"RECONCILIATION"

THE GREATEST NEWS.... EVER HEARD ON THIS EARTH


"RECONCILIATION" by Lloyd Pfautsch.....from 2 Corinthians 5: 17-19. "Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ....and hath given unto us the ministry of reconciliation...To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself…."

The year was 1962 and I was Church Music Secretary for Baptist Convention of New Mexico. I proposed to the music ministers of NM and others that we start a "music camp," high up in the Manzano Mountains, SE of Albuquerque at the Inlow Youth Camp. 

We were gifted 200 brand new 1957 Baptist Hymnals (1957 Ed.) to replace vintage "Precious Hymns," which were falling apart. We bought two beautiful Hamilton Studio pianos, one for the tabernacle (a rough, rustic, semi-open building) and for winter storage we had sheet metal "cases" made for rolling the pianos into---thus avoiding mice nests.

 Each year we invited the best choral conductors in the SBC---R. Paul Green, James Cram, James Woodward, Dr. Euell Porter, Paul Bobbitt, Jack Kay, and others.

This was no SAB deal for the NM kids--- when these men selected the music, it was as if it were for college choirs! I can't remember WHICH director it was who one year chose one of the most powerful choral pieces I've ever heard---"RECONCILIATION." 

At first I was dubious for it contained a considerable amount of antiphonal choral chanting. A Friday morning concert in that open tabernacle, with great acoustics, was scheduled and we worked hard all week on the chanting, as well as eight or nine other octavos.

The time came, and visitors came...the final concert: From three different directions, chanting: "Therefore, if any man be in Christ- he is a new creature"....and back and forth went the chant---"behold if any man be in Christ he is.....” 

AND SUDDENLY FROM AFAR OFF----way back in the old raw-wood tabernacle...wafting on that cool mountain air...came the bright clear notes of a TRUMPET...as if heralding the GREATEST NEWS EVER HEARD ON THIS EARTH..."TA-TAH-TAH...TA-TAH-TAT...TA TA TAH" and then all 225 NM kids, with the small orchestra playing, sang, majestically and broadly: "GOD WAS IN CHRIST....RECONCILING THE WORLD....RECONCILING THE WORLD....TO HIMSELF!!!!!!!!!!!" 

I like to think that that unforgettable chord is yet reverberating across the mountain tops of the world, and yea, even throughout the Cosmos, "TO HIMSELF."  Amen and amen.

---30---MIL'S PLACE---400th POST

BY MIL, 9-30-14

A STRANGE BIRD

I'VE LEARNED FROM THE BIRDS
*************************************

In my bird-feeder-grain-cylinder,
    hanging here just outside
my "writing window..."
    I saw a "strange bird"
yesterday.

He was a relatively small sparrow-
    finch-wren-type bird...
non-descript,, but really obnoxious!
    He sat atop the grain cylinder
feeder (meant for all birds)
    as if he owned it... like it was
his alone.

Peck! Peck! Peck! and with an awful
    showy, threatening flutter 
of wings he started little
    fights with every other bird
that came to eat;
    Peck! Peck! Peck! What a vicious 
little yellow beak he had!

O how I felt sorry for the little
    run-of-the-mill birds, who
were hungry, and just wanting
    their piece of the pie...
so to speak...

So this mean-selfish-bully-bird fought
    their every effort; I could 
see them peeping, and I being 
    a "peep reader" heard them 
saying; "CAN'T WE JUST 
    GETALONG?"

What makes a bird, ostensibly
    no different from any of
the other birds---get such an
    egotistical, selfish concept
of himself?

So that he sits atop the food supply
    as if he owns it and the world.
He is the head of it...the
    "CHAIRMAN."

Why? That is the question.

Ah, but the world is full of 
    PEOPLE like that...
We've all known 'em. They're
    folks born without 
perception and humility.

We often call them;
    "STRANGE BIRDS."

*******30******
BY MIL
09/25/14

AUTUMN IS THE BEST!

