I want to quack back to Alabammy

"Wont'cha come with me to Alabammy,
Back tot he arms of my dear ol' Mammy,
Her cookin's lousy and her hands are clammy,
But what the hell, it's home."

Tom Lehrer - "I wanna go back to Dixie"

When NOT and JJ relocated to the south, they spent a lot of time visiting friends in Alabama. And why not, how can you not love the state which houses the Motor Sports Hall of Fame? 

And is a huge stop on the NASCAR circuit. NOT imagines rounding the turns with the duck-mobile and racing for the checkered flat. then he remembers his legs are too short to reach the pedals. And thus ended his racing career.

But NOT sees Alabama as a state of hope. Where a young duck can grow up and be anything he wants. It has been years since George Wallace has stood defiantly at the schoolhouse door to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama.

So now it shoudl be safe for avian integration. But it was not to be. He was turned away at the schoolhouse door almost 40 years later. 

In fact, he was used as a bean bag in a callous disregard for his feathered feelings.

O.K. but maybe hope could be found in the beauty surrounding him. Like the beauty and purity of a waterfall.

This will give one hope for things to keep on going until he found out that at these falls an Indian maiden had plunged to her death. So much for hope here. 

Well then, maybe Lady Liberty could inspire him. But this was not New York, and she was only a one fifth sized replica that had once stood on top of the Liberty Insurance Company building in Birmingham until she was moved here along the highway. And she was strangely mute; the only sound to be heard was the hiss of her flaming gas powered torch. 

So despaired, NOT decided to return somewhere to follow up on one of the things he still believes in: a root beer float. And where better to go than the Green Duck? 

Photos by J.J. Kwashnak

Last Updated March 2001