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Sláinte

May 14, 2025 by Peg Leave a Comment

Isle of Skye, Scotland 2017

Not long ago Peg and I visited the Isle of Skye in Scotland. We took a bus ride to the small town of Portree and chuckled when we were let off near an intersection with a sign that said, “Caution, Elderly People Crossing”. The sign had a drawing of a bent at the waist old woman holding onto an even more acutely bent old man leaning on a cane. It looked strangely familiar.

Portree is the capital of the Isle of Skye. It has a little more than 2,000 residents, most of whom pretend to speak English, but who really communicate among themselves in Scottish Gaelic. Alcohol is available as long as you do not order “Scotch”. The Scotch drink is “whiskey”. The locals are reservedly polite but do not hide their bemusement at American tourists, especially if the tourists resemble the Elderly Crossing signs.

Just as many other societies, the Scotch have an arcane yang and yin approach to regulating the use and abuse of alcohol. At our hotel the tiny bar was intimate and comforting. Dark walls and heavy wooden furniture were accented by the lone barkeep who was obviously accustomed to explaining the local customs to hapless American tourists. He was of ruddy, bewhiskered visage and a roguishly engaging attitude. He was reminiscent of the 19th century immigrants who brought their Viking-like culture with them to America. Peg and I were his only customers that bleary afternoon after our bus trip. He put on his best Scottish brogue to disguise the true meaning of his responses to my haltingly timid order for a double shot of Bailey’s as though I were addressing Cerberus guarding the Bar. He scoffed, rolled his eyes and his tongue then condescendingly informed me it was illegal to buy a double for one person. Then, with a twinkle he said, “Now, should you wish to buy a single for your wife and a separate single for yourself, that will work”. So, even though I had already ordered a “Scotch” for myself and received a primer on it being properly called a “whiskey”, I ordered as instructed.

This experience reminded me of my days as an underage American trying to procure 3.2% beer from a drive-through beer joint. It always seemed to me that the only thing the Volstead Act accomplished was to sharpen the imaginations of thirsty Americans and, according to my family’s lore, to keep my Uncle Henry’s moonshine still in business. It looked to me like Scotland had approached alcohol prohibition and regulation in a similar fashion.

Regardless, Peg did get to drown her ennui about “Elderly People”; the two Baileys did the trick. However, we both have remained acutely aware of how our strides might appear; we strive to walk straighter and more briskly, and, of course, without a cane.

Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland 2017

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Filed Under: Females/Pick on Peg, Gavel Gamut, Personal Fun, Travel Tagged With: alcohol, Bailey's, Elderly People, Isle of Skye, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, Scotch, Scotland, Slainte, Whiskey

Spring, Humbug

March 12, 2025 by Peg Leave a Comment

James Taylor wrote Sweet Baby James in 1970:

“There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
Song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me”

If you side with those who dream of a home in the sky, paradise was populated by Adam and Eve. Their Garden of Eden was perfect but that did not stop Eve from trying to improve it. You know, kind of like some wives when spring arrives. Say my wife, Peg, for example. I can imagine the conversation between Adam and Eve.

“Adam, isn’t this idyllic? Everything is just perfect. However, that one tree needs its fruit plucked. Would you mind just keeping an eye on that serpent while you are lounging around doing nothing?”

It is theoretically possible that was the beginning of humanity’s Rite of Spring where husbands are cast out of their dens by their wives who are intoxicated from the sight of emerging buds, the feel of damp earth and the smell of humas. I am reminded of Peg’s need to transform our perfect new home with paint and flower beds. Spring should be re-named the season of restless wives and “Honey, could you?” Where in the Constitution is it provided that it is illegal, or at least, unpolitic, for husbands to prop up their feet while waiting for a fish to make a mistake?

What estrogen fueled behavior is it that prevents wives from allowing winter to gently and slowly thaw its way to autumn and football season? Or as Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady asked, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” My guess is that Dr. Louis Leakey only found Lucy and not her mate in Olduvai Gorge because she had her husband off performing some springtime chore. Nothing has changed in a few hundred thousand years.

Now, it may not be that the female response to spring is responsible for all the world’s troubles, but I think it goes without question that Peg’s incessant activities both in our cabin and our yard interfere with my desire to fish our pond and watch Gunsmoke reruns. I will leave it to you, Gentle Reader, at least those of you of the testosterone persuasion, what else could it be?

