Odd Duck

Welcome to the Club... Mister E-for-Ed's Animalia, a happily brief mini-series of odes and en-souciants, past posts and pesky poems. ("A Horace is a Horace, of chorus, of chorus.") Step right up for the third piece in our first set, meaning the last of our Zoo's Who of dejects, come-downs, and weary reinstatements, this one written donkey's years ago during my around-the-world journey to enlightenment--of wisdom (that's pronounced whiz-dumb) and world ways, of waistline and wallet.

Mention the word "duck" these days, and folks are likely to think of one particular merry band of bushy beards, camouflaged weirdness, and crazy-like-a-fox Right Wing redneckery. But, pre-Dynasty, there were other coots and drakes, pin-tails and mallards, not to mention Daffy and Donald and--if you go back far enough, if you really dig deep Down Under--the oddest duck of them all, a certain sexually confused, Antipodean throwback with a lot on its plate.

But enough squawk'n'quack. Ladies and gentlemen, this way to the egress...