James M. Redwine

Females/Pick on Peg

Armored Adversaries

by Leave a Comment

It is unlikely that armadillos ascribe to any mystic beliefs, but they definitely bring out the devil in those of us whose yards are decimated by their reptilian claws. Having shot fifteen of the ugly excuses for lawn ornaments, I immediately bonded with Oklahoma State University football coach Eric Morris who endured what he described as armadillos, “…[C]rushing my yard, my flower beds, digging everything up”. His solution was the same one I applied after trying live traps, bait, wolf urine and asking Peg to sit on our veranda with a metal bucket and a large spoon to scare them away. It was sort of like President Trump’s approach to foreign affairs. Cursing, threats and self-destructive actions were all useless. The only answer was extermination. We have paid through our collective noses for Trump’s babbling ineptitude with Iran. Both Coach Morris and I took a more direct approach after the armadillos refused our terms of negotiation.

In my case, I found reason with the armored obstinate menaces was a waste of time. A few well targeted 20-gauge shots did more than all my vociferous complaints ever did. Coach Morris obviously had tried to live and let live until his yard became a war zone of claw marked messes. If Coach Morris’ wife is anything like Peg, Morris probably tired of the constant refrain of, “When are you going to keep those things out of my plants?” It is sort of like Israel demanding that Trump bomb Iran back to the Stone Age for having the temerity to live on Iran’s own land. After all Coach, the armadillos were there before you moved in.

Now, do not get me wrong, I know the pesky armadillos on our property likely came with the end of the last Ice Age. I do not care! Peg wants them gone and, apparently, so did Mrs. Morris. Neither Coach Morris nor I was going to let a little thing like “First in time, first in right” stop us from settling on armadillo habitat.

Regardless, as a former freshman at Oklahoma State University and a current suffering football fan, if eliminating a couple of ground grubbing scavengers causes the Coach to be able to better concentrate on a game plan to beat anybody, I am behind you all the way, Coach. And I will even bring my shotgun to Stillwater if it helps us beat Oregon on September 12!

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Not Just Fleeting Things

by Leave a Comment

Poster from our wedding

Peg and I have planned a sojourn to the Grand Canyon for our anniversary. Actually, Peg asked me what I wanted to do, then she contacted the Park and got us a room for three days with a dinner reservation for August 25th, our anniversary. Once she had secured both room and board for us, she developed a scenic and meandering route to guide us; she included two motel reservations on the way out. As we may wend our way to Monument Valley and, as yet to be determined adventures on the way home, she will secure those accommodations before we leave the Canyon.

You might ask what I helped do in the preparations. Well, I did not demur to anything Peg proposed. And, I have already procured a bottle of Amarone for our anniversary evening. It makes me proud that I contributed. In fact, Peg’s meticulous matriculation to our anniversary Odyssey caused me to reflect on some of my other ideas that would have been but peccadilloes without Peg’s inspiration. As they are myriad and varied, I will mention just a few.

Volgograd, Russia, December 2003

I went to Volgograd, Russia to teach Russian judges about the American jury system. Volgograd was called Stalingrad during WWII. In a six month’s winter battle one and a half million Russians and six-hundred thousand German soldiers died there. It is recognized as the bloodiest ground battle ever. Also, it is known for the movie made about it, Enemy at the Gates and the Russian sniper, Vasily Zaitsev, who personally killed 225 German soldiers. Of course, it was Peg who made all of our travel arrangements and who prepared the PowerPoint for my week of lectures. It was also Peg with whom all the male Russian judges wanted to dance as she knows how to Rock and Roll and the Russians love American music.

Batumi, Georgia, September 2022

Then we were contracted by the U.S.A.I.D., the American Bar Association, the East-West Management Institute and the National Judicial College, where I have long served on the faculty, to spend six months in the country of Georgia working with Georgian judges. Georgia borders Russia and is directly across the Black Sea from Ukraine. Once again, Peg made all the arrangements and did all the paperwork for my twenty-four presentations. We had to socialize and teach through translators. Peg was able to easily ingratiate both of us into the legal community while giving me the professional credit. And, we were greatly aided in this by our wonderful Georgian friends, Irina and Eka.

Peg reminds me of that nostalgic 1968 song by Tom Jones, My Elusive Dreams. Basically, the lyrics are you followed me in all my dreams and never left me to move on alone. There is so much more that I find myself grateful to Peg for at this anniversary. Suffice it to say, without you all those and many other adventures would not even be memories. And one more extremely important and thoughtful thing Peg has done for me was she figured out how to use her I-Pad to get the 2023 Super Bowl live at 5:00 am Georgian time. We did not miss a moment of the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the Philadelphia Eagles on February 12. While Peg used her native ingenuity to defeat all efforts to have us miss the game, I did my part too; someone had to make the morning coffee.