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Filed Under: Females/Pick on Peg, Gavel Gamut, Gender, Males, Personal Fun, Spring

Man’s Almost Best Friend

February 19, 2025 by Peg Leave a Comment

You may already know that Peg and I live in an isolated cabin where our human neighbors are not close, but often other species are. We enjoy the normal reverie of our own thoughts but occasionally have our space invaded by two and four-footed, uninvited interlopers. We have had to deal with raccoons, opossums, field mice, voles, skunks, ocelots, possibly a rare mountain lion or two, crows, hawks, eagles, assorted squirrels, woodpeckers and songbirds and flocks of quail, among several others, including armadillos and curious coyotes.

During the recent snowstorms and related inclement weather, the armadillos were ascendant with holes appearing almost everywhere. Now, some folks may find all wildlife entertaining and equivalent but Peg and I carry no brief for armadillos who look like armored pigs and lack any furry cuddlesomeness.  We do have a friend who hails from Central America where, I assume, armadillos migrated from. Recently he chided me for depopulating the armadillos who tried to take over our yard. Our friend told me armadillo meat tastes like “the sweetest of pork”; I assured him we would not find a way to make the comparison.

What we have noticed however is that several non-human carnivores also enjoy an occasional repast of armadillos. Chief among those ravenous raptors are the vultures but they are in hot competition for “sweet pork” left-overs with our habitation of coyotes. Our experience has been that coyotes are not so adept at catching armadillos but they are quite efficient at eating the innards and interiors of the housing of the already dead armadillo.

We have also noted that we have a bevy of coyotes that regularly patrol our small ranch for any hapless armadillo that should find itself dispatched by some other non-coyote cause; my 20 gauge for example. The most recent evidence of a symbiotic relationship between our rather almost dog-like coyote population and ourselves occurred during the recent ill weather.

I looked out a cabin window and saw a fat armadillo gamboling in our front yard with its pterodactyl sized front claws. I grabbed my shotgun, checked it was loaded, clicked off the safety, eased out the back door and quietly moved to within lethal range. Voila! One more mess of sweet pork made available.

As it was almost dark, I decided to leave the carcass till the next day. Well, the next day the prize was gone. I rejoiced in the provenance of Mother Nature and gave the matter no more thought until two days later when Peg found a hollowed-out suit of meatless armadillo armor right outside our front door; there was no note. There was a rather neat display that to us was just like the remains of a Thanksgiving Day turkey as left by in-laws along with a bare pumpkin pie plate.

Okay, I get that some would think this a mere happenstance. But those people are not the nature lover I am. I am convinced our quasi-canine coyotes were leaving us a two-fold message:

  1. Thank you; and
  2. Keep ’em coming!

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Filed Under: Gavel Gamut, JPeg Osage Ranch, Personal Fun Tagged With: armadillos, best friend, coyotes, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, Mother Nature, sweet pork

They Deserve A Special Place In ….

December 26, 2024 by Peg Leave a Comment

Gentle Reader, as we face a New Year my thoughts are ever hopeful we have learned something worthwhile from the years that have gone before us. I realize this has been the dream of most of you too. However, we all know there are those whose thoughts and behaviors never turn towards improvement, but in fact, are often the very things that need to be improved.

The best example I know of placing such cretins where they deserve to be is The Divine Comedy (The Inferno) written by Dante degli Alighieri (1265-1321) in the 14th century. Dante did not just suffer the infuriating faux pas and social sins of people such as Dante’s political enemies in Italy, he created an elaborate hell of deserved punishments and placed them in it. To that I say AMEN! Perhaps, we should at a minimum list and expose some of the boorish behaviors that call for condemnation. You, Gentle Reader, will surely wish to recognize many others that quickly come to mind.

I will lead with those lazy louts who defile our roads, streets and sidewalks with their litter. Is it too burdensome to put one’s trash in a designated receptacle? Oh, and that includes cigar and cigarette butts, you buttheads. I humbly suggest such losers should have to dine off unwashed dinner plates previously used to gather stockyard feces.

Then there are the geniuses who ”child-proof” medicine bottles by making them completely unopenable except by a chainsaw. This genre of misled child saviors should acknowledge that if a medicine bottle that contains medicine for children and the elderly cannot be opened, it does not protect but endangers the intended classes. I think a reasonable punishment for such bottle cappers would be to have to open every can or bottle only with their teeth.

