The Greeneville Sun Friday, November 14, 2003

 By Bob Hurley, Columnist

These Ducks Don't Swim, But They're Landing Everywhere One of the main things I've learned since I left Mohawk on that summer day in 1962 deals with the importance of staying plugged in to my rural past. Most of the time, I am able to keep an eye out for anything that reminds me of who I am and where I came from. And, sometimes, the rewards for paying attention are better than the sainted teachers at Mohawk promised me in the 1950's. This is the story of how my good ears landed me smack in the middle of the world's most unusual duck farm and made it possible for you to learn some pretty remarkable things here today. How do I know it is the world's most unusual duck farm? Because the ducks are hundreds of years old, they never go near the water and they never quack while people pet and admire them. We were visiting in Ohio earlier this fall when this all started. Marilda had dragged me into a neat little shop to do a little early buying for Christmas. I was just trying to stay out of everyone's way when I overheard these two ladies behind the counter say something about ducks, not once, but several times. "My cousin, Mary Ruth, has them in her store in Kentucky, and she says they are the cutest things to come along since the Cabbage Patch Kids," this one lady was saying. "Can we get some?" the other lady asked. "Mary Ruth says we can deal directly with the man who makes them down in Tennessee," came the answer. And the part about Tennessee was my cue to step in and join the conversation. "What part of Tennessee?" I chimed in after apologizing for being so rude. "Well, I'm not sure," Mary Ruth's cousin said, "but I think my kinfolks in Kentucky said he was from a little place called Mooresville." "I don't think I've ever heard of Mooresville, but there's a Mooresburg down near my home in East Tennessee," I explained. "Do you have any names and addresses? I would love to know more about these ducks myself," I said. To cut right to the end here, this kind woman put me on the trail of her cousin in Kentucky, who put me on the trail of the world's most unusual duck farm. And, yes, it was Mooresburg, much to my delight. After spending some time with Kenneth and Pam Capps at The Duck Farm in Hawkins County, I am now prepared to announce that, yes, these ducks are every bit as cute as the Cabbage Patch Kids, and, yes, this is the world's most unusual farm, or it is to me, anyway. First, we have Papa Duck. That's Kenneth, the artist who is populating the world with his own line of ducks, a line unlike I've ever seen or heard about. Then, there's Mama Duck. That's Pam, and she's helping Papa Duck market his ducks all over the world via the Internet. Then, there are the little ducks themselves, and they are everywhere. Yet, there is nothing but stone, cold silence because these ducks were born to be seen and not heard. They are crafted from the driftwood that Kenneth and Pam find along Cherokee Lake in Hawkins County and Kenneth says some of his ducks are 200 years old by the time they are born. "The older the wood, the better the duck," he told as we searched the shores of Cherokee Lake earlier this week before the north wind started howling. "You mean some of this driftwood is a hundred years old?" I asked. "Some of it is alot older than that," he said. "I'm not seeing any ducks," I said as I kicked one piece of driftwood after another. "Are you seeing any?" "I see ducks everywhere," he said. "Sometimes, I talk to them." "Do what?" I asked, thinking perhaps I was hearing things myself. "Why, of course, I talk to the little ducks, and they talk back to me," Kenneth said. "Could I hear them?" I asked. "It depends on how hard you listen," he smiled. Right about here, I need to tell you that Kenneth Capps is a third generation woodworker and woodcarver, and as I have told you several times before, these foks who work in wood are as smart as they come as far as I'm concerned. "I use to make furniture components, table legs and such," Kenneth told me while we loafed at the lake. "But the furniture business is a good way to starve to death, so now it's just me and the little ducks," he said. The little ducks haven't waddled all over this land on their own, but Kenneth and Pam have seen to it that they have been safely transported to homes from coast to coast and border to border. "People seem to like them," Kenneth said, "and I like that. Making ducks sure beats making table legs." We stumbled onto a piece of driftwood that would have required a bulldozer to move, but it had some features that even I could appreciate. "How many ducks do you se here?" I asked. "Hundreds of them," Kenneth said. "A truckload?" I went on. "Probably." "Is the wood old enough to be reborn as ducks?" "I'd like for it to be a little older." "How much older?" "Another hundred years or so." "But we won't be here." "The ducks will be." If you think this man can't transform driftwood into ducks in just a matter of minutes, then you probable wuldn't enjoy a walk on the lakeshore with him, either. Bur if you get excited about Santa Claus and about people who can do magical things with their hands, such as creating ducks out of driftwood, then you would probably enjoy going down to the lake with Kenneth and listening as he talks to all the little ducks he sees along the shore. "People mght think we are crazy if they hear us talking to ducks that are not here," I said. "They are here," he said. "Don't you see them?" I told him that I was trying hard, but all I could see was the driftwood. "Why ducks and why driftwood?" I just had to ask. "They were both here in my front door, so why not?" he asked. "It seems so hard. I mean, how do you do this?" I continued. "Easiest thing in the world," he said. "You just start with a piece of driftwood from down at the lake and then you cut, carve and sand away everything that doesn't look like a duck," he said. Somehow, I knew that he was going to say that. "What if I tryed to saw, carve and sand away everything that doesn't look like a duck? Would I have a duck or would I have a mess?" "I don't know," he said. "But if you'll do it just exactly the way I tell you, then you will have a duck." Well, I didn't try it, and it was not because Kenneth's shop is every bit as cluttered as my garage. I love places that appear to be delightfully busy, and I could tell that Kenneth's had been very busy for a very long time. "How do you ever find the ducks in here?" I asked. "i don't have to," he said. "They find me." The more we talked, the more convinced I became that Kenneth's ducks can indeed talk when he talks to them, and that every duck that waddles out of his cluttered shop with a little piece of his heart attached. I didn't attempt to join Kenneth in the duck bussines because the band saws and the belt sanders and all those other machines scare me to death. I have a lot of friends who work with wood, and most of them are missing a finger or parts of a finger. He knows about ducks and he knows about driftwood, and I can understand all that. It is the part about art that makes me scratch my head. The part about how he turns trash into treasure is what gets me a little crazy. If I were the one doing the sawing and sanding, would I know when the fine line is crossed and a duck emerges from the driftwood? I am afraid that I wouldn't. But there are a few things more pleasing to these county eyes than the smooth curves this duck lover brings to a piece of wood that is good for nothing to most of us. Kenneth's ducks are very reasonably priced, even in the shops that Marilda loves to visit far to our north. But you can order directly from Papa and Mama Duck and get an even better deal. They spend their evenings on the Internet, filling orders and learning new market outlets for the ducks. Hey, when you can crank out this many little ducks, you need a world market. You can find them on the Internet at theduckfarm2@aol.com Or you can still do it the old-fashioned way and write them at 105 Lovin Road, Mooresburg, Tn 37811
Sometimes, I wish those sainted teachers from Old Mohawk were still around so I could tell them what a good job they did in getting me to pay attention.
If it hadn't been for them, I would never have learned about The Duck Farm and you would never have learned that ducks can talk.