Here a Duck, There a Duck

In the Philippines, the streets are crowded with— Well, I could just make that a full stop. The streets are CROWDED. But among the things that crowd them are specimens of a form of public transportation known as the “Jeepney”—a sort of mashup between jeep and school bus, often open-sided and always painted with incredible detail and vivid color.

The other thing missing in this picture is that a Jeepney invariably has a name painted across its front. Many of them have women’s names (in the same way that a fisherman might name his boat for a wife or female family member), and others are named for places, or saints, or pop icons, or short phrases. Somewhere I have the list I started keeping, during my month in the Philippines, of all the names I found entertaining.

What got me thinking of colorful jeeps was a conversation with a Canadian guest who checked in yesterday. While she & I chatted, her husband unhooked the jeep they tow behind the motorhome, and she mentioned the ducks in her front window. “Do you know what those are for?” she asked. For starters, I didn’t realize there were so many “flavors” of rubber duck!

Apparently Jeep Ducking started during the Pandemic, as a cheering sort of show of camaraderie: Jeep owners started leaving little rubber ducks on the door handles of other people’s Jeeps. We walked outside so she could show me her proudly displayed “duck pond”—all of them left by other Jeepers—and now these lucky-ducks get to travel around North America with her. She told me she keeps a bag of ducks in her own back seat, to leave on other people’s Jeeps in turn.

I love it. It reminds me of our own “Pandemic cheer-fairy.” That same year, we had someone leaving painted rocks all around the park. We never did discover who it was, except that it must have been a resident, because the rocks kept appearing for months. My crew wasn’t fond of the ones they found while mowing, but overall they were sweet or funny or cute contributions to a world that desperately needed cheering. My favorite was the KOA-yellow “RV,” found in front of our office:

We had a similar “cheer-bomber” a couple years ago, although this one must have been a guest passing through, because their gems only appeared for a week. These ones were tiny crocheted animals, and when my husband came across a tiny octopus in our dog park, he brought it home to hang in our just-purchased boat. It felt like a good omen, a little yarn-crafted blessing on the boat.

The ducks inspired me. The blogger-equivalent of Jeep Ducking doesn’t have a cool name, but it’s the practice of leaving thoughtful comments after reading another writer’s work—so that’s what I was doing yesterday evening. Now we just need a nifty name, and maybe a badge. Wouldn’t that be ducky?