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The Dawg:

Nick (Nicodemus) was a black lab retriever. He was with us on the farm and watched over and protected us kids from all kinds of dangers. We hand milked a few cows and separted and sold cream to  local dairy. The chap that picked up the cream had a leaded pipe that he beat on the milk can lids to tighten them. Nick hated the noise hated him but sort of tolerated him.One day my sister about 5 was standing there and he approached her Im gonna steal one of those pigtails and pretending reached for her. Nick came totally unglued He had him backed up in a corner. When the cream guy came around we had to lock Nick up.

As far as intelligence he put Lassie at shame. He knew the name of probably 20-30 different nouns Go get my gloves. He would search for hours untilhe found both of them . Go get this Go get the paper. Go get dog food He would go into the pantry and out of many cans get the red Vets dog food. And the dog food pan. You could put it in the pan Now dont you touch that.. You could go outside and leave him there with it Come back in and he would look at you OK get it Then he would eat..

He was first and foremost a huntin 'dawg. He would work wheat fields and retrieve downed pheasants. The only fault he had was if a rabbit took off he was gone for awhile. But he loved water and duck hunting More than once in the fall if he heard shotguns over at the lake he was gone. He would swim out in the cold water and retrieve ducks all day long. Then after while a strange SUV would pull into the yard Nick would be sittin' in back all muddy and the seat all muddy plumb tuckered out. This ur dawg? Yup.. He's a good one... Yup... Wanta duck for supper? Yup.He would hand me a blue teal dressed and I would let Nick out..Big grins and they werwe gone.

We had an old gray mare named Silver Go get Silver Nick At first he would get her halter rope and lead her back . Then later he would go out in the pasture and give her a look They would both mosey back to see what was going on. We threw a garter snake into a stock tank (water trough) one time and he like to drownded trying to find that snake. I was on the other side of the world when he had arthriitis and could no longer dash to the lake and had to be put down. There is an old song about dear john It does not even compare to the emotions when we had to put Nick down...

The Hunter:

Bob Kuhn (Coondog) was one of those types that was heavy set red hair and freckles and always wore a checkered shirt. If a shot gun or shell company needed a model for a picture of a man sitting in the basement by a fireplace cleaning a shot gun or reloading Coondog was him. He was the one that decided I was old enough to go pheasent hunting and brought out a long tom shot gun I swere to god I could put the shoulder pad on the ground and the muzzle was higher than my cap.

He had a doulble barrel 10 guage shot gun and reloaded all his shells (hot).One sunday (lots of fried chicken thats another story) he decided I needed to shoot his 10 guage. We found an old 5 gallon paint bucket in the trash to shoot at. I was about 12 .. I nervously picked up the shot gun and put the very deep shoulder pad against my shoulder OK  You guessed it. I pulled the front trigger first With the barrel about 44 degrees up I hit the second trigger Bout knocked me on my (@$%&#!). When Coondog laughed it started out as a low rumble deep down inside then exploded into an infectiuos giggles.

We had many good hunts Many of my early philosophies and meanings of life were formed by old folks living in cabins with dirt floors (so clean you could eat off of) but Coondog played a great role in my finding out about life.He was from the old country you know I never did know his actual old country. It didnt matter. He was a man. He was sometimes the one that was drunk and needed a ride home and sometimes he was the one giving the ride. Gawd times were good then.. He was there always as a friend. It always seemed like if one of my dad's friends needed bailing out of jail he had the money.

In the later years we would get some beer and drive the country roads all afternoon and talk and talk and check out the fishing lakes just generally browse around and fix the world. Then one day I got the call. Coondog is gone Hem was spading a garden in the hot sun he had a stroke..

The Hunt:

While working at KFBC in cheyenne they approached me with the idea of being the chief engineer at KTVS in Sterling (small town in NE Colorado) Sure if I can move a house trailer out on the hill and have free rent. Just to give you an idea what this country is about the first time I parked on Main and was backing out a car stopped Well they want the parking place. You stop at the traffic light look in the rear view mirror and there they are.That was alright but a mistake because for the first year or so I was on call almost 27/7 and being on salary didnt get overtime. And I had to kill about 6 rattlers every summer. The gear was hand me downs from Cheyenne and wasnt the greatest The first studio camera I worked on was an old Shibaden weighed 200 pounds and needed 2000 watts of lights for the news set.

We moved the studio from downtown and put it back in the site up on the hill. I literally ran the cables and hooked up a small tv station video and audio The transmitter was an old 50 model tube type In the transmitter room was an old Tektronix 5" round oscilliscope ser number 52. All of a sudden I was back in my realm.The microwave relay halfway between Cheyenne and Sterling was an old RCA tube type (We later got solid state)

In that part of the country is miles and miles of wheat fields and some of the best pheasent hunting in the world. The gm (Gene Houston) knew all the farmers and ranchers around and we had permission to hunt about anywhere. The lands are wide and sometimes are 1/2 a mile long The wheat stubble at times are chuck full of pheasents. When it snows they burrow in and are sometimes hard to flush without a dawg.

It was a calm sun aft about 50 degrees and I neede to get out of the house so I went to a wheat stubble field about a 1/4 mile long.The snow was level at at the stubble. I walked south the sun was warm the air was fresh and the world was perfect. After while I didnt care if I saw a pheasent or not.I was just enjoying it. Almost to the end it clouded up and a cool breeze started. I turned around and started north. Soon my eyes started watering I was just getting back. A strange calm overtook me I started thinking of Nick an Coondog and marched north and reveled in memories I didnt know if the water coming out of my eyes were tears or not. I relived many memories The wind was cold but I was warm.I finally reached the fence and propped the gun on a post and climbed thtough the barb wires. I looked back in astonishment!! There were 3 sets of tracks 2 hunters and a dawg.. And then I  finally cried.

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That's quite a story Ollie, thanks for sharing it.