Hunting Doves with King Lear

I snuck out at sunup the other morning to hunt doves for an hour. My ageless wonder, Buddy the Black Lab, made the trip too.

Actually Buddy the Black Lab isn’t really black anymore—far from it. Entering the backstretch of his 11th year, Buddy has aged into the canine version of King Lear. So says a friend who has a particular high Shakespearian IQ. “He (Buddy) looks like King Lear,” she said in an email not long ago. “Unbelievable. I can’t believe how he’s changed. He’s an old man.”

I look at Buddy’s photos from years past and I don’t even recognize His Majesty. He went from charcoal black to geriatric white in seemingly record time. The good news: Buddy, despite his age, is the happiest dog you’ll ever meet; always has been, likely always will be. Instead of growing more jaded and curmudgeonly over time like I have, Buddy has mellowed and gotten only happier. Dogs, especially labs, are remarkable that way.

What’s more, Buddy’s desire to hunt is still insatiable. Unlike King Lear (so the play goes), Buddy has no designs on retiring and ceding his power; he’d rather hunt until his last breath (or until his arthritis cripples him permanently, whichever comes first).

Blogging for Delta? Fred made me do it

I blame Fred Greenslade.

I blame Fred Greenslade for all the time I don’t have to fly-fish and hunt; for all the time I don’t have to read my growing stack of books, and for the all the time I don’t have to pursue an adequate social life.

Fred is Delta Waterfowl’s award-winning photographer, genius webmaster and my good, good buddy.

He works long, long hours for Delta, doing many, many things, including bugging the *&#$ out of me on occasion.

“You should start a blog,” he emailed several months back, his first salvo in a carpet-bombing campaign to steal away what remains of my already-limited free time. “You’d like it. God knows you have a lot to say. Besides, it would be fun. You need to do this.”

I didn’t respond. I thought he was nuts, insane, mad. Another crazy Canadian, I mused. Way too much on my plate already. Too many “opportunities.” Start writing a blog? Fo’get about it.

A few days later another email popped happily into my inbox, the subject line of which read: Blog. I spiked it. Then the voicemails started: “Hey man, about that blog…”