Blog

Robin and Rick in Alberta

March 15, 2020 | Remembrances | Comments
Rick told me of a trip to a trial in Alberta he and Robin made back when they were getting started with just a few shooting dogs in their strings. The trial had stakes in every open category and they ended up with winners or placements in all except the Derby. They were feeling good about it. Robin had been talking on the way out west about how he felt constant pressure to uphold the Gates name and reputation. Read more

Robin and Rick

March 14, 2020 | Remembrances | Comments
I had a phone conversation with Rick Furney this week that brought back vividly memories from the past quarter century and beyond, sweet memories of watching Robin and Rick compete head to head in field trials across the country. I first watched Robin handle at the Eastern Open Shooting Dog Championship at South Hill, Virginia, in 1976 when Hilmar won for Larry Moon and Alamance Pride was Runner-Up for Arthur Bean, and Robin handled a marvelous string of shooting dogs. That was forty-four years ago! Read more

The Trip

March 5, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Ben Reach was breakfasting alone in Millie’s Diner when his old friend Fred Eanes entered and accepted Ben’s waived invitation to join him. Fred farmed near Camilla in partnership with his son. Like Ben, he had been a life-long lover of big going bird dogs, trial and hunting. He and Ben had often judged together, but not for the last decade. Read more

The Last Field Trial

February 27, 2020 | Danny Bardwell, Other Authors | Comments
A January fog, heavy wet and cold Crept down from the darkness of the pines and across the gentle folds. Not an apparition mind you but real I’m here to say. A thump loud on my door when the Field arrived that day. It lay flat, folded in a linear way Thin and plain and pale. I looked from side to side to see whom the carrier might be. But it was the fog that brought it, and delivered the truth to me. Read more

How Many Miles

February 24, 2020 | Prose, Remembrances | Comments
How many miles Did the Big Man ride Behind a bird dog Puppy, Derby, All-Age? Through heat and storm On prairie and in pines From Canada to Florida From boy to aging man Read more

A Solution — Sort Of

January 6, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Ben Reach had a Monday morning appointment he dreaded. After breakfast at Millie’s with Sam he trudged to his office to “face the music,” as his father said whenever his mother insisted he join her at a symphony performance (quarterly). He had spent most of a sleepless night working out what his advice would be this morning to Gilbert Spain. Read more

Debit Man ~ A Story for Christmas and 2020

January 2, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD had long enjoyed a secret Christmas season ritual. It required the conspiratorial help of The Debit Man, a man even shorter than Ben Reach but the only Caucasian who had the information Ben and Sam required to fulfill their annual ritual. What is a Debit Man? If you must ask that question you did not grow up among Poor People in the South in Ben and Sam’s era. Read more