The day after our most recent trip to The Duck Store at Valley River Center, KLCC aired a report on the royalties amassed from sales of licensed Duck gear this year — more than $300,000 so far. Add our purchases to the total, please: a black T-shirt with the O and silver Duck feathers, a bright-green “I Love My Ducks!” sweatshirt, and two silver O stickers that will probably end up on the Majesty and the Vespa.

We love our Ducks, not just because they’ve had a few winning seasons in recent years and not just because they’re in the Rose Bowl today. We’re real Ducks (Class of ’67, Class of ’75) and we’ve always loved them.

I haven’t actually been to a Duck game since 1972, when a handful of housemates from the women’s co-op where I lived huddled under umbrellas, all but alone, in a monsoon in the west end zone at Autzen Stadium, watching the Ducks lose to Fresno State.

We’ve got our game shirts on today and Radler has a Duck hanky. The big plywood fighting Duck is posted in the front yard and the fighting Duck flag is flapping in the wind. Three hours til game time.