How was I ever so lucky
As to end up the Reporter
Of the Florida Open All-Age Championship?
Me born a mountain boy sheep farmer?
Luck pure Luck
The main force in my life
And I’ll bet in yours
Some good some bad of course
But in my case
All good
When it’s Bird Dog related
Despite the early orders of my mentor
No where better demonstrated
Than in how I met
Ted Baker
Which I tell you here in verse that does not rhyme
When I was a young lawyer
I had a mentor named Tom Gordon
A WW II Colonel Bronze Star Oak Leaf Cluster from the Italian Campaign
A second father to me
Even then l loved to hunt
Quail on farms nearby
So I kept a bird dog in the car trunk and snuck off afternoons
Told nobody where I went nor when I might return
One day Mr. Gordon summonsed me
“Thomas, come to my room”
I knew I was in trouble
When he called me “Thomas” cause he always called me “Word”
“Thomas, you are getting
A terrible reputation
By slipping off like a truant
Clients expect you in the office to answer your telephone”
I was contrite
Promised to reform
But I did not
Soon my mentor became a judge
Meanwhile most every client prospect
I happened upon
Was a bird dog man or woman or the son or daughter of one
They shared my passion for bird dogs to get fun done
One such prospect was
John D. Bassett III who became my friend and client
And referred other bird dog loving folks to me
Including one Bill Pannill who wanted to sell his sweat suit company and buy it back
So in the fall of ‘83
I took John and Bill Pannill to the Greenbrier
To celebrate John’s success in taking public
Bassett-Walker Knitting John’s family’s sweat suit company
We were there at my expense
Except for Bill who paid his own way
He was sizing me up to be his lawyer
To LBO Pannill Knitting Company
At night we partied in the Old White Club
Days we walked the mountains with our dogs to shoot ruffed grouse
And while Bill and I sat on a log
Waiting for John to cross a hill
Bill asked “What do you know about LBOs?”
And thus began a friendship
That lasted through Bill’s life
And continues with his son Will to this day
Bill did his LBO and John sold Bassett Walker to VF Corporation
Then Bill took his Newco public at $21 for $1
Soon sold it all to Sara Lee
And to celebrate Bill took me in John’s place to a castle in Scotland
There we’d shoot driven grouse where Queen Victoria had
And I would meet Ted Baker one of the nine guns
On Captain Farquharson’s Invercauld Estate at Braemar
(A little place on the River Dee just 200 miles square)
At breakfast on the first day in the Inn I said
“Mr. Baker, I sure liked
Your dog Builder’s Addition”
(Ted’s 1980 National Champion)
When the shoot was over
I wrote a log of it
And sent a copy to each gun
Along with snapshots from the moors
That prompted Ted to invited me to report
The Florida Championship
“But I have never reported”
Ted said that does not matter
So in January ‘95
I reported
Met the others in Ted’s Club
T. Jack Doc Howard Skip Murph and Chester
Year after that they invited me
To join the Suwannee River Boys
That begun the funnest part of life for me
Every second week in January
Now Murph Doc and T Jack have left us
To ride the endless field trial courses
Where the great dogs hunt and never tire
And quail are pointed everywhere
Where Omen and Evolution
Bill Possessed and Builder’s Addition
Redemption’s Reward and Honest Reward
Chinkapin Bisco Buck and Chinquapin Andy wait barking in God’s kennel
Photo: Tom with 2020 Florida Championship judges, Chip Pendergrass and Andy Crowell.
Great story Tom, loved the style