Preacher

Everyone called him Preacher. That’s all I had ever heard. So I asked Mr. Turley what Preacher’s real name was. “Gene Turner,” Mr. Turley replied. “Hahaha. I’ve got to say, he got it honest. Was the beat’nist thing I ever saw. Faith, that’s what it was. Maybe not in God, but faith none the less.” Read more

Marshall Loftin (by Danny Bardwell)

My favorite Marshall Loftin story was told to me by Marshall while we were riding the soon to be grounds at Sandy Hollow, Wilmer, Louisiana. Marshall said one December a judge from Baton Rouge called him to see about buying a squirrel dog. It seemed that the judge wanted to take his grandson squirrel hunting during the Christmas break. Read more

The Whistle (by Danny Bardwell)

While running a dog at the NBHA National Open derby stake last week I lost a whistle that I had used in South Dakota. I had scratched my mother’s birthday on the side of it on that day, August 27, 1979. I should not have been using it, but it was my favorite. Good things come and go I guess. Losing it, and looking for it, and remembering it, reminded me of the following, one of many memories I have of that summer. It’s not meant to be a work of prose although it may become one sometime in the future. I’m just recounting as it comes to me. However, every word and how it transpired is true, exactly true. Read more

The Last Field Trial

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