August 27, 2006
The return of LBJ ...
I moved the LBJ collection to my Flickr account this weekend, including a lot of new shots that I'd been waiting to add. It's all there now, in its unmitigated Great Society glory. There are now 185 LBJ photos in the collection, ranging from Knoxvegas to Estonia to Mexico. The little feller gets around.
In this photo, LBJ meets Heavy Metal Vance during joanne's annual Pennsyltucky pickin' party. Vance vance vance. You just gotta give him a chance.
Too bad LBJ's proud poppa, Dave, was AWOL. The little president wet his whistle with a bit of Absinthe and things got surreal.
Posted by Bob Benz at 5:19 PM | Comments (0)
Denver and the Front Range
Lara and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary in our favorite, city, Denver. This shot was taken from the Rocky Mountain News' new building, which Moose was kind enough to give us a tour of. We went to Red Rocks, a clam bake and generally had a great time.
Posted by Bob Benz at 5:14 PM | Comments (0)
A boy and his Coors Light
My brother Jeff drinks a Coors Light while we motor across Norris Lake. Jeff and his wife, Gloria, came to East Tennessee for the Bristol NASCAR race this weekend, and they stopped by our place on their way there. We rented a pontoon and had a blast, but a lack of sun screen took an ugly, red toll that I'm still recovering from.
Posted by Bob Benz at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2006
Playing possum ...
I've heard this expression often. Last weekend was the first time I saw it firsthand.
As we were wading through the morning mist at Melton Hill Park, I saw something ambling in the tall grass a few hundred yards away. It was white and moving slowly with an awkward gate.
Unfortunately, Ozzy saw it too.
He bolted after it, with Gilligan close on his heels. About halfway there, I realized it was a possum. Nothing to be done from where I stood, so I just watched as Ozzy grabbed it by the neck and gave it a hard, violent shake before dropping it.
Ozzy is a mighty hunter, but I've always suspected his hunts were more a zen-like enjoyment of the chase rather than an obsession with the kill. He never seems to capture his prey. But apparently I was wrong about Zen master Ozzy. He was very proud of himself, and by the time I came up on the scene, it seemed pretty clear he'd killed the possum. It's teeth, much sharper and more menacing than I'd imagined a possum would have, were contorted in a grimace and it looked stone dead.
I herded the dogs away from it and we continued on. But when we returned that way, about 20 minutes later, there was no sign of the possum. It was long gone, and the dogs seemed completely befuddled at its absence. Seems playing possum can be a useful strategy after all ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:00 AM | Comments (2)
The beagle man ...
"I like all dogs, but I'm a beagle man," he said, pausing to spit out the window of his pickup. In the truck's bed, there was a dog crate that I'm pretty sure had a beagle or two bumbling around in it. They were quiet, but my dogs were freaking out and seemed to sense something was in there.
I've run into the beagle man before at the park, but this was the first time I'd stopped to talk to him. Usually, he and his pack drift by in a howling storm, tormenting every rabbit within a mile or two.
He's lived in East Tennessee all his life and immediately recognized our house as "one of the old Gallaher places" when I told him where we live. Apparently there were two or three of their houses clustered on our stretch of Hardin Valley. Ours, from the best we can tell, was build in the 1890s and extensively renovated about 20 or 30 years ago.
The beagle man was looking for one of his pack, a timid female who apparently split off during a rabbit chase yesterday. I'd seen her when I arrived with Xena, Ozzy and Gilligan about 30 minutes earlier, but she trotted off into the woods when we drove past. She clearly was wearing a collar and tags so I wasn't too worried about her.
It brought to mind an image last winter as I was pulling into the park. It was early, even by my standards, probably about 5:30 a.m., and freezing cold. As I rounded the turn at the park entrance, the beagle man's truck materialized in my headlights and I saw him standing back by the tailgate, lifting a shivering beagle into the crate in back. Apparently, this was another escapee who had spent a frigid night outside before being rescued by her female. I wonder now if it was the same dog he was looking for this morning.
The beagle man went on at length about hunting (not much sport to deer hunting ... "it would be like shooting one of them dogs standing there"), changes in the valley and other things he's seen over the years. But he was adamant about beagles and hunting with beagles. He says once you learn how the pack works, you can tell exactly where a rabbit will emerge from the brush when it's being pursued by a braying pack.
The beagle man is easily in his 60s and has the easy-going, direct manner that I've really come to admire in East Tennesseans. They're great people, and it's fun to run into them in situations like this and get their take on things.
After talking for about a half-hour, he drove off, looking for his lost dog. I finished running my dogs, and on the way home, as we passed the beagle man's farm, we could hear cacophony of beagles in the cage outside his house. I'm assuming it was some sort of celebration for the prodigal pack-mate's return ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:21 AM | Comments (0)