasn’t there yet. I consoled him and was proud that someone needed me. School was going to be fun.

When I started kindergarten, we received free lunches
because our family didn’t have any money. I thought everybody was on free lunch; I didn’t even realize we were poor. But there were actually only about three kids in my class receiving free lunches, and I was one of them. There was a little boy who sat in front of me in kindergarten, and I thought he was really poor. He would come to school covered in dirt and didn’t smell very good. One day, I took a bar of soap to school and put it on his desk. I wasn’t trying to be mean or anything; I just didn’t think he had any soap at home. Later in life, once I realized that we were getting the free lunches because we were poor just like that little kid, I remember thinking, “Man, were we that poor?”

Over the next few years, I noticed that our family was beginning to make more money. When we went from receiving free lunches to getting reduced lunches, I thought that was a sign that Duck Commander was taking off. When we started paying for our own lunches, I thought, “Man, we must be rich now!”

The Robertson boys had a good reputation at school. Phil and Kay made sure that we treated our classmates and teachers with respect. They always insisted we behave at school and listen to our teachers. Even if we weren’t the best-dressed students and didn’t even have enough money to pay for our lunches, we were all voted class favorite at one time or another. Actually, I was voted “class favorite” several years in elementary school and was class president in ninth grade, with the campaign slogan “Don’t be silly, vote for Willie!”

I learned how to make extra money at an early age. I thought I was the cutest kid in school, so I was surely going to use it to my advantage. In elementary school, the concession stand never sold the candy I liked to eat, so I decided I was going to bring my own candy to school and sell it to my classmates. It started with a box of chewing gum someone had given us. I took the gum to school and sold it for thirty cents apiece. Then I had Kay take me to the store, and I bought Lemon Heads, Red Hots, Mike and Ikes, and all sorts of other candy. I stored the candy in my locker, and my classmates started calling me the “Little Tycoon.” I was making like three hundred dollars a week, minus the 10 percent I paid Kay for driving me to the store for supplies.

Now, there were some occupational hazards associated with the job. Darla Leonard, who rode my school bus, was older than me. She would strong-arm me every morning and make me give her free candy.

“No, it’s thirty cents,” I would tell her.

“How about nothing?” Darla would say before grabbing a fistful of my hair.

It made me so mad, but she was bigger than me, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. She goes to our church now, and I could definitely take her these days. She’s a tiny little woman, so it’s funny to think that I was once scared of her.

After a few months of selling the candy, the principal called me to his office.

“I’m hearing you’re selling candy to other students,” Mr. McCall told me. “Are you?”

There was no denying it.

“The concession stand’s sales are way down and they’re complaining about it,” the principal said. “I’m going to have to shut you down.”

I quit selling the candy, but I still found other ways to make money. I sold everything from pencils and erasers to orange juice tops (which I claimed once sat on Abraham Lincoln’s eyes!). The kids were just used to giving me their money, so I found creative ways to take it. I would eat June bugs for fifty cents and sing on the school bus for a quarter. One of my favorite moneymaking schemes involved my turning into a human jukebox. Kids would put quarters under my arms, and I would start singing. The only songs I knew were the ones my older brother Alan had on eight-tracks. Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero” was always the number one request, but I also sang songs by the Beach Boys, the Gap Band, Molly Hatchet, and Michael Jackson. I was the school bus entertainment. We went to a small country school so everyone lived far apart. I think we were on the bus about two hours each way, so this was a great way to pass the time.

Phil’s philosophy about education was a lot like his philosophies about everything else in life. If my brothers or I told Phil we wanted to quit high school, he would look at us and say, “You wanna drop out of school? Knock yourself out, but don’t come running to me.” Then Phil would tell us that he wouldn’t recommend quitting school. He would always tell
us to make the best grades we could make, get our homework done, earn our diplomas, and get out of there. I’ve heard people talk about “helicopter parenting,” where the parents hover over their kids, watching their every move. There was no danger of that in our house. We were pretty much on our own and were expected to do the best we could do with it.

Phil never told us we had to go to college or anything like that. If we woke up in the morning and decided we wanted to blow off school, we would just blow it off. Phil would never say anything about it. I never asked for Phil’s permission to stay home; if I didn’t want to go to school, I just didn’t go. But Phil always told me if I missed too many days and got kicked out of school, I would have to deal with the consequences. We missed the maximum amount of days you could possibly miss every year, mainly during hunting season. We took full advantage of sick days to spend time in the woods.