Last Quail Shoot of the Year 1911

Were I musically inclined, I could very appropriately sing, “Darling, I Am Growing Old.”  The realization of this fact, as unwelcome as it is, is from time to time forced upon me.

On Friday, November 10, 1911, I went to the Westminster Gun Club, in an open machine, through wind and storm.  Got up the next morning at 5 o’clock, had a duck shoot, drove back thirty miles to Los Angeles, arriving there at 11:30 a. m.  At 1 o’clock I drove to my home, and at 2 o’clock was off for Ferris Valley on a quail shoot.  Had a good outing, with much hard labor.  The next day I got home at half past five, completely done up.

As I went to retire, I had a good, stiff, nervous chill.  So you can well see that I can no longer stand punishment, and am “growing old.”  As I lay there and shook, I said to myself, “Old fellow, you will soon be a ‘has-been.’  Your gun and fishing rod will soon decorate your shooting case as ornaments, rather than as things of utility.”  Ah, well, let it be so!  The memory of pleasant days when youth and strength were mine; days when the creel was full, and game limits came my way, will be with me still.  I would not exchange the experience I have had with rod and gun for all the money any millionaire in the world possesses.

On my trip to the grounds of the Quail Valley Land Company, some thirty miles below Riverside, two members of the club and my wife accompanied me.  We were in one of my good, old reliable Franklin cars, and from Ontario to Riverside we bucked a strong head wind that was cold and pitiless.  It necessarily impeded our progress, as we had on a glass front, and the top was up, and yet we made the run of seventy-six miles in three hours and a quarter without ever touching the machine.  In fact, none of the party got out of the machine, from start to finish.

The big, open fireplace at Newport’s home, and the bountiful, well-cooked supper with which we were greeted, were well calculated to make us happy and contented.  The long drive in the wind rendered all of us sleepy, and by 9 o’clock we had retired.  I never woke up until 6 o’clock next morning.

Shooting Grounds.

After breakfast we proceeded in our machine to the shooting ground.  The sky was heavily overcast with watery, wicked looking clouds.  Rifts in the sky, here and there, let some frozen looking sunbeams through, but there was no warmth in their rays.  We had our first shoot on the edge of a grain field, but the birds quickly flew to some high hills to the west.