My latests 'office'

[Old and Reliable]

That was my wife's favorite sit-com back then- loved it so much she named the English Cocker Spaniel the girls and I bought for her birthday present back then MURPHY!!

I always wondered why the first Prez. Bush picked a young lad like Danny Boy Qualye for his V-P- what did Dan bring to the table that wasn't already there?

And in an antithesis, the second Bush Prez. picks a V-P as old as his Dad=- who ran Halliburton with a "Seig Heil" mentality and was able to dust off errant Texas lawyers at a distance with his 28 gauge quail "escopeta" and walk away unscathed- Strange world, that of Politics and BIG $--

[Mike McKinney]

Francis,
I had a Brittany named Murphy, named him that because we had lived in Murphy, NC and really loved it there. Murphy was out of my great old dog, who had more heart than a dog should have. Took Murphy to the UP the first year and he pointed and backed as good as you could have ask, but the next year he was glad to point and back, but he could have cared less if he found a grouse or not, it wasn't much fun to have a dog that uninterested and actually I just couldn't take it. Pretty discouraging.
Mike

[Dean Romig]

Many years ago my daughters brought a couple of very nice young men around to our cottage in Maine to meet Kathy and me and go out for a boat ride. Turns out they were brothers and we could have guessed it anyway, they looked so much alike. The oldest introduced himself as Baxter and explained that he was conceived on a camping trip in Baxter State Park, Maine. We all thought that was unique and somewhat humorous.... until the younger brother introduced himself as Ford... we kinda raised our eyebrows and he said "Yup, back seat."

[Old and Reliable]

"And that's what I like about the South"-- what great names. I know the great Tar Heel State a little bit, thanks to the USMC- Jacksonville area, Camp Lejeune- and a few weekends when I drove over to Fayetteville to see some HS buddies learning how to waste good airplane rides at Ft. Bragg- I also very much appreciate NC's equally great neighbor the Palmetto State and all the rich history, Andrew Clay 1824 comes to mind--

Dogs, like humans, are very hard to predict, IMO. Growing up, my Dad "inherited" I believe what the AKC lads call a "dropper", half registered Brittany, half English Setter- he named her "Speckles", Lord knows why, and she loved to bird hunt: good nose and instincts, solid on point, not a perfect retriever, but she'd find your bird, just didn't always bring it back-

But she lived for one thing- a 180 degree spin from the "Gun Shy" problem that can plague bird dogs- she loved to hear the gun(s) go off when the birdies flushed- In Ohio in the 1950's- No Sunday hunting, quail and dove were protected, and only Rooster pheasants were legal- We often got into many coveys of quail, and almost always put up Hen pheasants too in the course of a day's bird hunting- If she didn't hear a "Bang-Boom" when the birdies got airborne, she got discouraged, and headed back for Dad's Ford "Woodie" hunting car, and waited for us- she had "punched out" for the day- So we got in habit of carrying extra shells and at least one in our group would fire off a few shots skyward if a protected bird flew, and she stayed hunting for us--