A Magic Day

December 22, 2021 was a magic day for me. Why merits telling you a story.

I am now eighty-three years young, and no longer shoot, for reasons of safety (mine and my companions). Until recent years quail and grouse hunting were my fall and winter therapy for the cares of life. Bird dogs and watching them do their thing still are.

In 1983 I was fortunate to meet William G. (Bill) Pannill. Bill was contemplating selling his company, Pannill Knitting Company of Martinsville, Virginia, one of three makers of sweat suits (or fleece wear) located there. (There were then just four such makers in the US, and Bill’s father had founded the three in Martinsville). John Bassett, a friend and client and subject of the book Factory Man by Beth Macy, introduced me to his friend Bill on a grouse hunt. Bill became a client and dear friend, as did his son Will Pannill, who was Vice President of Sales of Pannill Knitting.

Fast forward thirty-five years. I knew Will Pannill was interested in acquiring a Virginia country place to develop for quail hunting. I learned by fortunate accident that Cedar Grove, ancestral home of the Lewis family (as in Lewis & Clark) at Clarksville, Virginia, had just been donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation by Mr. James Kinnear, former chairman of Texaco, and would be offered for sale, subject to historic preservation and conservation easements . Thinking it might appeal to Will, I told him about it. He soon bought it from the Trust and set about developing it as a quail hunting property and his home in fall and winter (you can see the magnificent manor house at Cedar Grove by Googling the application for its inclusion on the National Trust list of Historic Paces).

Soon after he acquired Cedar Grove, Will was looking for someone to manage It. Again by lucky accident, I knew Jim Heckert, professional pointing dog trainer and former manager of a similar property in Georgia, Wiregrass Plantation at Albany for the Thomas Vails of Cleveland Plain Dealer fame, might be available. I made the introduction and Will and Jim hit it off and they plus Will’s son Taylor have transformed Cedar Grove into a quail plantation worthy of the Red Hills at Thomasville, Georgia.

This brings us to December 22, 2021. Will invited my son Scott and grandson Thomas (“T”), age sixteen and keen on bird dogs like his father and grandfather, to Cedar Grove for an afternoon shoot. Will and I watching from an electric buggy. Jim and Taylor handled the dogs from horseback.

Among the Cedar Grove string was the setter Pat which we had given Taylor two years ago. In the first brace down Pat and Will’s setter Nigel starred. Mid afternoon our setters Trixie and Tommy, a derby, were put down and Scott, walking, handled.

When the shoot ended as darkness fell, the count was sixteen coveys pointed and shot into. The weather had been perfect, temperature in the fifties and sunny and clear, the dog work stylish and requiring no shouting, the retrieving by Will’s English Cocker Hank swift and efficient. The shooting had started with the first five shots downing fast flying quail. T had been practicing on the skeet range.

A Magic Day for this grandfather. Thank you Will, Taylor and Jim. And thank you setters Pat, Nigel, Trixie and Tommy. You did us and your trainers Jim, Taylor and Scott, proud (Jim had Trixie in Montana two summers and Tommy for a semester in the east).