If your dog finds birds
And points with style Read more
If
Blog
Deceit
It was the week before Christmas. Ben and Sam at four in the afternoon were alone in Ben’s library-conference room with a new-old fifth bottle of The Macallan 16 (joint Christmas gift to them from a client-patient), ice and club soda. They were using neither ice nor soda, both preferring the premium stuff neat in their Georgia or Harvard embossed insulated plastic short glasses. Read more
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. Read more
Trial Dog v Gun Dog
Ben and Sam were gathered in Ben’s library-conference room Friday afternoon to celebrate survival of a brutal week of emergencies, Ben’s legal, Sam’s medical. Law and medicine were the last thing they wanted to talk or hear about; they were weary.
In silence, Ben poured each a dram of The Macallan. Read more
On Being Old …Still Working
Ben and Sam met every Friday afternoon
In Ben’s library-conference room
To contemplate their week of law and medicine
Enjoy their friendship and a dram or two of The Macallan Read more
A Fortunate Find
Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD were saddened when they learned on entering Millie’s Diner for breakfast that Frank Phillips had died of a heart attack the previous afternoon while shooting a covey rise on his Red Hills Ridge Plantation. Saddened, but not morosely so, for they had often discussed how sudden death while enjoying one’s favorite sport was not a bad (indeed was an ideal) way to “shuffle off this mortal coil,” to paraphrase the Bard in Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy. Read more
When
When the harvest moon’s been full
And the dawn is coming chill
And the woodcock whistle through
My thoughts turn to bird dogs and what they do Read more
Remembering the Quail Championship Invitational (1996 through 2006)
Reading John Russell’s splendid new book, The Invitational Champions, has brought back precious memories of the eleven years it was my privilege to report the trial at Paducah.
My invitation to report came from John after my first report of the Florida Championship in 1995. I had attended the trial at Paducah as a spectator briefly in 1993 when Silver Bullett won his second crown, no Runner-Up. Read more
Sibling Heirs
Ben and Sam never ceased to wonder at the venom sibling heirs often held for one another. Ben often quoted his mother, “About the only place you see brotherly love is in the Bible.” Sam had a theory, “Sibling discord springs most often from spousal discord. If kids witness fights between their parents, they are likely to fight one another. And the worst happens when parents play young children off against one another or use them as pawns in parental disagreements.” Read more
What Is
“What is the noblest thing you ever saw a dog do here?”
The fellow asked his buddy as they watched the embers dim
Sitting before the fireplace at Chinquapin
The others had all gone to bed Read more