Blog

Spring Shuffle Delayed

July 29, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories, Ted Baker | Comments
Oliver Bain sold his AI (artificial intelligence) Unicorn (billion-dollar start-up) to Microsoft instead of taking it public. He was 58, and unknown to any around him, had a secret ambition he would now satisfy. As a boy growing up on a farm in Virginia, he had walked with his father, a dirt farmer, behind home grown pointers and setters after quail.  Read more

A Dread Problem and a Solution

July 22, 2024 | Booty Blevins, Short Stories | Comments
Sam Teel and Booty Blevins had been partners ten years, never had a fight. They argued some about how to fix a problem, but each knew that was healthy. They didn’t make much money, but loved what they did for a living, training and handling pointing dogs on the field trial  circuit.  In their day there was just one circuit, for shooting dogs were yet to be a separate circuit, formally. Sure, there were wide dogs and short dogs, big country and less big, major trials and weekend trials.  Read more

If You Care Too Much

July 15, 2024 | Poetry | Comments
If you care too much That the bird falls dead You’ve missed the point Of the hunt my friend  It’s not about What’s in your bag  Or hard shots made  On which you’ll brag  Read more

The Handoff

July 10, 2024 | Short Stories | Comments
The year was 1955. Buck Reed had returned home to South Georgia from the war in Europe ten years before and embarked on his career as an all-age handler of pointing dogs as successor to his father, Sam, who had then retired from the same trade, turning his string over to Buck. Sam sadly died a year later of a heart attack, victim of the near universal curse of his generation, cigarettes.  Read more

Siblings

July 2, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
“Inheritance brings out the worst in people,” Ben Reach often reminded his friend Sam Nixon M.D. when the old friends discussed the inevitable deaths of their shared patrons (Ben’s clients, Sam’s patients). A prime example occurred when Minnie Blanton asked the curmudgeons to meet with her jointly about a change she wanted to make in her will.  Minnie was the widow of Buck Blanton, long time manager of Tall Pines Plantation, a showplace quail plantation just south of Thomasville. When Buck retired the plantation’s owner rewarded his long service by giving him a modest house and ten-acre curtilage on the edge of Tall Pines, subject to a buy-back option if Buck or a successor in his family ever wanted to sell it. Buck had left it to Minnie.  Read more

Thanksgiving Mornings ~ Spices for Farmers

June 16, 2024 | Poetry | Comments
Thanksgiving Mornings  Had special meaning  For me  In my childhood My father and I rose early After breakfast of shredded wheat With sliced bananas Topped with thick cream From the neck Of a glass quart bottle  Of Mr. Gardner’s Unpasteurized unhomogenized milk Read more

My Favorite Spot on Dixie

June 12, 2024 | Remembrances | Comments
Many of us have a favorite spot on Dixie, now Livingston Place.  Mine is just east of the George Evans house. On it surrounded by a low white picket fence rest the gravestones of great Dixie bird dogs and retrievers, field trial and hunting, for Mr. Gerald, Mrs. Eleanor and Miss Geraldine.  Read more

Revenge of the Cat Woman

May 28, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Ben Reach had seen some strange rifts on the theme of inheritance greed since in 2011 “Portability” had come into the federal estate tax law.  Under “Portability, “a dying spouse could leave the surviving spouse his or her unused estate tax exemption, for the survivor to use against future gifts or bequests.  Because of “Portability,” some children were now encouraging single parents to marry poor (preferably penniless) candidates in questionable health in hopes of inheriting the benefits of their estate tax exemptions.  Read more