On the Road

 

 

Each year Fred Feines travels with his pal Barbara to attend the ACC Show Specialty and the ACC Field Trial Specialty.  He puts into writing his trials and tribulations of the trip and his take on everything.  We share it here with you...

 

 

Monday night - The start of it all--
We just came back from an informal meeting, dinner and the calcutta. There was no meeting; we had nothing to report from the other meeting. The trialers were interested in what transpired at the meeting but there was little we could report.

Dinner was very, very good. Buffet. Very good service. Nice place.  The landowners for the Specialty were introduced. This is supposed to be OUTSTANDING trial grounds. We'll see for ourselves in the morning. EARLY in the morning.

The Calcutta was very successful. Marston Jones. He pulls bids out of people who aren't even present. Good thing Susie Ritch isn't here; she's usually the butt of Marston's phantom bidding. She's a good sport.  Mike Coutu was active. Bruce and Marlene bickered over Bruce's bidding.  Marlene wants a new BMW and is aftaid Bruce is betting the farm. Marlene.  Get a pickup, I mean life.  Scott Martin was here; haven't seen him in a coupla' years. The Larsons' didn't make the trip. Tim Carrion had 2 major pieces of art from his father's estate here.

The first piece is trying to be placed at the Retriever Hall of Fame by/on behalf of ACC. There is a story that Tim's father trained some Cree tribal members on dog training with some CBR's suitable for hunting. As a show of respect and thanks the Cree carved a relief of a CBR with a duck (maybe mallard.) From the carving a cast was made and 3 plaster castings were poured. This is one of the castings. It is marvelous. Intense.

The other item is an original oil painting of Sassy, the dog who appears on the current ACC logo, exiting a body of water. The painting is signed and dated, 1954 I believe. Tim is donating this painting to be auctioned,
proceeds to benefit the Club. The reserve is $1,000.
VERY prominent international showing. I believe the president of the Danish Retriever Society and her guest were here. Mattias and Moire Frank are back from Germany; a few Germans, a man from Chile, Teresa Borrell from New Zeland. About 55 people were at dinner.

The gallery is going to bigger than normal (for field trials.) Marlene has some friends from Merial who she expects; all the internationals are to observe. Us, of course.

Julie Cole is running dogs. We're very happy. Linda Harger and Linda Patterson are running dogs. Joyce Shaw's dog attracted alot, ALOT, of attention in the Calcutta. The field trail merchandise very cool. Check out
the website. There is not alot here, more can be ordered later.

Gotta' go. See 'ya tomorrow afternoon. Cheers! Fred and Barbara, On The Road at the 2005 ACC Field Specialty.

.................................

Where am I? What day is this?

We were awake but the phone ringing at 7:00 AM just didn't compute. Phone.  Oh. Answer it. Right? Oh. I have to reach for it. HEIDI. What are you doing STILL at the airport? You were supposed to be here last night. Oh. You're not happy yet either. Oh. You're not having a good time yet? OK. We'll try to finish waking up and pick you up. Give us a few more minutes.  No. We have not been drinking. Today. A little last night, I think.  I'm putting up the call backs shortly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    great great trial! Jane is sugarcoating it. This a a FINE Field Specialty. Outstanding.

Gotta' go and pick up Heidi at the airport. I don't even face rush hour traffic for myself. We're going to brave it for Heidi. This is true love!  Tons more later. Fred and Barbara On The Road At The 2005 ACC Field
Specialty.

................................

What a Field Specialty. What a two-week run of SPECIALTIES! Great timing, one right after the other like this; in close proximity. While the Field galleries weren't what we had hoped for, they were bigger than usual. Who ever heard of Patsy and Rudy attending 2 days of a Field Specialty before?   'Nuff said?

Pat Mitchell -Bruce's wife- is walking around muttering, 'he owes me big time.' It's become a mantra. I woulda' thought he owed her big time all along -she confirmed he did- but now it's really, REALLY BIG TIME.

I can just imagine the conversation that took place last year:
Bruce: Honey, I'm gonna' chair the ACC Field Specialty with Kurt next year.
Pat: Over my dead body.
Bruce: No, honey. It's really nothing. Kurt and Angie are gonna' do all the work, they just need to use my name. They can't be Chair and Secretary together. Rules or something. Not to worry. It's like honorary, there's really nothing to it. You won't even notice, it won't interfere at all.
Pat: Remember those words, ...
Pat related through someone in the last few months her children have grown, graduated college and refer to her as the woman who visits from Field Trial occasionally. What a good sport! Angie too. The oft forgotten families of competitors. The support system; the family team.

T
hey deserve more thanks and recognition than they usually receive. THANK YOU.

