Ben Reach

A Misunderstanding

November 29, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Misunderstandings destroy understandings, parent-child bonds, sibling affections, business deals. Among the most fragile of business relationships is bird dog field trial handler partnerships, known as ‘helpin’ each other.” With the wisdom only age brings, Ben and Sam often worked to heal misunderstandings among their acquaintances. Misunderstandings often arose during pointing dog field trials, an arcane world Ben had long inhabited and Sam viewed from afar through Ben’s eyes and stories Read more

The Surest Way

November 6, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach seemed to spend more time on fights among siblings these days than any other problem. And the leading cause of the disputes was joint ownership of real estate inherited from a parent. “Don’t leave your children property to own together. It’s a sure recipe for an ugly fight,” Ben would say. His father had had a saying forty years earlier, “Surest way to destroy brotherly love is to leave brothers shared ownership of a farm — or anything else.” Read more

Worst Mistake

October 3, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD were settled in Ben’s library-conference room at 4 PM on a Friday with drams of The Macallan 12 in plastic mugs and splits of club soda to dilute it on the table before them. Both were glad the work week was over — it had been a tough one. Sam had to tell a patient her cancer had returned. Ben had to tell a grandfather his favorite grandson had failed out of the grandfather’s Alma Mater. Ben mentioned the bird dog trainers, field trial and hunting plantation types, were just back from summer training on northern prairies. He and Sam were invited to a dove shoot on Mossy Swamp Plantation tomorrow. “What was the worst screw-up you saw field trial judges make in your years of doing that?” Read more

Holes and Rules

August 13, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

“Every dog has got a hole, and his handler has to hide it,” was a truism in the world of bird dog field trials. This led to an experiment at the Deep South Open All-Age Championship, initiated by John Steed, owner of Fat Pine Plantation, venue of the Championship. Steed issued bodycams to each of the six mounted marshals he sponsored to ride throughout the Championship. Before the first breakaway, he met privately with the marshals. Read more

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

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

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

Rained Out

March 11, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach enjoyed nothing more than a rained-out day at a major field trial. A day when participants had no choice but to sit around a clubhouse and wait to see if the rain would lift enough to resume the running. Today he was at Paducah, where a decade or two before he had ridden more than once as a judge or reporter on Thanksgiving weekend for the Invitational or right after for the Kentucky Quail Classic and Derby. Today it was 45 degrees F with rain falling steadily. A log fire roared, lunch was over, and hope was slim for more running today. Read more

A Christmas Fix

December 24, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben and Sam were brainstorming on how to help their old friends, the handler Jim Heath and his helper Booty Blevins, with their problem, brought on by old age. Jim was seventy, Booty seventy-two. The Curmudgeons had considerable experience, much of it first-hand, with problems brought on by old age. But they had been fortunate to avoid Jim and Booty’s problem, LOF (lack of funds). Jim and Booty still had the will to work, indeed loved to work. Problem was, age had robbed them of an asset essential to their craft, eyesight. Jim had macular degeneration, Booty glaucoma. What could they do with their skill sets to make a buck, that was the question the Curmudgeons were pondering as they slowly sipped end-of-day-end-of-week drams of The Macallan 12 in Ben’s library-conference room. Read more

A Poacher Forgiven

December 12, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Albert Cole felt jubilant this opening day of quail hunting season in Thomas County. He had recently concluded successful negotiations to purchase a tract of 300 acres adjoining his Cedar Creek Plantation, rounding out the acreage of his quail shooting estate at 5,000 acres, its original size when assembled for $6 an acre by his great grandfather, a Robber Baron of the Gilded Age, from desperate turpentiners and cotton farmers in two stages, the first beginning in 1893 with a financial panic that led to a Depression lasting until 1897, the second with a Boll Weevil attack on cotton in 1915. Read more