The Duck Commander Family Part 7

salt and pepper to taste

1 pound lump crabmeat (cleaned)

1 pound crawfish tails, cooked

2 eggs

11/2 cups Italian bread crumbs

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

peanut oil 1. On medium-high heat in a medium-size pan, saute b.u.t.ter, white onions, green onions, bell pepper, and celery until vegetables are soft, about eight to ten minutes.

2. Add garlic, parsley, thyme, basil, and hot sauce.

3. Place mixture in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper.

4. Add crabmeat and crawfish tails. Mix well.

5. Beat eggs, add to mixture, and mix well.

6. Add enough bread crumbs to hold mixture together.

7. Make small patties and roll in flour.

8. Deep-fry in peanut oil on medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes or until golden brown.

CHAPTER 7

OMELETS

THAT IS WHY A MAN LEAVES HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND IS UNITED TO HIS WIFE, AND THEY BECOME ONE FLESH.

GENESIS 2:24 Growing up in the Robertson house, you never had much s.p.a.ce or time for yourself. Our house had only two bedrooms, so I shared a room with Alan and Jase for most of my childhood. And then Jep came along, and it was just too crowded. I started looking for other places to sleep, where I wouldn't feel like I was packed in like a sardine.

When I was in middle school, I moved into the cook shack in front of our house, which was screened in at the time. It was during the summer so it wasn't cold, and it had a sink, which was really cool. I had a hot plate out there and cooked my own meals. I even moved into the building where we made the reeds for the duck calls. Neither of these places was very big and they didn't have any insulation, heat, or air-conditioning. They weren't exactly the lap of luxury, but for me, they were mine. And for some reason I always felt like I needed my own s.p.a.ce. Korie: I always thought it was cool that Willie was trying to make his own little place in the world. He liked to fix up his s.p.a.ce and paint it. He was a big baseball fan and loved the Los Angeles Dodgers. When he moved into the cook shack, he painted it Dodger blue. Even though it wasn't much, Willie always tried to make it as nice as he could. He put pictures on the walls and would add his own little touches. He tried to have a nice little place to live. I've always been impressed by his ingenuity. After a while, I figured out I needed to live in a place that was actually attached to the house, so I moved into a small back room that was our laundry room. Korie showed me the laundry room when I visited her house for the first time. I asked her, "Who lives in here? Man, you could fit a double bed in here!" Korie: I met Willie for the first time when we were in the third grade at Camp Ch-Yo-Ca, the camp I grew up at. Willie and Jase went to my session of the camp, and Alan came for high school week. Kay was cooking in the kitchen that summer, so her boys could attend the camp for free. I remember thinking Willie was the cutest thing I had ever seen and was so funny. We called him by his middle name, Jess, at the time. He had these big dimples and the cutest sideways smile. I had a diary that I never really wrote in, but that summer, I wrote: "I met a boy at summer camp and he was so cute. He asked me on the moonlight hike and I said 'yes'!" I even wrote "Korie Loves Jess" on the bunk of the cabin I was staying in that summer.

Yes, Willie asked me to go on the moonlight hike with him. It was always a big deal every summer figuring out which boy was going to ask you to accompany him on the moonlight hike, and I was thrilled when he asked me! Willie was definitely my first crush. After camp that summer, I didn't see Willie for a couple of years. We went to different schools and his family went to a small church out in the country. Our family attended one of the bigger churches in town, White's Ferry Road Church.

WILLIE WAS DEFINITELY MY FIRST CRUSH.

When I was in the fifth grade, Ray Melton, the preacher at our church, tried to recruit Phil to start coming to White's Ferry Road. Ray's daughter, Rachel, and I were best friends, and they were going to Phil's house for dinner one night. They invited me to go along. I still remembered Willie from camp, so needless to say, I was just dying to go. I begged my parents to let me go with them. They said yes! I even remember what I wore to Willie's house-a black top with fluorescent green earrings. Don't judge ... it was the eighties.

