THE WONDERFUL WEEKEND IN HUNT COUNTRY AND IN CELEBRATION OF THE HUNT—OF TWO CLASSIC KINDS,--
WITH A SPECIAL VISITOR
Feb. 6—9, 2003
It was a wonderful weekend in pursuit of two kinds of the
hunt!
On Thursday evening I went to DCA
despite the predictions of a coming winter storm, and from the airport headed
out toward the rolling Virginia hunt country and its “Old Money” capital,
Middleburg. There, the holiest of their
shrines is the Red Fox Inn, oldest of the Virginia taverns and the one that is
the heart of Middleburg, surrounded by tack shops, antique places, garden shops
and even a knit shop all of it probably at peak season during the Fauquier
County Hunt. Then, the quaint and
colorful celebration of the “English Country Life” is a Currier and Ives print
as the “Whippers-In” and Masters of the Hounds surround the Huntmaster in his
(never can a female where the scarlet coat) as they ride off over the coops and
hedgerow “covers” in pursuit of the fox, with the hounds.
The difference in MY hunts is that I
also SHOOT the fox! But, that is the
later chapter of the hunts of this weekend.
Along the way, a blizzard started up
in earnest and it was a hard drive to keep to the road and know which road I
was on. I passed Airlie, and found that
I was no longer on Route 50, which the woman at the desk at Red Fox Inn had
said was a straight shot out Route 50—but we lost it in the snowstorm. We had to divert and come back up toward
Leesburg and cut over 66 to get to Middleburg, where I found my way to the Red
Fox Inn by feel, having remembered seeing it about twenty five years ago. It was a one hour trip made in three, so we
missed the dinner time reservation I had made at the Inn, and ate instead at
the adjacent historic Mosby Tavern—also quaint and horsy from the same
era.
In the interval, I had heard from
Keith Carr about the owner of the Red Fox Inn, Turner Reuter, MD, a retired
gentleman farmer with a thousand acres of rolling farm nearby, where Keith had
once gone out on his one and only “shoot.”
This gentleman has run his prize bird dogs and his jumper hunters in the
Fauquier Hunt, and led the Country Life among the Mars, the Firestones and the
Mellons here in Middle burg—no noveau riche need apply.
The Inn is charming enough, with
canopy beds and original fixtures, but then a white quiet blanket had fallen,
and it made the cheery interior look downright angelic in this setting. After the large breakfast of the B and B
variety, we strolled through tack shops and even the knit and yarn shop, as
well as stops in garden shops and other places for the weekend antique boutique
set. We talked about animals-such as
the pointer or large bird dog I would one day like to have to run regularly
with and to hunt during the fall season with, and admire most other times. Of course, the exclusive nature of the hunt
and its subscribers here largely involves grand social affairs, tending toward
dress events and balls and stirrup cups on fine days in hopping over hedges—a
bit different as hunts go from what I usually do.
On returning toward Derwood, I had
one more surprise from my introduction in last week’s post-settlement lunch
when I made the dinner reservations in the brand new luxurious restaurant, “Clyde’s
at Tower Preserve,” and we had dinner in the “Hunt Room” with all the polo and
fox hunt memorabilia, and a lot of fine tack and saddlery as décor in Mr.
Lathams’ twelve million dollar new restaurant.
It was a good dinner and a fine epilogue to the day in hunt country—a
bit different world from mine, but one I can appreciate. I will get to hunts of a different kind later
this weekend,
At Derwood, awakening showed three deer cuddled under the rhododendrons
beneath the window, and a few good things I could so in the brief period we had
before we had to drive out to the Eastern Shore, such as a venison brunch. We packed up for the next invitation to “my
kind of hunt affair” and drove out to Cambridge to meet Craig and Carol in
their townhouse on Church Creek and to hear their big news. They have bought a house in Talbot County,
ten miles east of the Choptank River in Lloyd’s landing at Trappe. Since we were going to go out to dinner at a
very special game room in Trappe, we drove around the house they had just
purchased and into which they will be moving in May. It is nice with two ponds on their property.
THE
NEXT KIND OF THE “HUNT” CELEBRATED THIS WEEKEND:
THE
CHESAPEAKE CHPATER OF THE SCI,
AND
THE MEETING HOSTED BY JACK MALLOY IN HIS BIG GAME ROOM, AS I ATTEND AS GUESTS
OF BOB AND MARY KILLET,
SCI
MASTER MEASURERS
Craig and Carol drove us out to the Jack Malloy farm near Trappe. After a couple of passes and missing it a
few times, we followed the Ebb Tide Caterer trucks and found ourselves in a
barn, adjacent to a stables, all of it stuffed with a myriad of taxidermied
trophies, the result of twenty eight hunting safaris to Africa. I then learned that we were in his African
room, and that the North American Rooms are elsewhere. I heard one of the others explain that the
only person who could give Jack Malloy a run for the sheer number and variety
of trophies would be my host Bob Killet, and we have an invitation outstanding
for the visit to see how he is about to put his game rooms together.
There were multiple raffles, one for a camo shotgun for turkey and deer
with different barrels. I entered that
one, and there were other raffles for the “Sables”, the women’s auxiliary for
support of various hunting initiatives.
One of the fellows there among an otherwise elderly crowd was a plastic
surgeon named Bill Strawberry, whom I had hardly recognized in person, but I
certainly knew his name. He was my
resident at GW, although he could not remember me either at the time, since he
was one of the people who was worried about getting to know any of the high
powered faculty whom he said he avoided since he did not want to live up to
their expectations. His wife is the highest
ranking woman of the SCI, now holding the title of Secretary in the
organization.
So, I saw a big, probably overdone game room, and we ate barbecued
caribou in a lasagna dish. Craig and
Carol liked it too, and there is a real fundraiser (one of my least likely to
be attended kinds of soirees) on March 1 in Annapolis, which I may try to
rearrange my schedule to attend. Since
I am not a member of any of the local chapters of SCI despite my long time
national membership, I may try to look into the Chesapeake Chapter.
So, we had a chance to experience each kind of
the hunt, and to maybe appreciate each other’s brand
of the hunting.
We had a big breakfast at the Cambridge Diner
and headed for the bridge to be driving back in
a sunny bright day with the snow still covering
the fields. One
indelible sight impressed itself upon my memory.
In the middle of a white snowy field as we
approached Easton on the way out, I saw a large
bird sitting on the ground with a large dark body
and a snowy white head. There in almost
the pose of a pedestrian waiting a passing bus stood
our nations’ emblem—a magnificent bald eagle—now
almost as thick as fleas along the Eastern Shore.
Even if it is more like me as a carrion feeder,
it still could pose as an emblem of the hunt—a suitable
way to wind up this weekend of the “HUNT COUNTRY.”