The Dorking Rooster-Catcher

Hunting ruffed grouse with a true Englishman

    Back in the 1950s, telegrams and long-distance calls usually meant trouble. We got one of each on a quiet Thursday evening in October 1955, when I was 13. They were the opening guns of our first and only day of hunting with an Englishman.
    The telegram was delivered just as Mom, Dad and I were sitting down to supper in the kitchen of our big old house on River Road near Manitowoc, Wisconsin. A taxi pulled up, and the driver honked the horn.
    Dad took his pipe from the counter and followed Jeff and Nip, our beagles, to the front of the house. The driver walked up to the porch carrying a yellow envelope.
     “Western Union,” he said. “That’ll be a dol-lar.” Dad took a single from his wallet and found a 50-cent piece among the keys and pipe tools in his pocket. Fifty cents was a good tip in 1955.
    Back in the kitchen, Dad slit the envelope with his pocketknife. Mom and I waited, barely breathing, expecting the worst. Dad read the narrow strips of paper pasted to the telegraph form. “Well,” he said, “don’t get excited; everybody’s still read more »

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