When Rachel and I got to the Robertsons' house, the first thing Phil said to us was: "Have you met my boys, Jason Silas and Willie Jess? They'll make good husbands someday. They're good hunters and fishermen." I was so nervous. I could not believe this was happening. The other thing I remember about walking in their home was that Phil and Kay had a sign on their door that said, "Honeymoon in progress." Phil and Kay have never been shy about their honeymooning ... another thing that shocked me about their family.

Once we had eaten, Willie took us back to his room, which was actually the laundry room. He made us laugh the whole time. He would stick his thumb in his mouth and pretend that he was blowing up his muscles. He did acupressure tricks and showed us our pressure points. This was all very impressive to a couple of fifth-grade girls. After a while, I decided I was going to try to really impress Korie. I started punching the tiles on the ceiling of the laundry room, which was a trick one of my buddies taught me. I'd rear back and just punch my fist through the ceiling and busted tile would fall over onto the floor. I'm sure she was really impressed. Korie: After leaving Willie's house, I didn't see him for another two years. In the seventh grade, Phil and Kay finally decided to move the family to our church. Willie called me on the telephone while I was babysitting some of my cousins. We didn't have cell phones at the time, but he had called my house and my mom gave him the number to my aunt's house. He told me they were going to start coming to our church. I was so excited. Willie asked me where I was going to go to college, and I told him I was going to Harding University. Willie thought I said Harvard and told Phil I was going to an Ivy League school. Phil told him: "That's big-time, son."

When the Robertson boys came to our church, everyone was excited because Jase and Willie were definitely the cool new guys. They ended up having a huge influence in our youth group, baptizing nearly a hundred teenagers over the next couple of years. It was incredible. There was tremendous growth in our youth group after they joined our church. Of course, all the girls liked Willie and thought he was cute. I think he dated about every girl in the youth group at one time or another.

OF COURSE, ALL THE GIRLS LIKED WILLIE AND THOUGHT HE WAS CUTE.

One time Willie was dating one of my friends and we were riding on the bus during one of our youth trips, and Willie's girlfriend gave him money to buy her a drink at a gas station. He came back on the bus with a pack of baseball cards and didn't even buy his girlfriend a drink. I remember it made me so mad. I told my friend, "You should break up with him right now." We all thought he was the worst boyfriend ever for doing that!

I'll never forget the first time Willie asked me out. We liked each other off and on through middle school and high school, but we didn't attend the same schools so we never really dated. He was attending West Monroe High School, and I was going to Ouachita Christian School, which is where Phil used to teach. When I was in the eleventh grade (Willie was a year older), he sent one of his friends, Jimmy Jenkins, to ask me out for him. Willie was pretty c.o.c.ky and all the girls in the youth group were dying to go out with him. But I remembered how he treated my friend, so I told him no. It was a big blow for him, but he needed to be knocked down a few notches. We both continued dating other people over the next year but then were both single around Christmastime during my senior year in 1990.

Willie and I saw each other at the mall a few weeks after Christmas, and it was just one of those moments. Willie was attending seminary school at White's Ferry Road Church and was living with six guys in a small house in town. A couple of days after we saw each other in the mall, Willie walked into his house and there was a chair turned around facing the front door. It had a yellow piece of paper taped to it. It was a message for him, telling him that I had called. I knew that since I had rejected him the last time he asked me out, I would have to be the one to break the ice again. He called me the next day and we went to lunch at Bonanza. It didn't take long before we started dating each other pretty seriously, in January 1991.

Like I said, Willie was living with six other guys in town, but even then, he wasn't exactly living in the house. There was a small storage building out back, which he turned into his own room. He painted all the furniture black and white, and Granny made him a quilt to put on his bed. He had a TV and a window unit for air-conditioning, which he bought with his own money. It was like his little bachelor pad and the first place he could really call his own. Willie was working for my uncle Mac, who owned a cabinet-building shop. Willie worked for Mac throughout high school, cleaning up the shop and doing some woodwork. Mac helped Willie buy his first car, which was a 1980 Ford Mustang. It was bright orange and had white leather seats, which were all torn up, but it got him where he was going.

