Booty Blevins and Marvin Means
Posted 11/24/2024
It was 1946. The War was finally over, and Booty was back in Alabama after duty as a duce-and-a half driver and then infantryman at the Battle of the Bulge, mustering out as a corporal. Before the War, he had worked as a hand on Mr. Maytag's quail plantation at Union Springs. The washing machine maker had loved to shoot quail. Booty had helped Mr. George Hardin train his bird dogs and retrievers and the horses ridden by those involved in the hunts or pulling the hunt wagon.
What to do now? Booty thought. He'd ridden at a field trial Mr. Maytag allowed to be run on his place right after the quail hunting season ended in February. He decided to ride at the trial again this year. He fell in love with the competition and decided to seek work with a field trial for-the-public handler and go north to the prairies in July to train bird dogs. The handler who hired him was Arch Bain, based near Hatchechubbee, Alabama. Booty's experience as a truck driver for Uncle Sam was key in landing the job. His pre-war work for Mr. Maytag also helped.
Arch and Booty struck out for North Dakota July 1. Arch had also served in the War as an infantry sergeant (including in the D Day landing at Normandy) and used his savings from it to buy a new Chevrolet truck , a model 6400 two-ton Cab-Over-Engine which Booty helped him convert to a stock bed with a wooden rear gate hinged at the bottom that horses could load on if backed up to a hill or into a ditch.
This would be the first time Arch would take horses north (two). They also rigged the bed to crate the derbies they would haul north for training, plus Arch's four All-Age dogs. There would be no Canadian or prairie-state trials to enter this year.
The truck had a straight-six, overhead valve engine, with a four-speed stick-on-the-floor transmission, including a Granny gear, and a two-speed differential. It was rated for a 15,000-pound pay load. With no civilian-market trucks made during the War years, it attracted attention and envy everywhere the pair stopped in their travels, usually for fuel. Booty found he was not allowed to use the restrooms at the gas stations.
Arch Bain had lined up ground to work on near Antler, North Dakota. John Gates was training nearby just across the Canadian border, as was John Gardener and Leon Covington and a few others, including a bit farther west Arch's Hatchechubbee neighbor, Herman Smith.
Near the end of their journey they saw on the roadside a hitch hiker, clad unmistakably in trousers and shirt brought home from the War.Those clothes caused Booty, driving, to slow, then stop. The bedraggled stranger shuffled to catch up.
“Climb up, Podna,” Arch said, and held out a hand. The hitchhiker took it. He was thin as a rail, had gone a week without shaving and at least as long since a bath or shower. His eyes were bloodshot, implying he might have just come off a bender. Arch moved to the middle of the bench seat as the hitchhiker climbed in.
"Thanks," the hitchhiker said.
"Where you headed? " Arch asked.
"Looking for Fred Eanes' dog camp," the hitch hiker said.
Arch knew Fred Eanes, a bird dog handler based in North Carolina. Knew also he had given up the trial circuit, taken a job running a dairy farm outside High Point when he got home from the War a few months earlier. He told this to the hitchhiker, who was devastated by the news.
"I was sure he'd be here. I worked for him before the War," he said.
Both Arch and Booty recognized the signs in the hitch hiker. He was suffering what was then called Shell Shock, or Battle Fatigue. Starting in 1980, psychiatrists would call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
“We are headed to a farm just up the road. You can stay with us til you figure out where to go next,” Arch said. “What’s your name?”
“Thanks, ...Marvin Means,” he said.
“Where you from, Marvin?
"South Carolina.”
"Know Fred Arant? " Arch asked.
"Yes, Sir."
"No sir necessary. I made it to sergeant, not officer, " Arch said with a smile.
"I made it to corporal, several times, but it never stuck," Marvin Means said. That explained the lack of stripes on his shirt sleeves, Booty thought.
The truck had developed a miss a few miles back. Five minutes after Marvin climbed in, he said, "Need to check your engine, you got a miss. Got a toolbox?"
They did, but neither Arch nor Booty was mechanically inclined. At the next pull out to a farm entrance Booty pulled over and Marvin lifted the snub-nosed hood, listened to the still running engine briefly, then said to Booty, " OK, turn it off. "
Five minutes later, Marvin said, "OK, crank it up."
