Wishing everyone a wonderful Holiday Season! Read more
Merry Christmas!
Blog
A Christmas Season Fix
Ben and Sam were brainstorming on how to help their old friends, the handler Jim Heath and his helper Booty Blevins, with their problem, brought on by old age. Jim was seventy, Booty seventy two. Read more
Staying Sane
On May 1, 2021, I will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of commencing law practice, Lord willing. Why has he not retired? you ask. Read more
The First Year
“I need your help with a patient,” Sam Nixon MD told his pal Ben Reach while the curmudgeons were waiting for their breakfasts in their customary booth in Millie’s Diner.
“What’s his problem?” Ben asked.
“On the verge of a nervous breakdown. Bird dog handler, got one that won everything last season, can’t keep him at all this season. He was expecting to continue winning this season, but every time he turns him loose there is a screw up,” Sam said.
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The Entry Fees
“Why do all the old field trial guys treat you so kindly, Ben?” Sam asked during a sundown session in Ben’s library-conference room on a Friday afternoon. The curmudgeons had just poured themselves drams of The Macallan 12, and Ben had just got off the phone with a friend and some-time client inquiring if Ben knew of any quail plantation jobs needing filling (it was March and the “spring shuffle” time for such hands was in full bloom). Read more
What Field Trials Have Given Me
Folks like to talk about what someone has given to field trials, especially when Hall of Fame voting time rolls around. This is about what field trials have given to me. The short answer is, much happiness. Read more
One Who Gave For Us — And Paid A Price
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
President John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961. Read more
Magic Memories From Field Trials
I have stored in my kit bag of field trial memories some special (to me) ones that come back often deep in the night when after waking sleep will not return. Here are a few. Read more
Do Not Do That
This had come up before, many years ago, so Ben and Sam were not totally surprised.
Herb Sheer had come to Doc first, and Doc had suggested he get Ben involved. Herb had long been a patient of Doc and a client of Ben.
The problem had originated, not surprisingly, with a new charismatic preacher in town. In the curmudgeons’ long experience such seldom heralded peace for parishioners.
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When You Ride a Borrowed Horse
When you ride a borrowed horse
At a bird dog field trial
You are thirty seconds away
From a mishap
Unless the horse beneath you
Is that rare breed that protects you
From your own ineptitude Read more