I KNOW NOT...
**************

If there are seasons in other
    Realms Afar---
To compare with Spring, Summer,
    Autumn, and Winter---
I know not. The Creator knows.

But truly---I like the ones I know.

SPRING---
    With its dewy mornings, fresh
breezes...
     crocuses and daffodils....
and trees leafing, and flowers blooming---
     The mourning doves are back
and robins are everywhere, on lawns
     searching for worms.
The old Sun is beginning its long climb,
     and April showers may come
our way!

SUMMER---
     The days are warmin' up...and the
big white clouds are billowing high...
      The children are playing a
dozen games, and in the country,
      headin' for the old  fishin'
hole, to fish, or swim.

     Gardens are green, veggies are
growing...roses are blooming...
      Little apples appear on the trees...
Growing tomato vines promise juicy joys
     in August.

Vacationers pass by in their RV's and
      bicyclers and hikers are everywhere!

WINTER---
      Winter is here, announcing itself with
biting, howling, freezing winds,
      whipping around the corners of houses...
trying to speak to us in moans through
     partially open windows....

People are hanging out up in their cozy, warm
      attics, and reading in easy chairs,
covered with quilts, by the fireplace....

Snow and sleet can be heard, splatting the
      windows...
Reminding us that Thanksgiving-time
      is almost here, and soon
it will be Christmas....
     Snowmen and sled-time...
and sliding down hills on tubes.

There's quietness and stillness in winter...
      if you walk in a light snowfall
at dusk...or midnight...

AUTUMN---
     Ah, but I skipped autumn didn't I?
Saving the best for last?
      Can there be a season like Autumn
anywhere else in the whole cosmos?

      Frosty mornings, first northers, leaves
falling, and rattling along curbs in the
      fall breezes---
Indian summer days---a gentleness in the air,
      and in the sun's warmth....as if the
whole world is readying for hibernation.

       The smell of roasting green chillies
seems to come from every corner, where I live---
        A new apple crop is in, and caramel
appears on grocery shelves! Yum yum.

       Pumpkins appear on front porches, as well
as in the fields, gardens, and pumpkin pies.

        Outdoorsmen are out on frosty mornings
in frosty fields of feed stubble, wearing their old
        hunting coats, with their pockets full
of shells, and their old pump shotguns---chasing
        the ring necks...

       Others are up in their cozy attics, listening
to the wind whistle around the corner of the
        house, and that old branch slapping
the wall in the storm---all the while cleaning
      fishing gear, or oiling their boots, or
even reading a good book about hunting in
      Alaska, fishing on Lake Powell, or
maybe even dozing on the old camp bed.

YES! Autumn may be the BEST SEASON
                      OF ALL!

******30******
BY MIL
09/21/14

SNOOK FISHING IN THE EVERGLADES: BEST OF ALL

BY "BIG DOG" and "COACH"

FOR SHEER BEAUTY--- HEAD FOR FLORIDA

**************************************************

For Snook fishing, my opinion is that the best

place to go is the Everglades, just south of

Naples!

We do most of our fishing in what is called "the

"inside" or "backwaters." You can also fish the 

outside, which is along the Gulf, lined with small

islands and mangrove cover. We go out there some

but lately I have mostly fished the backwaters

because of the creeks and just the sheer beauty  

of the place.

You really get back to old Florida down there, and 

it gives you a greater appreciation for the

the Seminoles and others who lived and survived in

the area.

When I am there and I look around at all that is 

around me, I always go back in time in my thoughts, 

and just sit in amazement at how unbelievably strong-

willed the people must have been to live in those

surroundings. I can't even fathom the hardships of day-

to-day living as they sought to provide for themselves

and their children. It makes me appreciate everything

I have been fortunate to have in my life.

The Everglades is just a great place to "get away from

it all!" For me, I don't even have to catch a fish to enjoy

the trip. Some of the guys I have taken there over the

years question me on that, until they have been there,

and then they all say: "Don, you are right---you don't 

really have to catch a fish to enjoy the trip."

