Category: Remembrances

An Interesting Fellow

July 13, 2026 | Remembrances | Comments
In the summer of 2015, I received a poignant hand-written message from a granddaughter of a former head dog trainer-quail hunt manager of a large quail plantation in the “Quail Belt” between Albany, Georgia and Tallahassee, Florida. She and the grandfather were unknown to me. In her message, she explained that her grandfather, my age, had a bucket-list wish to attend the Florida Open All-Age Championship and observe it from atop the dog truck with me. She explained the grandfather had in the 1960s held his plantation post ten years, then when the plantation owner died returned to his home county in Northern Virginia where he spent the rest of his working years in the employ of an electric utility supervising a right-of-way maintenance crew. Read more

Priceless Treasure

March 30, 2026 | Childhood, Remembrances | Comments
Our family had no traditional inheritable wealth. But we had a treasure chest of unmeasurable wealth in family stories. They often carried lessons. Among my favorites is the story of Uncle Walton and the trombone. Uncle Walton was the youngest of my father’s four brothers, born in 1901. My father, nicknamed Jack for a family border collie stock dog who died the week of his birth in 1897, was second youngest. Robert, Quin and Harry, Jr were the others. Read more

A Railway Baggage Wagon

February 25, 2026 | My Father, Remembrances | Comments
I never see an image of a railway baggage wagon without it triggering a movie in my mind. The setting is the Norfolk & Western Railway Passenger Depot at Cambria, Virginia. The year is 1944. I am there with my father. I am 7 years old. My father is there to collect any incoming mail addressed to his law office arriving on the soon arriving west-bound passenger train. We are Read more

David Johnson Remembered

January 19, 2026 | David Johnson, Remembrances | Comments
I met David Johnson at the Florida Championship in 1995 and saw him there many years and at other trials, including the Free-For-All at Sedgefields (west) and the Continental. I also saw him at Foggy Bottom, T. Jack Robinson’s Mississippi training and hunting property near Corinth, Mississippi. He was first a gentleman and a consummate professional as a scout and trainer. Always quiet. Always looking for ways to help other Read more

My Farming Years

January 9, 2026 | Farming, Remembrances | Comments
Nineteen fifty to 1960 were my farming years, the first three years and two months as my father’s partner. (He also practiced law). On June 29, 1950 I turned twelve, and on that day my father bought for $1200 a John Deere MT tractor for me to operate, retired our draft mare team Maud and Bird, and fired our resident farm tenant. The tractor dealer, Nelson Wimmer, to whom my grandfather had given in 1934 a seed and fertilizer retail business he founded in 1919 that never made money, converted it to a John Deere dealership that prospered many decades. Read more

Dollars and Sense

October 27, 2025 | Non-fiction, Remembrances | Comments
Reflections on the Cost and Value of Education I entered college 70 years ago at age 16. It was at Hampden-Sydney College. Room, board, tuition and laundry combined were $1,000. I had it only because of a bequest from a childless aunt. I traveled to and from campus by thumb. Home was on a farm in Montgomery County, Virginia. Read more

A Simple Life

September 17, 2025 | Poetry, Remembrances | Comments
When I was young And saw how much My father loved our little farm I formed the wish To farm there always for my living Then he died When I was fifteen Net worth $29,000 My mom and I soldiered on For seven years more Farming just as he had Read more

Denny and Joe and Lucky

September 8, 2025 | Remembrances, Short Stories | Comments
Two more different individuals ever lived than Denny Poole and Joe Prince. Yet they were best friends. Joe was a Virginia bachelor grain farmer (peanuts, soybeans, corn, wheat). He worked at it seven days a week, March through October. November through February, Joe was a quail hunter, six days a week. Sundays he walked puppies and looked for quail hunting territory. One word described Joe: intense. Read more