Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl - Hardcover

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Jase Robertson is the second oldest Robertson son and one of the favorite stars of A&E®’s Duck Dynasty®. Jase has been involved in the family business making duck calls since he was a boy. He graduated from Bible college after high school and worked part-time in ministry for two years before becoming Duck Commander’s first paid employee in the mid ‘90s. Now, family, hunting, and helping the family business succeed consume most of Jase’s time. Jase runs the manufacturing part of Duck Commander, making sure that every call is hand-tuned to be the best possible call. He and his wife, Missy, live in West Monroe, Louisiana, with their children and the rest of the Robertson clan.

Mark Schlabach is the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling books, Happy, Happy, Happy, Si-cology 1, and The Duck Commander Family. He is one of the most respected and popular college football columnists in the country. He and his wife live in Madison, Georgia, with their three children.

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Good Call

1

FORGIVING PHIL

MAKING PEACE WITH THE PAST

A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.

—PROVERBS 19:11

By now, you might know the story of my dad’s life. If you haven’t heard it or read about it, here’s the most blunt way I can describe it: Phil Robertson wasn’t a very nice person from about the age of seventeen until he turned twenty-eight. In a lot of ways, my dad was an outlaw. He had no regard for rules, authority, or what was right or wrong; his only focus at the time was getting drunk and killing as many ducks as possible. And anyone standing in his way, even his own family, ran the risk of getting hurt.

Don’t get me wrong; Phil Robertson eventually became a great husband, father, and businessman, and, most important, a disciple of Christ. After my dad’s repentance, he became the biggest influence in my life because of his love for his Creator, hunting and fishing, and nurturing God’s greatest creation. Once my dad turned from his wicked ways and submitted to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, he became a role model for people struggling to overcome their addictions and problems. It wasn’t so much that he focused on their problems but that he offered them a solution. His life wasn’t easy when he was drinking, partying, and committing other sins, and it certainly was difficult for the people who loved him most. But once my dad turned his life around, he made a profound impact on thousands of people by sharing God’s story of healing and hope. He became a man of faith, perseverance, and courage. But the decade or so before his baptism wasn’t easy for my mom or me and my brothers.

My recollections of my childhood are kind of hazy, which might be a good thing, because I don’t have many fond memories of growing up until my father was born again; his becoming a new man is the most drastic change in a person I have ever seen. I remember my family owning a bar in Junction City, Arkansas, for a couple of years, and it seemed like every night ended with men rolling around on the ground and fighting, followed by flashing lights from police cars in the parking lot.

It also seemed that no matter what, my dad usually won the fight. I remember one particular fight outside the bar, when an Asian-looking man grabbed a board. The man was doing all of these martial arts moves complete with sound effects, and all of a sudden he swung the board at my dad. In the blink of an eye, my dad grabbed the board out of his hands and popped him in the head with it! The guy fell like a sack of potatoes.

My family lost the bar after my dad beat up the couple who owned the building after they’d had a dispute about rent. Phil hurt them pretty badly, and he fled into the swamp to avoid getting arrested. The people my dad beat up took about everything we had; in exchange they agreed not to press criminal charges against him. My mom moved our trailer near D’Arbonne Lake at Farmerville, Louisiana, and I was forced to change schools again. We moved a lot when I was a kid, and there never seemed to be much stability in our lives.

After the fight at the bar, my dad was gone for several months. I remember going to visit him in the woods one time, and when we pulled up he was drinking beer with two of his buddies. They were living in a hut that didn’t even have electricity or running water. There was a massive pile of empty beer cans and liquor bottles. There was also a big pile of animal carcasses. It was unbelievable. As a kid, I’d never seen anything like it before. I remember getting out of the vehicle thinking, How long has my dad been out here? He was walking around barefoot. Of course, as his impressionable son, I thought he was the toughest man in the world because he was living in those conditions.

My dad walked up to me and asked, “How’s it going?” We had a normal conversation right there in the middle of nowhere. This might sound crazy, but as I look back at the experience now, I think it taught me that a person is capable of living in the woods and surviving without the luxuries we have today. I probably realized then that I wanted to spend most of my life in the woods or on the water.

My dad eventually moved back into the trailer with us, but he didn’t stop drinking. In fact, it only got worse. He often took out his anger on my mom, my brothers, and me, and even though I was young, I understood that it was the beer and liquor making him so mean. I feared being around him. I think my dad tried to quit drinking more than a few times, but alcohol always seemed to get the best of him. One night, while Phil was driving home from a hunt, he threw a half-empty liquor bottle out the window of his truck. I guess he finally decided it was time to stop drinking. But a few hours later, my dad had my brothers and me on the side of the road in the dark, searching a ditch for his liquor bottle. What might seem like terrible parenting was actually one of my first adventures in hunting. I found my dad’s bottle, so I figured I would one day make a pretty good tracker in the woods.

In a lot of ways, my dad’s behavior made me shy and introverted, which is something I struggled with until I was a teenager. I never said much as a kid around my dad. I was afraid that if I did say something, I would get in trouble. It didn’t take me long to figure out that as long as I was out of his sight and didn’t say anything, I could pretty much stay out of harm’s way. I kept my mouth shut to survive, and I went into a cocoon as a kid because of my circumstances. I was kind of antisocial until high school, but then I realized I would have to be more vocal if I wanted to share my faith or get a date.

Perhaps the most vivid memory I have of my early childhood is the night my dad kicked us out of our trailer. I was about seven years old at the time. I remember seeing my dad stretched out on the couch with a tall can of beer between his legs as we gathered our belongings in the middle of the night. We headed out the front door, not knowing when or if we would ever see him again. My mother was in tears and pleaded with him to let us stay, but he wouldn’t change his mind. He kept yelling at Kay to leave. I had no idea where she was taking my older brother, Alan; my younger brother, Willie; and me. We didn’t have any money, so it wasn’t like we were going to go stay in a hotel for a couple of weeks. We spent the night at my uncle Harold’s house, and then we moved into a low-rent apartment in West Monroe, Louisiana. White’s Ferry Road Church in West Monroe helped us get furniture and assisted my mother in paying the rent.

Our move to the apartment complex is a foggy memory, but it seemed a lot more stable and safe than the place we left. My mom took a job at Howard Brothers Discount Stores, working in the corporate office, so Alan was left to take care of Willie and me when we weren’t in school. I didn’t see my father for a long time. I was bitter about it, too. No matter how mean your parents are or what they’re doing to you, as a kid they’re all you have, and that’s the way it is, for better or worse. Even though my dad wasn’t a nice person to be around, I couldn’t understand why in the world he would abandon his family. My dad’s reason for his path of ruin and misery during his first twenty-eight years on earth was that he just wanted to “be free.” Apparently, that meant leaving his wife and children behind so he could hunt, fish, and drink...