The last Point
The year was 1977 and, at times, it feels like a lifetime ago. This was the year that my best friend and I were introduced to the art of upland bird hunting. My friends name was Sam and she was as fine a pointer as one could ever wish for. Before you can truly understand my relationship with Sam you have to let me digress to a couple years before. It was I believe 1975 and my father had begun dropping hints that he knew a man who had some pointer puppies for sale. I assumed that the rolling of my mother’s eyes was a rather casual way of saying no. So, rather than risk a debate with my mother about the logic of having a bird dog, he simply bought the dog and gave it to me. After all what mother could not see the humor in that? We named her Sam and she became the vehicle through which I was to learn about responsibility. Over her short life she taught me more about life than I would ever learn from a human mentor. I fed and watered her daily, we became buddies. At some point in her very early days with us she became deathly sick. Somehow, between me feeding her children’s aspirin and the numerous trips to our veterinarian, she did pull through and all was good in the world once again. To this very moment I can still remember the looks of worry, and even fear, on my father’s face every day when he came home. It was a scary time for a young kid. Well, old Sam turned out to be a wonderful pointer and developed a unique personality somewhere along the way. Dogs have a funny way of developing a personality early on in their lives. We hunted pheasants on the Friday’s farm and partridge in, what seemed like at that age, some pretty faraway places. She would work a bird like a dog that was possessed, give a rock solid point and on the rare occasion my father would miss she had a look that said “good job you goober”. Sadly enough she was only destined to impact our lives for three full hunting seasons. In late November of her last season came the two hunts that even today I can recall every detail of.
The first hunt we went up north, everyone in Michigan went “up north” at least once during hunting season, hunting partridge or “pat”. It was our normal crew of Don Me High, his son Todd and their dog “Mike”. We walked and walked for what seemed like an eternity. Finally Don bagged a couple partridge, which was not much for a 13 hour day of driving and bird hunting. Since we all rode in Dons truck which had a camper on the back, Todd and I were to stay back there with the dogs and make sure they didn’t destroy the place. (Yea I know it’s illegal to do that but it was the 1970s) Well Todd and I, being boys, decided to get in the bunk above the cab and wave at every single car that passed us for the entire ride back. While we were busy with waving at these people and causing our fathers to wonder why everyone was waving at them, the dogs were also having fun… They played tug of war with the birds and there were pieces of bird and feathers everywhere. I really thought I was going to die when we got home but, all I got was a stern look and a lecture. I am pretty sure I narrowly avoided the butt whipping of my life that evening…
Troy Lee Basso Photography 