Guy walks into a Bar

Guy walks into a bar with a duck on his head. The bartender looks up and says "Where did you get that ape?" Guy says, "This isn't an ape, it's a duck". Bartender says "I was TALKING to the duck".

If the man had walked into this bar in Minnesota, having crossed over from North Dakota, he could be arrested. It is illegal in Minnesota to cross state lines with a Duck on top of your head.

Such an event recently took place in the City of Moorhead, Minnesota, and gave this small city more publicity then it could handle.

Moorehead is across the Red River of the North from the City of Fargo, North Dakota. One of Fargo's more colorful residents is Thane Gustaffson. Gustaffson was a fairly amiable person, who in 1969, when he was 18 and of draft age, started to walk around with a Duck on his head.

Although that Duck is long gone, and there is no draft and Thane is nearing 60, he rarely leaves his home without a Duck on his head. In more than 40 years Thane has also not left North Dakota. All things changed on May 5, 2009. For on May 5, 2009, Thane crossed The Stillwater Lift Bridge over The Red River of the North into Moorhead.

He entered Red Erickson's Bar in Moorhead, where he was arrested by Sergeant Hank Blumenthal of the Moorhead police. Since this was the first such violation of this law in history, Blumenthal didn't realize what he was in for.

Blumenthal was a Tenth Amendment Advocate. He felt that this was the ideal case to show up those Left Wing Judges who legislate from the bench.

However he miscalculated, the case was immediately moved to The Federal District Court based upon the interstate commerce clause. There it was dismissed, not on it's merits, but based upon the fact that the law clearly was contradictory to Federal Regulation, that would allow Gustaffson to cross State line with a Duck on his head.

District Attorney Carol Super then decided to drop the case. Blumenthal then called the local branch of The Tea Party Movement, to protest what he believed was a violation of the Tenth Amendment.

Five Hundred Tea Partiers came from all over the country carrying signs. Cosmo Miranda of New York carried a sign the read "Teech the Bibel." Florence Winston of Kansas carried a sign, "Keap Mariage sacred. Between a Man and Women." Of all the signs, not one referred to the Tenth Amendment.

After two days the protesters left. During that time the hotels, store, restaurants and bars did more business then they had in the past two years.

The night that they left, Red Erickson placed a telephone call. "Your plan worked. I don't have to close down. They fell right into our hands. Thane, I have to tell you that it's great to have you for a cousin. What are you going to do now?"

"It seems that there is a law in Alabama, that it is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church. My Brother in law, Billy Bob, can use some help in his bait shop." Thane said worth a chuckle.