Now, don't get me wrong, there is not much that can

compare with getting one of those wild things in the

end of a rod! Made me give up bass fishing a long time

ago. Plus there are many other kinds of fish you may 

hook, including tarpon. You never know what you may

hook!

Again, I just can't explain the feeling I get, just being there

and absorbing the whole mood of the place as I fish.

You can relate, maybe, if you were telling me of your

favorite get-away-place. 

It just gives me a feeling of great pleasure...and I respect

the place so much. My esteemed friend of many years,

and high school mentor, coach Ned, knows.....I only wish

I had known years ago of his great fondness for fishing

the Everglades because I sure would have enjoyed a trip

with him!  "JUST SAY'N.".  -----"BIG DOG"

************************

COACH NED SAYS:

Great comments and your words certainly describe the

environment of the "ten thousand islands," as you are at

total peace when down there and have a total appreciation

for what God has provided mankind.

Yes, Snook are difficult to find and then when you

hook one: "Good luck in boating him!" I am a fish eater and

snook are my favorite fish to fry up, but I have been "skunked"

more than once---and gone home empty-handed, but not

empty-hearted, for each trip stays in your memory 'til next time,

and even forever.

Don is right--it is a miracle how the early Indians survived.

Don could write paragraphs about his experiences fishing in 

the Everglades. How many times were you lost? How many 

times were you thrown out of the boat? How many times were

you caught in storms and couldn't get back to camp before

dark...then ran aground?

Don and I could sit and talk about our outings and never quit

laughing.

I have taken Gator coaches with me for the experience and

listened to many calls from them on how they later went down 

there in their own boats and got lost or ran aground.

**************************

"BIG DOG" IS READY TO GO FISHIN' !!!

Boys, I have had the fishing bug for some time now! As a 

matter-of-fact, next month Snook Season opens in the

Everglades....and six of us guys are headed to Chokoloskee

for four days of trying to chase down the ever-elusive fish we

call "The Robolo Ripper."

Sure is fun getting one on the end of a 7 foot fiberglass rod

with some light tackle. 

Don't even have to catch one, for the surroundings are just

breathtaking and adventures in the backwaters inspire the

soul. Can't wait to get there and relive 40 years of tradition

in trekking there to catch that crazy fish. 

My ole buddy "Steamboat" took me down there on my first 

trip in 1974 and I have been going back at least three times 

a year since. 

It's not as easy to catch and keep Snook as it used to be.

They've had two bad winters that killed hundreds of thou-

sands of Snooks and the Feds have begun regulating them

so much more, relating to size limits.

There used to be a 24 inch minimum length but now they

have what is called a "slot." The Snook must be in the 

26--33 inch slot. Anything over of under that must be

released.

Also, the season now is a total of only five months...spread

over the year at intervals, Guess it just makes it more 

interesting if you catch one in the slot...and the season is 

open, you can just fry and eat him right there! Now that's

WORTH THE WAIT!       "JUST SAY'N".  ...."BIG DOG"

******30*****

FOR MIL'S

By Don Phillips and Coach Ned Biddix

09/19/14

"O BEULAH LAND, SWEET BEULAH LAND"

"O BEULAH LAND, SWEET BEULAH LAND"

OLD SOUTHERN GOSPEL SONG
**************************************
My seven-year-old mind, somehow being as  
good as a movie camera, recorded the big wide
marquis at the State Theater---that time in 1941
---a fateful year-- and I can still see it now...

The announced movie was "SERGEANT YORK." 
The letters were the biggest there ever were on
the State's marquis. Little boys went to the
Lyceum Theater on Saturdays where you really
got your dime's worth, with a double feature, a
serial, a Looney Tunes, and  maybe a Sing-Along
with the bouncing ball over the words. So I didn't
see the movie in 1941.