Booty pressed the foot starter, and the engine turned and caught. Marvin listened a couple minutes, closed the hood, returned the toolbox to under the bench seat on the driver's side, and took a seat in the middle. " Spark plug wire had shook loose."
"You a mechanic? Arch asked.
"Yes, Sir. That's what I did in the Army. "
"Forget the sirs," Arch repeated.
+. +. +
They reached their destination in thirty minutes, and found the small Sears house a quarter mile off North-South route 256 and twenty yards east of a three-acre shelter break. A five-acre woven wire fenced horse paddock with a galvanized water tank joined the shelter break on the south. The house had been cleaned and dusted inside by their landlord's wife (they lived in a newer and larger farmhouse a mile further north). The electric power was turned on, the well pump primed, and the water tank in the paddock filled. A note left on the kitchen table invited them to supper the day after their arrival, implying they needed to drive to the landlord's farmhouse and announce their arrival (and pay the season's small rent, not stated but understood).
A dip created by a nearby dry pothole was sufficient to permit unloading the two horses. Then the dogs were unloaded and chained out under the trees in the shelter break, crates removed from the truck bed serving as houses for the dogs.
The house contained three small bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a combined living and dining room, and a back porch, added by the landowner, its first occupant before his growing family dictated his move to the new and larger house a section north.
Arch drove alone to the landowner's curtilage and paid the rent, explained he was accompanied by Booty and Marvin, and mentioned that Marvin was a mechanic, which produced a smile on the ruddy face of the landowner, Arthur Rude, grandson of Norwegian immigrant homesteaders. Like all farmers at harvest time, Arthur needed a mechanic's help with his complicated combines, tractors, trucks and other implements of the harvest and land preparation, most manufactured pre-war and badly worn.
Arthur was at the house rented to Arch at daybreak next morning, seeking Marvin's help. Marvin had slept little but was heartened by Arthur's plea for help and rode off with him. For the rest of the summer he would board at the Rude home and work for Arthur. ( Board only in the broad sense, for he was not charged for rent or for meals, save perhaps through lower wages for his mechanic services, which proved invaluable to Arthur).
By August's end, Marvin seemed a member of Arthur's family. He had been invaluable to Arthur and several farmer-neighbors, patching up their badly worn machinery to get them through the harvest and winter cover crop planting. Arthur's three children, ages twelve, nine and four, loved Marvin, who nightly read them bed-time stories. And the steady work, wholesome meals and regular sleep had done wonders for Marvin's healthy.
Arch and Booty departed for Alabama October 1, leaving Marvin with the Rudes. Before their departure, Marvin had given Arch's truck a thorough check over and tune up, including a change of spark plugs. Arch left the two horses he'd trucked up with Arthur Rude who would use them to pull a sleigh, and a sled to move hay to his beef cows, through the winter.
"I wonder how Marvin is going to take the prairie winter," Booty asked Arch as they approached Minot.
"I was wondering the same thing," Arch said.
Arch got the answer December first on a post card.
" Dear Arch and Booty:
If you know of any mechanic jobs down there, please let me know.
Your friend, Marvin Means"
Booty called Mr. George Hardin at the Maytag Plantation.
"Mr. George, this is Booty Blevins. If y'all could us a good mechanic, me and Mr. Arch knows a real good one up in North Dakota wants to get back down south. He's from South Carolina originally."
Marvin Means rode a bus and the train to Union Springs, leaving the day after Christmas . On
January 2, 1947, he went to work at Mr. Maytag's plantation, now called Sedgefields. He would work there until retirement, but July through September each year he would work at Arthur Rude's farm in North Dakota and for neighboring farmers there. It was too hot then to do much in Union Springs. He rode up and back most years with dog trainers.
What to do now? Booty thought. He'd ridden at a field trial Mr. Maytag allowed to be run on his place right after the quail hunting season ended in February. He decided to ride at the trial again this year. He fell in love with the competition and decided to seek work with a field trial for-the-public handler and go north to the prairies in July to train bird dogs. The handler who hired him was Arch Bain, based near Hatchechubbee, Alabama. Booty's experience as a truck driver for Uncle Sam was key in landing the job. His pre-war work for Mr. Maytag also helped.
