My Nanny

Nanny was my maternal grandmother, Ethel Blevins Privett, born in 1867, daughter of Dr. John Faulkner Blevins of Selma, Alabama, born 1838, 18th graduate of Tulane Medical School in 1858, Captain and Assistant Surgeon in Law’s 44th Alabama, present at the Sunken Road at the Battle of Antietam and a half dozen major Virginia battles of the Civil War,  and afterward assigned to hospital duty to care for the wounded in Richmond, and after that war, a practicing physician in Selma until his death there in 1901. Read more

Hawfield

No history of field trials in Virginia would be complete without a chapter on Hawfield. For several years following the loss of the Camp Lee grounds in 1940, The Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries and The Virginia Amateur Field Trial Association spent a great deal of time and effort in attempting to find suitable grounds. This search culminated in 1948 in the purchase of Hawfield, a 2,760 acre farm in Orange County. The manor house had burned in 1936 and the farm became run down, much of it had grown up and the drainage system had ceased to function adequately and very little farming was being carried on. Read more

Understanding Death

Death is always but a moment away. My father died of injuries from a car crash when I was fifteen. I had known his death was coming soon since age twelve. How had I known? Because of a freak storm you can learn all about on Wikipedia, the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, our family woke to radio warnings of a fast-moving nontropical cyclone with devastating force. Deep drifting snow and sub-zero temperatures were forecast to arrive in the afternoon. Thanksgiving day had been mild and pleasant. I had turned twelve on June 29. Read more

Memories of the Free-For-All

It was my privilege to report the National Free-For-All Championship at Sedgefields, Safford, Alabama a few years just before its discontinuance as a three-hour stake. It was unique, and its loss was a blow to the sport.  First run in 1916 by the National Field Trial Club, it was first won by John Proctor (HOF 1954), which had won the National Championship the week before after a two-hour second series. Read more

Spring Shuffle Delayed

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

My Favorite Spot on Dixie

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

Joe

He was the best I ever owned But in truth he owned me A setter pup from Flash and Pat From their first litter of a dozen more  Joe Prince gave me Joe A weanling gift for Christmas I’d got Flash for him from Bill Anderson And Pat for him from Arthur Bean She a daughter of Alamance Pride Runner-Up to Hilmar for Arthur in the Eastern Open ‘76 Flash Read more