Blog

A Christmas Story

Pete-Bob Dix called Ben Reach and Joanne answered. “Miss Joanne, I need to see Mr. Ben and Doc Nixon urgent. I got a problem only they can fix, maybe, I hope.” It was a week before Christmas, coming next Thursday. “What’s it about, Mr. Dix?” Read more

Two Scouts

This year there were only two in attendance at the Championship, held in North Florida the second week of January. Five decades earlier, when the trial was first held in 1969, each of the handlers attending had one, a year-around full-time employee. I speak of black scouts. The handlers were all white, then and now. Read more

Arnie, Bo and Superboy

Arnie Eanes and Bo Brown were a handler-scout team of the 1930s, home based in Georgia. Arnie was white, Bo black. They lived at a time and place when almost no one had wealth, and the few who did were from up north and loved to bird hunt and admired good pointing dogs. Arnie and Bo made their meager income training and handling those dogs, for competitions called field trials. This was a sport invented sixty-odd years before in England and imported to the United States in 1874 and since become popular among a few sportsmen, wealthy and not, across the nation. Read more

If

If you hunted birds With your son Over pointing dogs You bred and raised Your son did too And built that bond Where the dogs are the glue And a point binds all generations First, middle and last Read more

Happiest Days

My happiest days Were spent horseback Riding at field trials Watching dogs explore For coveys of quail Or sharp tails or Huns  In wire grass or prairie grass Wheat stubble or weeds  Watching them freeze  Stand rigid and tall Waiting for handler To get there to flush  Then watered and released To stretch out for the front  To find more to point  At the end of a cast From first breakaway To the end of the day Looking for the one  That lays down the great race Read more

Drive at Dawn through Tidewater Farms

I drove at dawn today West through Virginia’s Tidewater counties Soil sandy, flat and fertile British names Suffolk (now a city, used to be Nansemond County) Isle of Wight Southampton Sussex Harvest time has come at last Peanuts dug and in windrows drying Waiting for the combine Farmers fearing rain or freeze or both That renders the precious nut worthless Corn this year grew wonderfully From planting to maturity Most Read more

Dollars and Sense

Reflections on the Cost and Value of Education I entered college 70 years ago at age 16. It was at Hampden-Sydney College. Room, board, tuition and laundry combined were $1,000. I had it only because of a bequest from a childless aunt. I traveled to and from campus by thumb. Home was on a farm in Montgomery County, Virginia. Read more

A Passing of the Torch ~ Part 1

Sam Nixon MD had endured a troubling week. He felt the need to talk it out with his pal, Ben Reach, at their customary Friday afternoon meeting at Ben’s office to plan the weekend’s fishing. “Ben, I have a problem, or one of my patient’s has: Al Scales has congestive heart failure.” Read more