The Big Duck Race (Ithaca, New York)

With son Charlie. These and the other photos by son Cashel

In the wave of patriotic feeling that has come hard upon the elimination of Osama bin Laden it seems retroactively appropriate that I spent last weekend in small town Ithaca, New York experiencing a feast of Americana: opening ceremonies for my son Charlie's Little League season (blessed with a 15 foot long American flag hung over the proceedings from the top of a hook-and-ladder truck); then Charlie's first game of the season (he's a first baseman); then a church supper; and then the next day: the annual local foot race, capped off by the climax of the whole thing THE BIG DUCK RACE.

This is a Big Duck, but he wasn't in the Big Duck Race

You may have such a thing in your home town. What it consists of is thousands of rubber ducks (each of which represents a raffle chance bought by the spectators), which are released at the top of a water fall. They are collected farther down the river, and the numbered ducks are carefully ranked and tabulated.

It sounds better in theory than it is in practice. As you'll see in the photos below, the ducks, seen from a distance, seem vaguely creepy. When first released, it looks like the river water has been changed to mustard by a demented Moses. (Charlton Heston: "And the people of Egypt will have nothing to drink but condiments until you LET MY PEOPLE GO). We didn't get a picture of that stage, but as you'll see below, as they break up and get closer, they still swarm and gather, resembling at various times breakfast cereal, icky bugs in one of those bug movies, and piles of skulls left by the Khmer Rouge. Some of them clumped in cul de sacs like litter. But this is a pretty crunchy town. As you can imagine, dozens of volunteers in hip waders were on hand to come collect them. That way, they'll only hurt the environment a few months later when they don't decompose for 50,000 years in the landfill. But it's all in the name of a good cause: the Amusement of a Great People. And guess what? My ex and her husband came in 8th place, winning a cordless power drill. Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas any more.

Here they come!

Pile Up!