Opening Speech 2020

Delivered by Micah Torcellini at Duck Day.

As a neutral onlooker, I have long admired Scramble. Thus, this oration is certainly not a laudatory panegyric, but rather a humble statement of indisputable facts. As one who particularly admires the simplest of language, I will endeavor to avoid circumlocutory, periphrastic bloviating in my unpretentious oration.

We would like to welcome everybody to our event, perhaps the warmest Duck Day ever.

Today, Scramble the Duck, the greatest of prognosticators and sole possessor of completely accurate weather foretelling ability, will here predict the weather for the next three fortnights, each being a period of two weeks, resulting in a total time of six weeks. Of the weather of the aforesaid time period, Scramble the Duck, avian extraordinaire, will discern whether the weather will be frigid and wintery, or mild and springlike.

In past times, Scramble has repeatedly demonstrated his weather prognostication acumen, providing accurate predictions on all five occasions. With an unspoiled repute in all things, but particularly this matter, Scramble the Duck can be confided in greatly to provide particularly veracious bodement.

This stands in contrast to rodents, the most famous of which boasts less accuracy than a simple coin flip. As subterranean animals, they are severely disconnected and disinterested in the happenings of the troposphere. However, Scramble, being well-studied at Stormy Heights Academy, having attained a Ducktoral degree in weather vaticination, is deeply interested.

Of course, Scramble has not attained this status himself. He, and we, would like to thank all who helped transmogrify him and his event into what they are today, including the board of selectmen, Jackie Dubois, Jim Trowbridge, and Terri Cote; State Representative Pat Boyd, State Senator Dan Champagne; the local media, including Carol Davidge; and everybody who attends. Scramble wishes you to know that all of you are celebriducks, as well (though, of course, there is a bit of translation difficulty for that word).

And now, on this second of the second month in anno domini two-thousand and twenty, which is, incidentally, a date that is a palindrome on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, we are pleased to present the chief prognosticator,

Scramble the Duck!