Free The Duck Commander Family by Willie Robertson, Korie Robertson Page B

started looking for other places to sleep, where I wouldn’t feel like I was packed in like a sardine.
    When I was in middle school, I moved into the cook shack in front of our house, which was screened in at the time. It was during the summer so it wasn’t cold, and it had a sink, which was really cool. I had a hot plate out there and cooked my own meals. I even moved into the building where we made the reeds for the duck calls. Neither of these places was very big and they didn’t have any insulation, heat, or air-conditioning. They weren’t exactly the lap of luxury, but for me, they were mine. And for some reason I always felt like I needed my own space.
     
    Korie: I always thought it was cool that Willie was trying to make his own little place in the world. He liked to fix up his space and paint it. He was a big baseball fan and loved the Los Angeles Dodgers. When he moved into the cook shack, he painted it Dodger blue. Even though it wasn’t much, Willie always tried to make it as nice as he could. He put pictures on the walls and would add his own little touches. He tried to have a nice little place to live. I’ve always been impressed by his ingenuity.
     
    After a while, I figured out I needed to live in a place that was actually attached to the house, so I moved into a small back room that was our laundry room. Korie showed me the laundry room when I visited her house for the first time. I asked her, “Who lives in here? Man, you could fit a double bed in here!”
     
    Korie: I met Willie for the first time when we were in the third grade at Camp Ch-Yo-Ca, the camp I grew up at. Willie and Jase went to my session of the camp, and Alan came for high school week. Kay was cooking in the kitchen that summer, so her boys could attend the camp for free. I remember thinking Willie was the cutest thing I had ever seen and was so funny. We called him by his middle name, Jess, at the time. He had these big dimples and the cutest sideways smile. I had a diary that I never really wrote in, but that summer, I wrote: “I met a boy at summer camp and he was so cute. He asked me on the moonlight hike and I said ‘yes’!” Ieven wrote “Korie Loves Jess” on the bunk of the cabin I was staying in that summer.
    Yes, Willie asked me to go on the moonlight hike with him. It was always a big deal every summer figuring out which boy was going to ask you to accompany him on the moonlight hike, and I was thrilled when he asked me! Willie was definitely my first crush. After camp that summer, I didn’t see Willie for a couple of years. We went to different schools and his family went to a small church out in the country. Our family attended one of the bigger churches in town, White’s Ferry Road Church.
     
    W ILLIE WAS DEFINITELY MY FIRST CRUSH.
     
    When I was in the fifth grade, Ray Melton, the preacher at our church, tried to recruit Phil to start coming to White’s Ferry Road. Ray’s daughter, Rachel, and I were best friends, and they were going to Phil’s house for dinner one night. They invited me to go along. I still remembered Willie from camp, so needless to say, I was just dying to go. I begged my parents to let me go with them. They said yes! I even remember what I wore to Willie’s house—a black top with fluorescent green earrings. Don’t judge . . . it was the eighties.
    When Rachel and I got to the Robertsons’ house, the first thing Phil said to us was: “Have you met my boys, Jason Silas and Willie Jess? They’ll make good husbands someday. They’re good hunters and fishermen.” I was so nervous. I could not believe this was happening. The other thing I remember about walking in their home was that Phil and Kay had a sign on their door that said, “Honeymoonin progress.” Phil and Kay have never been shy about their honeymooning . . . another thing that shocked me about their family.
    Once we had eaten, Willie took us back to his room, which was actually the laundry room. He made us