I used to love going to Willie's little house before school. He would cook me these elaborate omelets and even put a garnish on the top of them. Up till that time, I was never one for waking up early, and I'm still not, for that matter. But during our dating days, I didn't mind getting up early if it meant I got to spend a little more time with Willie. Plus, his cooking really impressed me. Willie's actually very romantic, which a lot of people might not realize. He's written me a ton of love notes and even poems, and he likes to cook for me. Thankfully after twenty years of marriage those things haven't changed.

WILLIE'S ACTUALLY VERY ROMANTIC. HE'S WRITTEN ME A TON OF LOVE NOTES AND EVEN POEMS.

Willie and I dated for about eight months, and then I was getting ready to leave for school at Harding University. Willie was still attending seminary school, and I wanted him to go to Harding University with me. But Willie said he wasn't leaving West Monroe. He wanted me to stay in West Monroe with him. We broke up before I left for school in August, and I'm sure he thought I'd find someone else at college, because that's what typically happens when you leave home. Willie called me one night in September 1991 after I had been gone a few weeks and said, "Let's get back together." I knew I loved him, but I told him I wasn't sure about it. He was trying to change my life, and it was really his way or no way. I just didn't know what to do.

"Let me think about it," I said. "I'll call you back tomorrow." I was convinced she'd found someone else. I was telling all my buddies that it was over between us, and I was gathering other girls' phone numbers to prepare myself to move on. I just knew it was over, and I wasn't waiting to hear it from her the next day. I was convinced she wanted to end our relationship but couldn't muster the courage to tell me. Korie called me the next day, and I was ready to tell her that I didn't want to get back together anymore and that our relationship was over. I was certainly going to end it before she ended it. I just knew she already had a new boyfriend at Harding.

"I've got something I want to tell you," Korie told me.

"What do you want to say?" I asked her, deciding I'd better hear her out first.

"Let's get back together," she said.

My ears started buzzing. I threw all the girls' phone numbers in the trash can. About a month later, Korie and I decided we were going to get married. Korie: I had turned eighteen in October 1991, so legally I was allowed to do whatever I wanted. But I knew I had to call my parents, Johnny and Chrys, to get their permission. We had had some discussions about my getting married that summer that had not gone so well, so I knew they were not going to be excited about it. I mustered up the courage to make the phone call.

"Look, I'm legal, so I'm just going to say it," I told them. "I'm getting married, and you're going to have to be behind me or not."

Of course, my parents told me it was the worst idea ever, and they were naturally worried that I was going to leave school and come home. They asked me to at least wait until I'd finished college. I hung up the phone and called Willie immediately.

"I just told them and it didn't go so well," I blurted out.

"They've already called me and they're on their way over here," he said. I was trying to save money, so I was living with my brother Alan and Alan's wife Lisa. Korie's parents came to the house to see me, and I sat on the couch with Johnny and Chrys. It was not pretty. The argument was so loud that Alan came out of his room. He looked at us and asked, "What in the world is going on?" Johnny was making all of his arguments, and I was acting like a little punk, twisting his words to put them in my favor, which only made him madder and madder.

Johnny told me that according to studies he'd read, 50 percent of all marriages between young people ended in divorce. He had the articles with him to support his arguments.

"So you're calling that right now?" I asked him. "In all your wisdom, you know we're going to get divorced?"

"I'm not saying that," Johnny told me.

"You just said it," I responded. "You just said half end in divorce. Well, what if we're the good half?"

Then Johnny went on to say that if we got married, he didn't want me coming to him for advice. But then later on in the conversation, he told me I could ask him about anything. He was completely irrational, and I, of course, had to point that out to him.

"You just said I couldn't ask you for advice," I told him.

He was so mad, I thought he was going to leap off the couch and hit me. Before they left, Johnny looked at me and asked me one last question.