Arch and Booty struck out for North Dakota July 1. Arch had also served in the War as an infantry sergeant (including in the D Day landing at Normandy) and used his savings from it to buy a new Chevrolet truck , a model 6400 two-ton Cab-Over-Engine which Booty helped him convert to a stock bed with a wooden rear gate hinged at the bottom that horses could load on if backed up to a hill or into a ditch.
This would be the first time Arch would take horses north (two). They also rigged the bed to crate the derbies they would haul north for training, plus Arch's four All-Age dogs. There would be no Canadian or prairie-state trials to enter this year.
The truck had a straight-six, overhead valve engine, with a four-speed stick-on-the-floor transmission, including a Granny gear, and a two-speed differential. It was rated for a 15,000-pound pay load. With no civilian-market trucks made during the War years, it attracted attention and envy everywhere the pair stopped in their travels, usually for fuel. Booty found he was not allowed to use the restrooms at the gas stations.
Arch Bain had lined up ground to work on near Antler, North Dakota. John Gates was training nearby just across the Canadian border, as was John Gardener and Leon Covington and a few others, including a bit farther west Arch's Hatchechubbee neighbor, Herman Smith.
Near the end of their journey they saw on the roadside a hitch hiker, clad unmistakably in trousers and shirt brought home from the War.Those clothes caused Booty, driving, to slow, then stop. The bedraggled stranger shuffled to catch up.
“Climb up, Podna,” Arch said, and held out a hand. The hitchhiker took it. He was thin as a rail, had gone a week without shaving and at least as long since a bath or shower. His eyes were bloodshot, implying he might have just come off a bender. Arch moved to the middle of the bench seat as the hitchhiker climbed in.
"Thanks," the hitchhiker said.
"Where you headed? " Arch asked.
"Looking for Fred Eanes' dog camp," the hitch hiker said.
Arch knew Fred Eanes, a bird dog handler based in North Carolina. Knew also he had given up the trial circuit, taken a job running a dairy farm outside High Point when he got home from the War a few months earlier. He told this to the hitchhiker, who was devastated by the news.
"I was sure he'd be here. I worked for him before the War," he said.
Both Arch and Booty recognized the signs in the hitch hiker. He was suffering what was then called Shell Shock, or Battle Fatigue. Starting in 1980, psychiatrists would call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
“We are headed to a farm just up the road. You can stay with us til you figure out where to go next,” Arch said. “What’s your name?”
“Thanks, ...Marvin Means,” he said.
“Where you from, Marvin?
"South Carolina.”
"Know Fred Arant? " Arch asked.
"Yes, Sir."
"No sir necessary. I made it to sergeant, not officer, " Arch said with a smile.
"I made it to corporal, several times, but it never stuck," Marvin Means said. That explained the lack of stripes on his shirt sleeves, Booty thought.
The truck had developed a miss a few miles back. Five minutes after Marvin climbed in, he said, "Need to check your engine, you got a miss. Got a toolbox?"
They did, but neither Arch nor Booty was mechanically inclined. At the next pull out to a farm entrance Booty pulled over and Marvin lifted the snub-nosed hood, listened to the still running engine briefly, then said to Booty, " OK, turn it off. "
Five minutes later, Marvin said, "OK, crank it up."
Booty pressed the foot starter, and the engine turned and caught. Marvin listened a couple minutes, closed the hood, returned the toolbox to under the bench seat on the driver's side, and took a seat in the middle. " Spark plug wire had shook loose."
"You a mechanic? Arch asked.
"Yes, Sir. That's what I did in the Army. "
"Forget the sirs," Arch repeated.
+. +. +
They reached their destination in thirty minutes, and found the small Sears house a quarter mile off North-South route 256 and twenty yards east of a three-acre shelter break. A five-acre woven wire fenced horse paddock with a galvanized water tank joined the shelter break on the south. The house had been cleaned and dusted inside by their landlord's wife (they lived in a newer and larger farmhouse a mile further north). The electric power was turned on, the well pump primed, and the water tank in the paddock filled. A note left on the kitchen table invited them to supper the day after their arrival, implying they needed to drive to the landlord's farmhouse and announce their arrival (and pay the season's small rent, not stated but understood).
