Red Setters Return to the River
Growing up as a youngster near a river is spending many magical moments by enjoying times without time. Always at my side was my first red setter Rex who my elder brother and I bought when I was four years old. Even then I would follow my dog with a camera.
After nearly drowning and an illness of Weil following, books on America and its Indian tribes like Apaches filled time. Luckily I survived and was inspired by the world of words.
When Rex died, I needed to pay for my second red setter so I became a newspaper boy. While delivering dailies early in the morning one lucky day and reading them all, I thought why not write in those dailies and breed my own Irish setters?
Journalism was like an adventure book for real in those early days. But it became a big screen near my finish. I seemed jailed by screens as an editor. My last article was about this river, the IJssel in the east of the Netherlands, regenerating after forty years of pollution. Beavers now thrive not far from the statue for the last ones killed mid nineteenth century.
What has this to do with Southerners? Well, Southerners like Irish Setter breeder Pat Carter of Kentucky and hunting guide John White of Tennessee own dogs related to mine, and they like pictures of red setters along this river. So Our Southern Living requested a few photographs.
The river is where I enjoy my new won freedom so times without time with Giulla, Ceasar, Lady and Apache, related to Pat’s Conor and John’s Hawk. Apache from the USA retrieves half a century of Dutch history.
My return to the river with red setters was aimed as well at making pictures that could not be made in the times of Rex. This works like a time machine since I experience again the essentials generating many better parts of my life. I hope they will contribute to a survival of the original Irish setter.
Henk ten Klooster