That acknowledgement said and noted, the Field Specialty has been GREAT.  Things wind down today. I know Jane will post results (to date) and the Field Trial Specialty Raffle winners but I should list the winners and here goes:

1sr Prize: Mike Coutu (RI) who also won the Open!
2nd Prize: Virginia Sistane (MA)
3rd Prize: Betty Johnson (WI)
4th Prize: Ron Haynes (NY)

Thanks to YOUR support -both buying and selling raffle tickets- the raffle contributed to the success of the Field Specialty. YOU sold about 2,500 tickets in support of OUR club's Field Specialty.

There were ~half-dozen people this year who sold tickets for me and were awarded Stellar Sellar titles. (The title is honorary!) Once again, SANDRA DOLLAR (WI) leads is sales. Sandy is irrepressible! She pulls $20's out of peoples' wallets and leaves them holding the stubs. And she smiles the whole way along. What a GRAND sport she is. THANK YOU SANDY.

Alex Starr (CA) made a fine showing once again. Jane Pappler (NJ) hawked tickets like there was no tomorrow. Ken Eriksen (NJ) and Jay Daniell (GA), Nita Schaeffer (OR) and Dennis Scofield (NY) round out the list of Stellar
Sellers. THANK YOU ONE AND ALL. Without you to buy those tickets though, we'd have been sunk. Thanks to ALL who supported the Field Specialty by buying, selling or generally pitching in to help out.

Bruce, Kurt and their wives and the Field Trail Committee pulled off a fine Specialty. The grounds are outstanding. Judging was imaginative and fair. The layouts were challenging but not ridiculous. There was only moderate grumbling so the judges were doing their job!

The landowners who invited us to use their properties deserve a GRAND ROUND OF APPLAUSE. Thanks to Hank McNeil of Winslow Conservancy and Bill Thompson of Blue Springs Kennel for their generous support of the Field Specialty.

Edgar and Deb couldn't get a room at the inn, so to speak, and Hank was nice enough to let them pitch a modest tent at his place. We stopped by yesterday and they were making the best of a bad situation. Poor Edgar and Deb, their 25' camper leveled off ~35' from a small pond on a nice grassy field. Tough luck Ed. It's not easy living on battery power. All that quiet and solitude must be a real pain!

It's always nice to see Julie Cole. Especially nice of late. Besides earning a JAM in the Qual, Joyce Shaw (and Jeff) really worked their butts off running the merchandise end of the Field Specialty. As they wanted, there was very little left on their table at the end. (I just wish we could order some more fleece!)

I don't know who most of the others behind the scenes were: I know Jeff was Gun Chair with Bob Guttermuth. I know Tim Carrion was always on the move. Hustling here or there, delivering a judge or more birds or whatever was needed. Tim is obviously a good friend and breed supporter.

Marlene continues to be most fun to sit near. Always. You gotta' be there. (This is really Julie's bailiwick, you know, the real awards. The who did what to whom stuff!)  I got to put some faces with new people like Christy and Ray Gonzales, competing in the Show Specialty, Hunt Test and Field Trial Specialty and making marks all around! Congratulations.  Shannon Rollins traveled from the left coast (up north) to both Specialties and visited friends -and the Statue of Liberty I might add- in the New York area as well.
 
Gotta' take a break. The other half is waking and requires attention. Basherta too. I'll get back when I can. Cheers. Fred and Barbara on the Road at the Field Specialty (starting to pack it in.)

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Boy.  What a vacation! 

We decided to leave a little while before the end of Amateur (and the Trial) last evening.  We had a ~6 hour drive and wanted a hot meal before we started.  Just can't get enough of those Jersey diners!  There was a nice one right at the corner.  Even got a Philly Steak last night for the road.

I don't think I mentioned Mike Moskowitz and meant to.  Mike is from New Haven (CT), runs a Silver Creek dog and does all his own training.  WITHOUT an e-collar.  Mike says he wasn't comfortable using a collar and besides wasn't good with it.  What a shame more people who aren't adept at training with an e-collar can't just figure out what Mike did. 

Don't just turn the intensity up, look for a different way to train.  Mike works harder at training than many of his fellow competitors have to but he shows results too.  Mike is hooked.  He's running a puppy now too!

By now you must know the results.  The last series in the Amateur was good.  (All the series were hard to watch!)  A retired gun a loooooong way out to the right, past 2 temptations.  A live flyer straight out and another around a curve, past the flyer.  The flyer was always first and was pretty straightforward.  It was a tossup where to go next; most chose the retired gun.  The dogs were sent from a high ridge which made it difficult for the gallery to see much.  The series took each dog ~20 minutes; it was a long day!  The judges gave the handlers a chair.