But I did see "SERGEANT YORK" when I was
ten (and wet the sights on my BB gun, with my
thumb, as Alvin York did, and went "gobble,
gobble, gobble" before I shot the Nazis in my
T.O.---our neighborhood.) And I've seen the movie
maybe seven or eight times since.

Cut to Sunday morning, September 14, 2014---
it's coffee time and the BP ("Beloved Pianist"
has to leave for church choir practice--early.
She says: "It's been a busy week and I'm out
of ideas for offertories; then to me: "You got any?" 

I had been humming an old gospel song around
the house all week and I blurted out---"Why don't
you play "Beulah Land."  "I don’t think they’ll know
it," she said. (It is likely in NO church hymnal today.)

I said: "Oh, they've all seen "SERGEANT YORK."
Remember the very end of the movie, with Joan
Leslie eagerly leading Gary Cooper through the
Tennessee woods....

BUT...getting caught up in the memory of WWI
times (a hundred years ago, this year), the 
memory of that much-honored American hero,
Alvin York--from Tennessee, I couldn't stifle 
myself. (I am so tired of all the foreigners in
Washington that it did my heart good to tell
BP this story, of a real American, in simpler 
times....)

Alvin York, you remember, was a rip-snortin'
young Tennessee fellow, who worked hard,
played hard, hung out and got drunk in back-
woods bars. At times, his little brother had to
go fetch him home...drunk as a skunk.

Now one night, during a terrible storm, he was
out drinking in this rough bar, somewhere in the 
woods; there may have been a fight, I can't 
remember, Anyway, Alvin York, starts to stagger
home...lightning hits a tree next to him...he is
stunned and gets up out of the muddy road...
and it's pouring rain...and addled as he is, he
slides along in the muck and suddenly the
far-off music, from down at the little country 
church, an old gospel song is wafting out on the
damp night air: "GIVE ME THAT OLD -TIME
RELIGION, GIVE ME THAT OLD-TIME
RELIGION..."

The church is having a revival meeting. The
lightning may have cleared Alvin's mind.
He staggered in the door, dripping water, and
Walter Brennan, the storekeeper/preacher is
leading the little congregation, (and suddenly
with great gusto, when he sees Alvin) "IT WAS
GOOD FOR OUR MOTHERS AND FATHERS..."
and stabbing his finger, like a pointer at Alvin
York---"IT WAS GOOD FOR PAUL AND SILAS,
IT WAS GOOD FOR PAUL AND SILAS.....

All this time, wide-eyed Alvin is moving so slowly
toward the front of the church, mouth half-open...
later evidence in York's life indicates that God
came into Alvin's heart during that twenty-five
foot shuffle down the aisle. His heart was 
changed. We would call it: "the new birth."

Then WWI came and Alvin York was drafted.

Now York, in all sincerity, did not want to kill
any Nazis, when he arrived in France. He
believed killing was wrong. Until he found
himself on the front lines, in the trenches, and
the German machine guns were wiping out
his unit terribly fast. His friends were being
slaughtered.

He suddenly got riled. "Gobble, gobbled," as
he did countless times a turkey shoots, and
the German soldiers stuck their heads up,
just like the Tennessee turkeys, and pow!
Grabbing rifle after rifle, American or enemy,
and emptying them, never missing, Sergeant
York put the FEAR into the German army in
his sector, and they surrendered, 132 of them

He marched them in, armed with only a cap-
tired German Luger. Seeing a Colonel, or
whatever, Sergeant York marches the prisoners
up to him, salutes, and says: "Suh, I have a few
prisoners here...I'd be a mite grateful if'n you
could take them off my hands." 

"How many have you got, Sergeant?" York: "Well,
suh, I reckon there's about 132 head."

The Sergeant became an American hero. He had
always been "poorer than Job's turkey," but when
he returned to Tennessee and his attractive wife,
played by Joan Leslie...she took him by the hand,
leading him through the woods, saying: "Alvin,
Alvin, come see what the people of Tennessee 
have given us!"

