Thursday, August 09, 2012

Our culture...

As demonstrated in our social center, the Golden Spur Saloon (I have for the moment ignored ranchers and cowboys, though the Spur's site doesn't). Click or double to enlarge either photo.
Below, my late mentor Floyd Mansell in our front yard in 1986, with son Brandon, who now has his own kids, and a morning's quarry. The big back and white hound, Blaze, is a "Cunningham", a last remnant of a lost Texas strain of wolver's hounds; the big dark dog is my old half- deerhound Riley. Betsy Huntington took the photo; within six months she was buried with the pelt of the bigger coyote, brought down by her "Baby Riley"-- it is all in Q- The- Book.

Floyd, incidentally, was a lifelong Democrat, probably to Retrieverman's left; also a Catholic convert, father of nine natural kids and one adopted one, an educator with a master's degree, a naturalist, a former Golden Gloves boxer, the baseball coach, one of our mayors, and a chickenfighter.

The guy who put up the heads, and Floyd's photo, is a Republican.

UPDATE:Our collaboration with the Spur, and Montana's continuing work on its site, continues; this two- week old pic of us there just up:

5 comments:

mushroom said...

Hunting transcends politics. My dad, a life-long houndman (Walkers and Julys), was as solid a Republican as there was. Some of his good hunting buddies were Democrats.

Originally he ran foxhounds at night, where the hunters would gather by the fire and listen to the hound music. They did not run to catch. The longer the races went the better.

When coyotes started coming into Missouri and eating our goats, Dad found out his Walkers weren't much good for them. He went down to Tulsa and imported some fo the first coyote hounds -- also Walkers -- into Southwest Missouri. We raised a lot of good, hard-running, fighting hounds based on that pair and others of their line. Somewhere in the '60s, Dad got a couple of the July hounds, a little different strain -- often solid buckskin, or buck with a saddleback or nearly as red as a Redbone coonhound. Those dogs were deer-proof and coyote killers. Great memories stirred by your picture. Thanks.

Federico said...

Wait, to the left of Terrierman? You are being facetious, right? Terrierman is so extremely leftwing he makes the Frech Communist Party look like a bunch of reactionaries!

On the other hand, I never thought of Cunninghams as coyote dogs, though it makes sense: according to Dutch Salmon the Cunningham greyhounds has a reasonable amount of pitbull in the mix -- and to be fair, pitbull jaws don't seem to be strictly necessary for jacks

Chas S. Clifton said...

Those Web visitors who think that you live in the Old West might be disconcerted to know that the town saloon has a website.

Steve Bodio said...

Federico-- well, I might be a little over the line-- how about to the left of, or like, RETRIEVERman? (;-)

Chas--well, sure, except that they are reading about it online! New Old West?

It is after all run by a guy named Montana by his parents, and features many serious western characters, and us, with more to come...

We might have had a bit of influence...

Anonymous said...

I tell you, folks, the LAST thing that would EVER be on my mind when running my dogs, would be what political affiliation I wasted my loyalty on!....L.B.