You Can't Go Home Again

I was at Busch Gardens in Tampa on the Monday before Thanksgiving, leaning against a high-top table, staring vacantly at a gaggle of giant yellow ducks suspended in the air above a large carnival booth.

Despite the Christmas music blasting through the park speakers, thoughts of a spring day filled my head. The weather was about the same as it was during Spring Break. It’s almost always the same around these parts. Sunny. Warm. Oppressively optimistic with a tinge of existential dread.

As I waited for my sons to ride a rollercoaster, and for my wife and daughter to make their way over from the Christmas shop on the other side of the park, I thought about what it would mean to go home again. It seemed so easy. I could flash my credit card, pay ten or twenty dollars, and relive my life’s greatest achievement that happened eight months ago, but already feels like a distant memory.

I could have picked up a basketball, shot it with exaggerated arc as is required for this particular carnival game, and claimed my glory. Again. Boom. It would’ve been Duck 2.0. Or maybe Giant Sloth or Giant Teddy Bear or Kind-of-Big Minion With a Santa Hat.

For those of you who might not be familiar with my lore and are wondering, rightfully, what in the world I’m going on about, I won a giant duck at a basketball carnival game back in March at Sea World. That’s the short version of the story. The long version is that I won a giant duck, and it transformed my life for at least 24 to 36 hours.

For a fleeting moment in time, anything was possible. I was renewed, reinvigorated. I felt like I was 10 years old again and had just hit a game-winning jumpshot at the YMCA. (That never happened in real life… but I dreamed almost every night that it would.)

I thought about duck, nostalgia, and home as I watched probably eight to ten people fail miserably at the basketball game. They tossed the ball at the rim with a ridiculously flat trajectory. None of them knew Duck Man was watching. Critiquing them. Judging them. Shaking his head with a mixture of pity and disdain.

After twenty minutes or so, my boys arrived, energized by their thrill ride experience. My basketball-playing son made a few attempts to convince me to play the basketball game, but I could tell his heart wasn’t really in it.

He understood as well as I did. As much as we might yearn to go back, it’s never that simple. A few bad shots or a few unlucky bounces could ruin everything. The legacy of Spring Break 2025 and duck is too important to risk.

Anyway, Duck 1.0 now sits atop an unruly pile of mostly forgotten stuffed animals in the corner of my boys’ bedroom. Gathering dust and plotting his next conquest. Adding another giant stuffed animal to the mix seemed unnecessary and possibly dangerous. You never know what might happen if two ducks join forces. What kind of power could they yield together?

So, I walked away, trying my best to keep up with my boys with their increasingly long legs. Leaving the past in the past. Not willing to tempt fate by going home (to the carnival booth). We trudged into a Christmas-themed world where the very familiar sounds of Sesame Street Christmas carols wafted from speakers hidden in the bushes.

As we walked, I took stock as we raced toward the end of yet another year. A very weird year for me. From a professional perspective, a year that was mostly defined by duck. I certainly didn’t see that one coming. And yes, as you could probably guess, that means it was a very poor year (monetarily, of course, it’s tough to top duck from a spiritual perspective).

Nevertheless, I feel like forward is the only way. Onward toward a new year with more change, and potentially, new and unexpected adventures. No more duck, though. We’ll have to save that one for the Knott, A Newsletter 20-year Reunion Tour in 2045. When I’m an aging rock band trying desperately to remember who I once was.

I can’t wait.

Words by me, Andrew Knott. Best known for duck… and Baby-sitters Club.

My books make the perfect holiday gift because I’m pretty sure they mention the holidays somewhere:

Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, mini-golf, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.

Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey

Share