And as they break into a clearing, THERE in front
of them---a beautiful brand-new home...a gift...

The well-selected background music begins to 
play for the man who killed, in the final moment,
to save his comrades---a song symbolic of heaven---

"I've reached the land of joy divine,
And all its beauties now are mine;
There shines beyond one blissful day,
For all my cares are gone away.

O Beulah land, sweet Beulah land!
As on thy highest mount I stand,
I look away across the sea
Where mansions are prepared for me
And view the shining glory shore
My heaven, my home forevermore."

The gospel hymn writer is Edgar Page Stiles
(1836-1921) The text was set to music by John R.
Sweeney (1837-1899)

The hymn derives from the King James version of
Isaiah 62:4; "Thou shall no more be termed
Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be
termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called
Hephzibah and thy land BEULAH, for the Lord
delighteth in thee....

The idea the hymn presents that Heaven can
be seen from Beulah land, comes from John
Bunyan's "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" in which
he states "Therefore, it is, I say, that the Enchanted
ground is placed so nigh to the land Beulah and
so near the end of their race"  (i.e. Heaven.)

*******30*****
BY MIL

09/14/14

THE BEST DUCK HUNT---EVER

THE YEAR WAS 1959....
*********************

I reckon it was about twenty degrees that
ice-cold December morning fifty-five years
ago--- at six a.m.---and you'd think any person
with gumption would be at home in a warm bed
cuddled up with the wife.

But there I was, with my hunting partner, "Brother
Ed," a missionary preacher---we were crawling
through an awful maze and tangle of tall willows,
mesquites, dead weeds and brush...along the
seepy, soggy, boggy, swampy, shore of Lake
Childress.

Even as light was beginning to break, you couldn't
see five feet ahead. We had walked, then crawled...
several hundred yards from the car.

Our breaths were frosting...and we were panting.
We'd pause and rest a minute...and then go on.
I was twenty-five and Ed was twice't that.

We were forty yards from the water, and split up...
Ed angling off to the left. We had scouted this lake
several times and we knew there'd be ducks on
this little brushy cove.

As we split up, our blood pressure soared---there
came the most exciting sound off that cove that a
duck hunter could want. It was the sounds of dozens
of ducks QUACKING...happily! Not a care in the
world!

We had seen mostly green head mallards on that
lake and wondered where the lady ducks were. We
didn't know.

Wow! Do ducks' quacks sound loud, up close, on
a clear, frosty, winter morning, on a cozy lake
branch, when they are waking up, and think no
human is within miles!?

It sounded like a big scad of ducks, maybe fifty
or a hundred!

"Brother Ed" was a great fellow from North Carolina.
He had a gentle-sounding Southern brogue when
he spoke. He was an old hunter; name it---he had
hunted it.

I had hunted bobwhites and blue quail many times
with Ed, and he had an old faded light tan canvas
hunting coat, which was to die for. It was likely a
richer tan color a good many years before I knew
him...a long life of hunting trips had faded that old
coat, with the shell loops---and game bag in the back.

I doubt that it had ever been washed...maybe aired
every year or two, if it needed it.

It was a coat a young guy like me would look at,
dream of, and envy. It had character; it had "patina,"
as they say. That jacket, if it had a voice, could
entertain a bunch of old hunters, sitting around a
fire, in an old mountain cabin somewhere---with
their glasses of diet Dr. Pepper---for hours.

Well sir, I decided I had to have me a jacket just
like Ed's. I ordered one, a forty long.

It was a blinding-new caramel tan right out-of-the-
box from Monkey Wards! Now thereby existed a
problem---it was TOO NEW-LOOKING! Ed's was
a light, faded tan. He could crawl into the bushes
and you couldn't see him; when I crawled they'd
say: "WOW, who's that young dude over there in
the weeds in that bright hunting coat!?"

