Clue Explanations
The INTRODUCTION contains the phrase “put it all on our bill,” which is meant to suggest William Howard Taft—and in turn Taft Park, site of this hunt’s hiding spot. It also includes the phrase “red, white, and blue,” which sets the patriotic theme for this duck hunt.
CLUE #1 further establishes the patriotic/presidential theme of this hunt, and references a park that features a lake—in this case Taft Lake, at Taft Park.
CLUE #2 tracks our hero Sam as he departs the recently opened (and suddenly closed) splash pad at Veterans Park on a “crusade” for “a [hiding] spot in the shade” near the edge of town (“bounding”).
CLUE #3 is jam-packed; it references the “roundabout way” one might take (or encounter en route) to our hiding spot—which is confirmed to be in “the shade of a tree”—and suggests hunters follow the west-to-east direction of this year’s parade, toward the “ways of the free” (or freeways) of 77 and 62—two routes that intersect in a cloverleaf interchange (“our lucky charm”) just northeast of Taft Park; the park can be found where two “local” “City streets”—Richfield Parkway and Bloomington Avenue—become each other, is located on the edge of town (“Keep it local, with frontiers focal”), and contains many sports fields (“knock the mud from your cleats!”), including ballfield #4, near which Sam the Duckie was hidden.
CLUE #4 references William Howard Taft, the “portly president” who was apocryphally rumored to have gotten stuck in a bathtub during his term; he is of course the namesake of Taft Park—where in this clue hunters are told to look “over the center field wall” of one of the parks four baseball/softball fields.
CLUE #5 points hunters to the MacGuffin—hanging from the lower branches of a tree at the edge of the woods, about halfway between Taft Lake and the outfield wall of ballfield #4.
