Around the Campfire with Big Mark

I don’t remember the year but it was the last time the UKC Winter Classic was held in Albany, GA (pronounced Albiny by southern folks). The south, in the winter months is a beautiful place… once the heat arrives, in the swamp country anyway, the place where we turn dogs loose, the hellishness of the bugs and snakes and gators come to life and, well, for me anyway, it becomes a tough place to be….but the folks who live down there, they are pretty great all year round and the Jimmy Buffet lifestyle of music, beaches, boats and maybe a pretty girl mixed in make it a special place for all who live there to call it home.

I love this photo, and it is one of a dozen or so all-time favorites of mine. I think I had Terry Walker snap the picture. As a kid I dreamed of being well known in the sporting dog world and here I was with my good friend and world-famous bird dog man, the great Ferrel Miller in the middle of the photo and my childhood hero John Wick on the far right. It was some kind of a special moment for me!

As happens in life, as I see it anyway, one begins to take many of the most important people or relationships in their life for granted.  Albany, which was a staple of charm and success in the Jimmy Carter era, began to look tattered. I know the plantations are beautiful and many of the wealthiest people in the world have land in the area, but the fairgrounds, they were weathered.  That is my take on it anyway, I could be wrong, I have no inside knowledge but there is much to be said for nice, up to date, clean looking facilities for featured, prestigious events and folks working and traveling far from home, who use vacation time, like towns with nice restaurants and hotels close by. I spent many years working and hunting around Albany and have the very best of memories of the when the Winter Classic was held there, GREAT memories of the town, the people and the charm but I was not surprised when the Winter Classic moved to Batesville, MS.

That last year the Winter Classic was in Albany, on Saturday afternoon, an older gentleman walked the fairgrounds. I would venture to say very few, if anyone, recognized him… but he had become a dear friend of mine.  After leaving Wick Outdoor Works and moving to Tucson, AZ to begin my time with Tri-Tronics I began shooting even photography and video for them.  When the PKC World Hunt was in Aroura, KY I went over to visit the famous bird dog trainer, Ferrel Miller. I was never a “bird dog man” per se, but anyone who knew anything about bird dogs new of the famous Miller’s Chief.

I remember driving over to his place very early in the morning and on the way pulling over to the side of the road.  There was smoke coming from the top of a barn and I thought it must be on fire.  As I sat there wondering if I should go knock on the door and wake these folks up I noticed something odd…..it looked like all of the barns in the area were on fire as there seemed to be smoke coming out of them. “It must be the fog or something” I said to myself, and I drove on.

I met Ferrel and it was the first of many trips to his place.  He drove me around the countryside and told me that area of Kentucky was world famous for the burley tobacco grown in the area and we pulled in the drive of a friend of a friend’s place.  He got out and they explained intricacies and how labor intensive it was to grow and produce a tobacco crop and that once hung in the barn, there were pits on the ground floor where fires were started, and the smoke was used to dry out the tobacco.

Ferrel looked at me and said, “Mark, you can’t imagine all of the fools who drive through the countryside around here and knock on these farmers doors to tell them their barn is on fire!”

Hmmm, I thought to myself, “This guy has only known me a few hours and he already has me figured out.”