With no Florida Championship to report this year, I have turned to re-reading memoirs of great field trial handlers, namely Jack Harper, Ed Mack Farrior and Leon Covington (via his biographer, John Chriswell). Their careers spanned 6 decades (1919 through 1960s). I knew only Mr. Ed Mack, and what a privilege!
My introduction came through Parke Brinkley, a mutual friend who when I traveled to Union Springs to report the Amateur Free-For-All arranged for me to stay with Mr. Ed Mack and his wife Floyd, both in their 90s, in their home which had been Edward Farrior’s.
The Free-For-All did not run Saturdays, and we spent it touring South Alabama, visiting his father’s home place at Letohatchee, Sedgefields Plantation (west) where Ed Mack had worked with Clyde Morton just before World War Two for AGC Sage, and Marion Junction, where my maternal grandparents and great grandparents are buried in a churchyard cemetery.
Mr. Ed Mack had total recall of events, dogs and people from his childhood forward. He was wonderful company. I remember his describing his father’s view of Henry P. Davis, outdoors writer and frequent field trial judge. Mr. Edward referred to him as “the EverReadyBunny, always anxious to judge a trial.”
Every trialer and bird hunter should read Mr. Ed Mack’s memoir, reprinted by Strideaway with marvelous added photos. It chronicles trials in North America through their golden era and introduces us through the actions and first hand observations of Mr. Ed Mack to great characters, canine and human. Available from Strideaway’s on-line store.