By the way Peg, as she has done for many years, typed this column, emailed it to the news media, put it on my website and posted it to Facebook too. I think it’s only fair to point out that I did come up with the title and remembered our anniversary. Well, Peg may have gently mentioned it first. Thank you, Peg, and Happy Anniversary!

Our formal wedding picture

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Not the Valkyries

by 1 Comment

Armadillo with textured shell and long tail sniffing leaves on forest floor
A generated armadillo searches for food among leaves on the forest floor

Peg and I returned to our log cabin on our ranch and saw three large vultures just outside our front door vying over the carcass of a massive armadillo. They were so intent on rendering their share of the bounty they did not fly away until I got of our vehicle. My first impression was of President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu and some Ayatollah gnawing at the remains of Iran.

Armadillos are about as ugly a creature as nature has produced. They remind one of what a Congressional Committee might have produced had some generous pork producer asked their favorite House Member lackey to come up with a substitute for a hog to sell to the government for C-Rations. An armadillo is without any redeeming aesthetic value. They look the same from the front as the back; long, scaley and nasty grey from end to end with tuffs of hair dotted around for enhancement must be what other armadillos consider attractive.

Such attractiveness must work for them as the population of armadillos is growing exponentially as proven by all the dead ones on our roads. And for some reason, the Congressman who designed the armadillo provided that each pregnant female gutter-rat can produce four offspring at a time. It is as though the Armadillo Design Committee wanted to assure America has an alternate national symbol that is to the bald eagle as the U.S. Department of Transportation is to Roman highways. That is, roads that are built with planned obsolescence in mind versus two-thousand years of service.

Anyway, as I exited our pickup Peg screeched, “Jim, those vultures may attack you! That thing may still be alive.” We have plenty of experience with vultures, so I was fairly confident the already wafting putridness from the truly dead beast was what drew in the prairie vacuum sweepers.

I grabbed a pair of gloves and lifted the armadillo by its hairless, scaley tail. I was surprised at how heavy it was. It must have been a very pregnant female before somebody on the nearest state highway, two miles away, had run over it. I estimate it weighed twenty pounds based on my previous armadillo experience. I carried it out into the pasture and made sure it was visible from the sky. The vultures only waited about twenty minutes before hovering around the reeking mess. The pasture was armadillo-free by the next afternoon.

I wish to commend the vultures for somehow transporting the heavy helping of armadillo from what, I assume, was a two-mile flight. It looked like they had clung to their prize as long as they could before having to release it onto our lane. Mother Nature surely knows what She is doing even if our Congressional Committees do not. Vaya con dios mama armadillo, feel free to never return.

By the way, I do have a friend who swears the meat of an armadillo tastes like “sweet pork”. As I told him, he has my blessing to collect every dead armadillo he finds on the highway and serve them at Easter. He will have no competition from Peg and me, and that is even without the leprosy factor.

You can also “follow’ us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Of Snakes And Crows

by Leave a Comment

In the Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-3, God, perhaps in a mood to overcome His boredom once He had created earth and its creatures, set Eve and all future women to be at odds with snakes. First, God created Adam then, when Adam had nothing to do but enjoy life, God created Eve to tempt him; I suppose for God’s own amusement. To tempt Eve, God created the serpent whose main purpose appears to have been to set up Eve’s biblical day-time talk show episode of learning about good versus evil by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Of course, Eve brought Adam along.

Even though both Eve and the serpent knew to eat of the Tree of Knowledge had been forbidden by God, as Eve explained her great sin, the serpent beguiled her and led her to partake of the Tree of Knowledge and share the dreadful bounty with Adam. God cursed Adam to labor and women to bear children and hate snakes. The Bible makes it clear that the “curse” included the creation of sexual relations so Adam was probably not too upset with Eve’s frailty.

These interactions of women and serpents came to mind yesterday when Peg and I looked out our cabin window and saw a large black crow in a battle of wits with a two-foot long black and gold banded, although I’m no herpetologist, I think, Mandarin serpent. I am guessing the snake was seen by the crow as a potential threat to the crow’s nearby nest. Usually, crows build their homes high up a tree, but as most of our trees are stubby blackjacks, I bet this crow’s nest may have been not too far away. I really do not know how or why the confrontation took place nor which adversary initiated it. I did conclude both snake and crow saw the battle as an existential threat.

The crow would make a sprightly hop over the snake which would try a thrust with its head as the bird jumped over. According to the Internet, the Mandarin is not very venomous, but has enough poison to defend itself if it can get a bite in.

This back and forth and over and across series of moves and countermoves went on for about five minutes until either one or both of the creatures got bored or tired and the crow hopped up on the fence and the serpent slithered off into the high grass of our pasture. I do know how I happened to see this entertaining contest. Peg shouted, “Jim!” I recognize Peg’s alarm for mice, not too loud, squirrels, somewhat concerned and snakes: an all-out Eve protestation. I went for my shotgun but, frankly, did not know at which of God’s creatures to shoot; they both looked like good and evil or just confused and while Peg hates all snakes, she’s not too fond of crows either.

