CityView Magazine

10 | January/February 2019 G M C F A D Y E N ' S M U S I N G S The Dog Days d Summer BY BILL MCFADYEN G rowing up, we never had a dog. We had a calico cat for a very long time and I had a quail for a couple of years. Not dogs. It seems an odd omission to me now for such a traditional family as were we. In adulthood, though, I had dreams of owning a great quail dog. A lot of that vision came from reading Robert Ruark's "e Old Man and the Boy." His dogs were Frank and Sandy. ey were heroic. Always, I listened to Uncle Reg (my "Old Man") tell of his childhood pointers in Eufaula, Alabama, back when quail was a winter staple on the dinner table. He had a famed pointer named Dixie just prior to my entry into the world, when quail were still prolific in what is now Loch Lomond and Wessex Place and e Lakes on Fayetteville's west side. My first bird dog experiences were behind Reggie's less- accomplished pointer named Lady during the time that Reggie was introducing me to the woods. My best memory of her was when Granddaddy put her in the trunk of his Oldsmobile 88 and took us to some farm in Raeford. Granddaddy stuck the car in the heavy end of the bean field while following Lady and me around the tree line. He grumbled when the farmer showed up to yank him out, accompanied by a hired hand. He said that meant he had to pay both of them. It made not much of a dog and quail story, but the memory is indelible. Upon my return to North Carolina in 1985, I wasted no time in filling that canine void. My first dog was a black and white bouncing pointer puppy named Sawyer. Had I ever sent in the registration form, he was going to be formally named "Sawyer Potential." ere was a George Dickel advertisement in those days of a cowboy taking a bath in a cast iron tub, bourbon drink in hand, dog on the floor. Neighbor Tom Prewitt busted me living the illustration in real life one evening, only Sawyer was in the tub with me. I did a poor job of the early sit-and-stay commands though. Sawyer died on Cypress Lakes Road one morning before work as he rooted a sparrow out of the roadside thicket and failed to heed my "WHOA!" Dr. Fred Stowe and I ended up sitting next to each other one evening when I was a guest at Cedar Creek's famed Twin Pines Club. Our conversation turned to quail. Upon hearing of my dream of a good dog, Dr. Stowe said he had a broke dog he would give me. I am unsure if he took my acceptance seriously until a few days later when I drove up his driveway intent on claiming my gi. I le with my very own Dixie, a brown and white English setter in middle age. She will never be found in the annals of famed Quaildom, but she did inspire one of my favorite original poems from a time when we walked home together on the last day of the season. We loved the journey and we loved each other, despite the all-too-prevalent empty bird vest.

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