This era of medical miracles has created some confusion about aging, but there’s no question that exercise is good for a person. I look at some of the farmers and others who work outdoors and think, “There’s no way that man can be as old as he says he is.”

On the other hand, some folks just age better than others. The fellow we called “Uncle Harry” was a good example.
Harry was retired before I met him, and I have no idea what he did for a living. I know what he did for retirement, though: He went fishing. And when he wasn’t fishing, he was hunting.

My first recollection of Uncle Harry was the time he and my brother Kenny came to my house for a quail hunt. Harry was somewhere in his late seventies then, but one would never guess his age by watching him in the field. We started out at 9 a.m. and he was still going strong late in the day.

I owned two bird dogs, but generally hunted them one at a time. We hunted with the Brittany spaniel that morning and were close to limits by noon.

Uncle Harry was pleased. “I think I’ll buy that dog a bag of food,” he declared. “If it weren’t for him, we’d be going hungry right now.”
This made my day, of course. Anyone who owns bird dogs knows a lot of things are said about these creatures, and the majority of it isn’t very nice. One tends to savor the good times.

We went to the house for lunch, and I put the Brittany in his pen. After lunch, I released my English setter, Goldie.

This dog was wired! She left the pen like a bullet and circled the house three times before touching down. If tornadoes were white and orange, Goldie would have been a storm.

I read a lot of sports magazines in those days and knew having a fresh dog is vital for quail hunting. The rich guys keep four dogs in their wagon and only hunt each one for an hour or so.

Uncle Harry looked at my brother and said. “What is that boy doing?! We just got one dog tired enough we could hunt with him, and now he gets out a new one!”

A couple of years later, Kenny and Uncle Harry were pheasant hunting near our hometown when they noticed a guy hoofing it across the field toward them.

The two hunters had just crossed a creek bottom and didn’t see this fellow until he was about a hundred yards away.

It was the game warden. He had been following them for quite a while and was huffing and puffing something fierce when he finally caught up and asked to see their hunting licenses. He looked at Uncle Harry’s and noticed his birth date was 1891. (This was nearly 40 years ago.)

“My God, man, you’re nearly 80 years old? It was all I could do to catch up with you!” the warden gasped.

Uncle Harry looked at the warden and said, “If we had seen you coming, you wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near this close.”

Readers with questions or comments for Roger Pond may write to him in care of this publication.

This farm news was published in the June 27, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.