We bought a lot of dogs in the Calcutta, both Monday and Tuesday nights.  We WON on a lot of our purchases.  It looks like when all is said and done we probably broke even, which is a whole lot better than losing!  Linda Harger's Yakity pulled it off for us with a 2nd yesterday.  We're still waiting to hear what it paid but it should be enough to even things out.  Oh well, if you can't win, breaking even is better than losing!

And to some people sitting on a beach is a vacation!  Boy have they got it wrong.  All wrong.

I don't have my book handy so don't really know who won what; we don't remember stuff like we used to.  Matthias and Moira Frank were here again this year from Germany.  Mat is a veterinarian; they expect to be in Klamath Falls next year, ... maybe with a dog!  Moira doesn't speak much English so she sidled right up to Mario Beauregard and they chatted it up in French.  Moira is the handler/trainer in the family.

We got to see Mary Ellen Mazzola's new Ainley dog truck.  Very nice, exactly what she wanted.  Nice spot for her boat -when she replaces the one that flew off!- and a little sleeping quarters above the water tank.  Cozy but sweet.  Mary Ellen is living part of her dream, the other part involved Art, who we all miss. 

Mike Coutu (RI) has really made his mark in Field Trials in the past 3 years.  While we've known Mike for a while longer, he was sorta' unknown when he pulled into Susanville for the 2002 Specialty.  Boy do times change.  He left this Specialty with an armload of awards AND the first prize in the raffle.  He's a hard worker; he deserves what he wins.

Bruce Mitchell orchestrated a fine Specialty; certainly Pat Mitchell helped alot.  The hotel was convenient although the parking lot repaving irked some people (our end was left untouched!)  The grounds were OUTSTANDING especially considering that NJ is the most densely populated state in the US.  The generosity of the landowners must be acknowledged; anyone with a spare moment should consider dropping them a note of thanks.  (Names inside the premiums.) 

Bruce arranged for 3 nights of dinners and activities.  We like that because it not only takes the pressure off of seeking out restaurants in a new locale, it gives you the opportunity to socialize with everyone attending.  All 3 nights were well attended and the food was good.  The company was better.

Let me think about it for awhile, consider all the people, places and things I've forgotten or overlooked and wrap things up later.  For now, ... Fred and Barbara, back home, done with the road (for now) worrying about unpacking the Suburban!  Cheers.

..................................

Dear Field Trial Specialty Supporters:

On behalf of the 2005 ACC Field Trial Committee, the hard working volunteers, participants, competitors and spectators I thank each and every one of you who bought and/or sold raffle tickets.  The response was wonderful.  In the end there were ~3,000 entries in the "drum" from which the winning tickets were plucked.

As a reminder, the winners were:
1st Prize: Mike Coutu (RI) Benelli Super Black Eagle II Shotgun (~$1,500 Retail)
2nd Prize: Ginny Sislane (MA) Tri-Tronics Pro 100 Training Collar (~$475 Retail)
3rd Prize: Ron Haynes (NY) Day's End Shur-Toss Launcher (~$300 Retail)
4th Prize: Betty Johnson (WI) Ainley Stainless Steel Crate (~$300 Retail)

Everyone else in attendance was envious! 

Besides the raffle prizes, Linda Patterson arranged for dozens of door prizes that were drawn at Wednesday's dinner.  They ranged from an Ainley stainless steel bird box to the umbrella I won!  Almost everyone present went home with a prize of some sort. 

A special thanks went to the most active raffle ticket sellers I designated, "Stellar Sellers."  The Committee permitted me a little latitude and I gave them all a piece of logo merchandise from the Specialty. 

Special recognition is due to our #1 raffle ticket seller, Sandra Dollar (WI).  Again this year, Sandy beat the bushes and sold tickets to every single person she knows or even ran into over the last 6 months.  Sandy was irrepressible.  At the drawing night banquet she went table to table to make sure there wasn't a person left who she hadn't tapped for a booklet or two of tickets.  THANK YOU Sandy.  This irrepressible Stellar Seller will be receiving another gift from the Committee in the coming weeks expressing their thanks for her hard work and dedication.

Those of us who attended were treated to an outstanding show of field work by dedicated field trial trainers and their Chesapeakes at a breathtaking series of venues in and around, The Blueberry Capitol of the World, Hammonton, NJ. 

Big, giant kudos to all those hard workers -from the Chairs on down to the "bird-boys"- who labored for months behind the scenes to make this Specialty the success it was.  Jobs well done, ladies and gentlemen! 

                                                     
    Fred and Barbara, Cheers.

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