I set out to acclimatize my new coat....give it some
unearned-character, you know. I stomped on it a
little, dragged it around the yard, and left it in the
sun to fade---but all to little avail.

That morning my new coat was getting a workout---
it and particularly the elbows were covered with
mud. It was unlined, and if it hadn't been for my
thick sweater, I would have frozen.

I had my old 16 gauge double barrel Stevens that
Dad had given me when I was fourteen---he went
out and bought himself a twelve gauge Ithaca pump,
the one with the hunting scenes stamped on the
receiver.

My Stevens was loaded with number four high brass
shells and ready to go. I was always a safety-minded
nut with guns, and had been careful not to ram the
barrel into the mud.

So there I was, all ready to go, fifteen yards from the
water, legal daylight, but all you could hear was the
quacking ducks---it was too brushy to see them!

What happened next, I don't know. Something must
have startled the ducks. There was that sound that
makes a duck-hunter's heart nearly stop---the sound
of a hundred or more mallard wings beating in unison
as they rise together off the water.

There were far more ducks in that cove---right and left---
than we ever expected.

A slew of them came right over me and I fell backward
and shot straight up, dropping two. For a minute or two
there were ducks circling all around, trying to figure
out what was going on.

I kept shooting...and heard Ed's Bang, Bang, Bang. As I
remember, we didn't lose a single duck to the water.

The ducks were gone.

We gathered up our gear and our ducks and walked to
the car, so excited we could hardly talk! We stopped at
our favorite coffee cafe in town and ordered sausage
and eggs, biscuits and gravy, and just finished up by
leaning back in our booth, as men do, having more coffee
and reliving our hunt---the first "re-live" of a hundred to
come over the years...which is part of what the outdoor
experience is all about...the memories.

I fancied that the waitress and some of the customers
were eyeing me and Ed, in our muddy, rustic hunting
coats, tho' his was "rusticker" than mine.

We went to my house and spread six green head mallards
and one hen, in a semi-circle on my dead Bermuda lawn,
a tan color. We criss-crossed our shotguns with the birds.
I posed and he posed. Somewhere there are color
slides.

I don't honestly remember who got four and who got
three.

It was the best duck hunt I'd ever been on....and at age 25
I thought: "Wow, how many more great duck hunts I will
have in my life...it's gonna get better and better!"

But, my hunting friends, life and its events and opportunities
are ever unpredictable---it is the nature of things here...
Duck hunts are iffy occasions that depend on any number
of factors and variables....

Turns out...that I never had a better duck hunt than that one...
or a better hunting friend than Ed.

I did drop a few geese in later years, but those are other tales
for other cold winter nights  around the fire.

As to my forty-long Monkey Wards hunting coat, "Whatever
happened to it?" you ask.

Well, I wore it and wore it, on many quail and dove hunts, and
a few hunts down along the swampy land around Bernardo
where the ducks hung out...it weathered and gained character
on many a "goose crawl."

It faded out a right smart, like Ed's old coat...it could hold its
on in a tale-telling session with old hunting coats, if'n they
had voices.

Alas, it either shrank...or I put on some. It's too little now and
I fear my hunting days are o'er...and maybe now only...lore.
It hangs with honor, in the back of my garage...an old friend
that symbolizes a life in the outdoors...one of the great gifts
God has given to us guys.

Life goes on.

*******30******
BY MIL
8/26/14






Sent from my iPad

IT ALL STARTED WITH THAT CAMEL!

MIL'S ANIMAL FRIENDS...WHERE HE WRITES...

******************************************************

Have you ever noticed in life how sometimes "one thing
leads to another?"

Well, I never started out to have a couple of dozen animals
watching me write every day! But it happened! And thereby
hangs a tale---you'll like---if you like to read.

A few years ago, I saw this book advertised---"WHERE THE
PAVEMENT ENDS," by Erika Warmbrunn. A frustrated actress
chucked it all and bicycled alone across Mongolia, China, and
Viet Nam. One of the absolutely best books I ever read!