I did note that by the time I was ready to fire, Mother Nature had taken matters back to the situation ante without any damage being done. Apparently, the knowledge of good (live and let live) and evil (senseless death) had not been eaten of by either creature. Maybe there’s a lesson there; I wish I could ask my old Sunday School teacher.

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

The Reasons For The Season

by Leave a Comment

At the Reed-Hembree Caroling Event, Cedar Ridge of Pawhuska, OK

Clark Griswold is a Christmas everyman. He is to a family Christmas reunion what Oedipus was to reunions with his father, whom he kills, and his mother, whom he marries. Both Oedipus and Clark performed well intentioned acts which resulted in disasters. That illustrates one of the main problems for all writers after the Classical Age of Greece. Such playwrites and philosophers as Sophocles already wrote 2,500 years ago the plots the rest of us just keep repeating in different formats, such as this Gavel Gamut column.

As for the hapless Clark Griswold, all he wants is to provide his family with “A good ‘ole family Christmas” and fate punishes his every move. By the end of the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation movie (1989), Clark has destroyed his and his neighbor’s homes, has enabled the explosion of a public sewer and the kidnapping of his boss by Clark’s idiot cousin. All-in-all, Clark’s nostalgic yearnings turn out to be just what many lovers of the Christmas season secretly dread is bound to be a fait accompli, no matter how hard they try to put the perfect bow on the Christmas family holiday.

At our home in our isolated prairie cabin, Peg makes sure we do not succumb to the vanities of a Perfect Family Christmas. She is forever hopeful and positive about what makes each season bright. She starts decorating for Christmas as soon as the pilgrim and turkey touches are put away even though nobody but she and I ever see even one of the “twinkling little lights” at JPeg Osage Ranch. Then she will begin orchestrating storing the Santa Clauses, etc., for 2026 before we finish our glasses of New Year’s champagne.

However, as Clark Griswold explains while he is standing among the ashes of his Christmas tree that burned up when his drunken Uncle Louis lit his cigar, Christmas means something different to everyone. It is not truly about presents and decorations but:

“The most enjoyable traditions of the season are best enjoyed
in the warm embrace of kith and kin.”

This is so even if there is geographical distance between us and our friends and family members.

Clark is right, even if it took a few disasters for him to realize what is truly important, and not just at Christmas. So, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to and from our family to yours, Gentle Readers!

A Wee Philosophy

by Leave a Comment

Peg & Jim Redwine at the Scotland Border, 2017

Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scotland’s best-known poet and farmer, was ploughing his field one day when he upended a mouse’s winter nest. The poem Burns wrote in the original Scots language, “To A Mouse”, is as difficult to decipher as Peg and I found trying to comprehend conversations when we visited Scotland. Therefore, I will cite the English version that in part says to the “Little, sleek, cowering timorous beast”:

“I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
And justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes you startle,
At me, your poor earth-born companion and fellow mortal?
….
But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes of Mice and Men
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain .…”

Then Burns turns his thoughts inward towards his own fate:

“Still you are blessed compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But Oh? I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear.”

In other words, the mouse may have lost his present home, but it is not burdened with regrets from the past or dread of the future. Shelter alone is the mouse’s concern, but Burns is chained to past misfortunes and the possibilities of future disasters, much as each of us humans are. The mouse’s loss of a temporary home pales in comparison to mankind’s sentient reality.

Gentle Reader, you may wonder what these two conflicting perspectives have to do with anything. Of course, you may not even take note. However, to me the dilemma between the Wee Beastie’s loss of a nest and Burns’ acknowledgement that “ignorance may be bliss” came clearly into my mind when Peg said, “Jim, I smell a dead mouse in the kitchen”. Naturally, the onus was upon me to answer for the mouse’s demise and alter any more future consequences. I am married; I know the drill.

My first response was my fallback position for all domestic quandaries, I ignored it. Unfortunately, Peg was not willing to let nature deal with nature so waiting until the smell was gone was not feasible. Then I searched for a mouse corpse in the usual places, such as under the kitchen sink or near the pantry, nothing. Next, I checked around the outside of our log cabin to see if there was an odiferous source in Peg’s dried flowers, nope.

All easy solutions failed me. The dreaded, “Jim, someone (me) needs to crawl under the house to see if some animal (we have lots of them) died there and is rotting away”. Oh, the glories of flashlights, facemasks, knee pads and possible confrontations with Big Foot or perhaps an upset skunk. I donned my gear and armed myself with a large trash bag and a short-handled shovel.

After about an hour of banging my head and digging up suspect piles of damp dirt I declared a truce with Ma Nature and told Peg I thought the smell was well on its way to dissipation so we should just hang on awhile. You might already know how that resolution was received.