Looking Ahead
I took a phone call the other day from a bird hunting friend out in Arizona. He and his wife were traveling to Dallas, from Tucson, to visit family. We got through all the usual ‘How’s-it-going?’s and chit chat. Then, he got to the meat of the matter. “Randy, if something were to happen to us on this trip, would you mind going to our house and taking our dogs home with you?” I said, “Of course I will do that! Make sure you leave my name and number laying around your house. Don’t worry about the pups. I’ll take care of them. You know how highly I think of them both.” “That’s a load off my mind, then. I’ll see you for the Mearns opener in December” he said. I never asked him where that idea came from, but he’s a retired Air Force fighter pilot, so, like me, he tends to look ahead and have a plan. When I was an intrepid Naval Aviator, back in the day, we would joke with one another before we launched off the carrier. In typical morbid, male humor we would ask the rhetorical question, “Hey, man, if you don’t come back, can I have your stereo?” Somehow that sent a signal we cared about each other.
I never took a phone call like that before. My friend is older than me, and we are both seeing friends drop like flies at this age. It only makes sense some of them would be bird hunters and have dogs. It also makes sense to make plans for their care should something unexpected happen. My wife has a list of priorities for my future-orphaned dogs. The older ones will stay with her. The young ones will go to bird hunting friends she knows will take care of them. With only three dogs on the string, it won’t be too tough to manage. I laughingly told her to offer some GPS waypoints to sweeten the pot, but for goodness’ sake don’t throw in any of my “$200” shotguns!
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I know several men and women with kennels full of their own dogs. That would be a completely different situation than mine. The best case would be an advance warning of the impending doom. The worst case, of course, would be a phone call at 2 a.m. It would be comforting to know a plan was in place to take care of the bird dogs.
While my friend and I are long removed from our cockpits, he finally answered that age-old fighter pilot question. “If I don’t make it, come get my dogs and take care of them,” he said. Will do, brother.