She loved the Mongolians and they loved her...built her a YURT
right on the school grounds and talked her into teaching children
English...for a time.

As Amazon will do, they listed on their review "other similar
books you would enjoy." One was "WALKING THE GOBI,"
by Helen Thayer. This one, about a 63 year old adventuress,
and her husband, "nolens volens" (a legal term from LINCOLN'S
day, meaning "whether willing or unwilling"), agreed to go
along.

This book was almost better than "Pavement." Especially with
their two absolutely-essential-for-a-1900 mile-desert-crossing---
leased CAMELS---"TOM," and "JERRY." Yes, animals which
could go ten days without water, and thirty-five days without
food.

Now,  I came to love old Tom and Jerry, as I read the book,
forgiving them, as did Helen, for their laziness, clumsiness,
(one fell on their 750 gallons of water in bladders and
squashed them all)----their impudent/spitting ways when riled;
their need of Listerine.

Why, several years after the expedition was over, Helen and
her "nolens volens" husband journeyed back to Mongolia
to see Tom  and Jerry, where they had been put out to
forevermore rest, like great race-horses (they had made
a BUNDLE for their owners, by Mongolian standards----)
when the camels saw Helen and hubby, they came running
across the pasture, doing their loud camel noises, in loving
recognition.

Well, these two camels won my heart, and what a great story!
One day, I impulsively said to the Beloved Editor: "You know,
I miss Tom and Jerry...what if I looked around in some shops
and bought me a little camel for the top of my bookshelf here?"

She smiled, as beautiful women do, and drifted off somewhere.
I figured I was sunk...no camel for me. But here she came "AS
BIG AS IKE," as the old saw went, holding the nicest camel
you ever saw---she'd had it stashed ever since our son gave
it for Christmas one year. It now sits on my bookshelf, the
forerunner of many animals that were to come....and get this:
he is about 13 inches tall! He is yet...unnamed...

I told everyone about my Thayer book, my camel, and how
much I loved Tom and Jerry....But...I found quite a few folks
who had ridden camels...some even in Egypt...some in zoos,
and some at circuses....I never found ONE person who likes
camels.

Can't we put up with bad manners, and animals that regurgitate
and spit it at you, when we consider their contribution to
world history?

But as I read books, and wrote about them....somehow it got
started---people started bringing me animals for my writing
place. I re-read an Olive North book, about her killing a
moose to feed her little cold family in British Columbia,,,
and.....

I've always liked "meese," so I ordered a big nice one for my
shelf. Our housekeeper is a dumpster-diver as a hobby and she
brought me a beautiful duck, carved out of a burl. Someone
had tossed it.

See, in front of Snoopy, a little tiny white FISH....looks almost
like a tooth, at a.little distance, and it keeps reminding me
of my emergency trip to the dentist in August.

My son is searching for a little skunk for the shelf...I've spotted
a rooster I want---about seven inches tall. Yes, I've written
about both roosters and skunks...

I saw some cow and bull bronze salt shakers...and a mama
elephant and baby, but the wife thinks I've got enough.

Here's what people have brought: a mother hen, a little
bronze giraffe, a little chicken in clear plastic, a howling
dog Indian carving, a turtle, and a rattlesnake my son made
in CLAY 101.

There's the burl duck and several others; there's little tiny
penguin over there, and of course the little tiny fish, that
looks like a tooth. Don't forget my Donald Duck!

I noticed a retired-college-professor friend of mine has a
neat writing place and desk and he has several really
cool animals on his desk....one that caught my eye was
an owl about eight inches tall.

Now, I must do a story on an OWL. I liked his and one
certainly would enhance my collection...if I can sneak
it in, without management seeing it.

Oh, did I mention the photos of the most-important
ones---my two little boys, and Beloved Donna.

Interesting how big a part animals play in our journey on
this earth.

*****30*****
BY MIL
09/13/14