A dip created by a nearby dry pothole was sufficient to permit unloading the two horses. Then the dogs were unloaded and chained out under the trees in the shelter break, crates removed from the truck bed serving as houses for the dogs.
The house contained three small bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a combined living and dining room, and a back porch, added by the landowner, its first occupant before his growing family dictated his move to the new and larger house a section north.
Arch drove alone to the landowner's curtilage and paid the rent, explained he was accompanied by Booty and Marvin, and mentioned that Marvin was a mechanic, which produced a smile on the ruddy face of the landowner, Arthur Rude, grandson of Norwegian immigrant homesteaders. Like all farmers at harvest time, Arthur needed a mechanic's help with his complicated combines, tractors, trucks and other implements of the harvest and land preparation, most manufactured pre-war and badly worn.
Arthur was at the house rented to Arch at daybreak next morning, seeking Marvin's help. Marvin had slept little but was heartened by Arthur's plea for help and rode off with him. For the rest of the summer he would board at the Rude home and work for Arthur. ( Board only in the broad sense, for he was not charged for rent or for meals, save perhaps through lower wages for his mechanic services, which proved invaluable to Arthur).
By August's end, Marvin seemed a member of Arthur's family. He had been invaluable to Arthur and several farmer-neighbors, patching up their badly worn machinery to get them through the harvest and winter cover crop planting. Arthur's three children, ages twelve, nine and four, loved Marvin, who nightly read them bed-time stories. And the steady work, wholesome meals and regular sleep had done wonders for Marvin's healthy.
Arch and Booty departed for Alabama October 1, leaving Marvin with the Rudes. Before their departure, Marvin had given Arch's truck a thorough check over and tune up, including a change of spark plugs. Arch left the two horses he'd trucked up with Arthur Rude who would use them to pull a sleigh, and a sled to move hay to his beef cows, through the winter.
"I wonder how Marvin is going to take the prairie winter," Booty asked Arch as they approached Minot.
"I was wondering the same thing," Arch said.
Arch got the answer December first on a post card.
" Dear Arch and Booty:
If you know of any mechanic jobs down there, please let me know.
Your friend, Marvin Means"
Booty called Mr. George Hardin at the Maytag Plantation.
"Mr. George, this is Booty Blevins. If y'all could us a good mechanic, me and Mr. Arch knows a real good one up in North Dakota wants to get back down south. He's from South Carolina originally."
Marvin Means rode a bus and the train to Union Springs, leaving the day after Christmas . On
January 2, 1947, he went to work at Mr. Maytag's plantation, now called Sedgefields. He would work there until retirement, but July through September each year he would work at Arthur Rude's farm in North Dakota and for neighboring farmers there. It was too hot then to do much in Union Springs. He rode up and back most years with dog trainers.
About the Author : Tom Word
Visit authors website | View more articlesTom Word is a lawyer who represents individuals about managing their assets and for amusement writes fiction and non-fiction about bird dogs and humans obsessed with them.
About the Artist : Leah Brigham
Visit artist websiteAfter graduating from Millersville University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelors of Science in Art Education, Leah began teaching Art to inner city Middle School students in Houston and later Dallas, TX. Leah has shared with her students her passion for art and nature. This passion has sustained her and continued throughout her life in the form of painting and drawing.
Leah was introduced to American Field Horseback Field Trails and has been able to experience the excitement of seeing her own dog, competing for the National Championship at Ames Plantation in Grand Junction, TN ...standing on point, head and tail held high. This has inspired her to create works of art depicting dogs and the wildlife associated with the sport and hunting.
Related Aritlces
Losing It
Harry Bain had been an all-age for-the-public pointing dog trainer-handler for thirty years. In that role he had lived in south Alabama, trained trial and hunting dog's mid-July through mid-September in North Dakota and traveled the major all-age trial circuit September through mid-March. Summers he had fished the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere until the last week of June when he readied for the trip north.
A Dread Problem and a Solution
Sam Teel and Booty Blevins had been partners ten years, never had a fight. They argued some about how to fix a problem, but each knew that was healthy. They didn't make much money, but loved what they did for a living, training and handling pointing dogs on the field trial circuit.
