Robertson Phil - Happy, happy, happy: my life and legacy as the Duck Commander

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To my four sons: Alan, Jase, Willie, and Jep

Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.

Excerpt from letter to Abigail Adams from her husband John Adams regarding their two sons, April 15, 1776

W hen A&E TV approached us about doing a reality TV show based on our family, I was somewhat reluctant and wasnt quite sure if it would work.

Let me take a guess here, I told the producers.

I told them that there was probably a boardroom meeting at the A&E headquarters in New York City, where all the suits, yuppies, and best creative minds were kicking around ideas for a new reality TV show. At some point during the meeting, someone probably spoke up and said, Uh, Bob, I know this might sound weird, but why dont we try portraying a functional American family?

And Im sure the guy sitting across the table shouted, Now, thats a novel idea!

Everything else on TV nowadays is dysfunctional and for the most part has been that way for forty years. The last TV shows we saw that featured functional families were The Andy Griffith Show, The Waltons, The Beverly Hillbillies (dont laugh), and Little House on the Prairie . That was a long time ago!

Im sure someone else in the A&E board meeting probably then asked, Bob, where do we find a functional family in America?

For whatever reason, they looked for one in West Monroe, Louisiana.

To be honest, our family isnt much different from other families in America. Theres a mom and a dad, four grown kids, fourteen grandchildren, and a couple of great-grandkids. We started a family business, Duck Commander, which turned into a pretty lucrative enterprise with a lot of elbow grease, teamwork, and Gods blessings. But as youll find out by reading this book, weve had our share of trials and struggles, like a lot of other families. Weve battled alcohol and drug abuse, sibling rivalries, and near poverty and despair at the beginning of our time together as a family. It wasnt always like what you see on TV. So except for our very manly appearances, it might not seem that were all that different from everyone else.

But I think what separates the Robertsons from a lot of other families is our faith in God and love for each other. Its unconditional, and it has been that way for as long as I can remember. For me, the most dramatic part of every Duck Dynasty episode comes at the end, when our family gathers around the dinner table to eat one of Miss Kays home-cooked meals. You dont see families gathering up like that anymore. Everybody in America is so busy, busy, busy. Americans are too preoccupied with their cell phones and computers, so they dont take the time to sit down with their spouses, children, grandchildren, aunts and uncles, and grandparents to eat a meal together. The family structure is slipping away from America, but not in our house.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, probably said it best. Shortly after our founding fathers left the large cities of Europe for the wide-open spaces of America, Jefferson said of the American people, When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe. Youll never find me living in a city, folks. Where I live, I am 911. Like I say, if you spend too much time in the subdivision, you go a-runnin when the snakes fall out of trees!

What separates the Robertsons from a lot of other families is our faith in God and love for each other.

The other problem in America today is that the young girls dont know how to cook. Their grandmothers and mamas cooked for them, but they never took the time to learn how to cook. They were more interested in other things. If you go out into the subdivisions and suburbs of America, where all of the yuppies live, youll see the restaurants are packed with people. They dont want to eat slop and theyre looking for good food, but they dont want to take the time to make it. Dad is working, Mom is working, and so no one has the time or energy to cook a good meal anymore. So our families end up eating in restaurants, where theyre surrounded by noise and clutter, instead of sharing quality time in a family setting.

When I reluctantly agreed to be a part of Duck Dynasty, the producers told me they were going to make a reality show without duck hunting. I asked them if they understood that I spend most of my waking hours in a duck blind or in the woods. There isnt much else I do! I asked the producers, You know, youre dealing with a bunch of rednecks who duck-hunt. For the life of me, do you really think this is going to work?

Ozzy Osbourne made it, they told me.

Ozzy was able to pull it off on reality TV, so hes given hope to all of us. Id never really watched many reality TV shows and knew nothing about them, but I was 100 percent convinced Duck Dynasty would never work. It just goes to show how little I know about todays world, because I was dead wrong. For the life of me, I cant figure out why people are so attracted to our family. Maybe its because we live our lives like people really want to live, how we all used to live before everything got so busy, busy, busy.

Duck Dynasty has made us a little bit more famous, but it hasnt changed much of anything about us. Miss Kay and I still live in the same house on the Ouachita River outside of West Monroe, and Im still driving the same truck and hunting with the same guns and dogs. Of course, we still go to church every Sunday morning and Im still reading my Bible. If anything has changed, its that its a little more difficult to go places, like driving down an interstate or walking through an airport. If Im driving somewhere, someone might drive by and recognize me (undoubtedly because of my beard). Theyll get on a cell phone and call their friends, and then when I stop to take a leak, Ill have to sign autographs and pose for pictures for about thirty minutes.

When we went duck-hunting in Arkansas recently, we stopped at a Walmart to buy our out-of-state hunting licenses. We were in the sporting goods section of the store when some people recognized us, so we started posing for pictures and signing T-shirts. When it was finally time for us to leave, three African-American girls approached us.

Well, girls, I didnt know you soul sisters were duck hunters, I told them.

We dont care about no ducks, one of them said. Youre ZZ Top, aint you?

I guess not everyone in America watches Duck Dynasty .

Miss Kay and I havent done too badly, and the good Lord has really blessed us. Weve been married nearly fifty years and our boys have grown up to become loving husbands and fathers, the kind of men I wanted them to be. Our business is in good shape, even after I had my doubts about where it was going. But when the boys took over, they breathed new life into it, and its still growing. Not many are as fortunate as we are, with all the trouble in the world.