Another group of public minded workers in need of training are traffic officers who, even once a traffic accident scene is secure and any injured are removed, fail to direct vehicles so that people lined up for miles in each direction can continue on. Often officers forget that most of the world’s citizens were not involved in the accident but do have other things to do. A proper sanction might be making such unconcerned public servants always be the last in line for Taylor Swift concert tickets then telling them it is sold out when they finally reach the ticket seller.

And what about those makers of products such as expensive clothes who are so concerned that some miscreant might steal one of the thousands of items on the shelves that they stick or staple or otherwise attach labels to each product that can only be removed by damaging the product? Perhaps a label should be affixed to their forehead with a staple as a reminder not everyone is a thief.

Another place that reciprocal treatment might be called for is drive-through establishments, such as coffee shops, where cups of scalding liquid are filled so full there is no way to handle them without the liquid splashing upon one’s lap? Do the baristas get some satisfaction from seeing us drive away in fits and jerks? Workers at such establishments might be sentenced to a lifetime of sitting in a hot tub of tar heated to a toasty 103° Fahrenheit.

Now, I know we have just skimmed the greasy surface of situations that call for divine, or at least heartfelt, retribution for behaviors we wish we could see change for 2025. On the other hand, Dante knew he could not expiate all of Italy’s 14th century uncalled for behaviors. He just did the worst he could. I call for the same deliverance from the jackanapes who show no concern for the rest of us.

You, Gentle Reader, might desire the same including the extinction of newspaper columnists who campaign for never to be achieved outcomes.

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Filed Under: Authors, Gavel Gamut, New Year's, Personal Fun Tagged With: boorish behaviors, child-proof bottles, Dante degli Alighieri, defile our roads, drive-through establishments, expensive clothes, Gentle Reader, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, New Year, newspaper columnists, Taylor Swift, The Divine Comedy, The Inferno, traffic officers

O.S.U. 17; I.U. 24

November 21, 2024 by Peg Leave a Comment

Peg and Jim Redwine at a Hoosiers game

Indiana University will beat Ohio State University in football Saturday – two days after the submission of this article. Yes, I still have faith in the Hoosiers! I base my prediction of the score on I.U.’s will to win and their discipline that will keep the Cream and Crimson’s penalties low and their turnover margin in their favor high. I have been an observer, and often a chagrinned one, of I.U. football since the autumn of 1963. Believe me I have known disappointment over the last 60 years. But this team of 2024 is not one of loss; it is one of destiny. Refusal to allow defeat in the grueling fourth quarter, maintenance of their extremely high emotions when O.S.U. loses control of theirs and sound judgment coupled with alert opportunism will be the fundamental football foundation upon which Coach Curt Cignetti and his assistant coaches will guide the team to a close victory. And, it will be the hallowed I.U. legends of yore that will call forth-fourth quarter heroics from this year’s standard bearers.

The Gables Restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana was across the street from the Indiana University Law School, which I attended from June 1968 to August 1970. The water was free and that was what I could afford. Above the counter was a gigantic colored picture of the 1945 undefeated football team (9-0-1). Many times, my classmates and I would sit mesmerized by the penetrating gazes of Ted Kluszewski (yes, that Ted Kluszewski), George Taliafero (the first African-American to lead the Big Ten Conference in rushing), Bob Ravensberg (first team All-American), All-American full-back Pete Pihos and All-American end Bob Ravensberg. In 1948, receiver Mel Groomes became the first African American player to sign with the Detroit Lions. The team was coached by the legendary Bo McMillan. As I and my fellow law students, some with Viet Nam War era service, set drinking water we would sometimes note how these true heroes from the WWII battles seemed to be staring deep into our souls challenging us to carry on their dedication to America and I.U.

In 1967, Coach John Pont led Quarterback and future lawyer Harry Gonso, running back Jade Butcher and running back and punter John Eisenbarger to our only Rose Bowl where we met O.J. Simpson and acquitted ourselves very well in 1968. They were 9-2 that season losing to Minnesota and USC.

These two teams earned legendary status as our current 2024 team is performing. The victory by I.U. over Ohio State University this Saturday (23 November 2024) will become part of Indiana University folklore. Just as I correctly predicted I.U.’s victory (but not the score) over Michigan State, I boldly assert I.U. will beat O.S.U. 24 to 17. You will note, Gentle Reader, as I write this column, I.U. is 10-0 and November 23, 2024 has yet to have occurred.

 When Coach Cignetti reminds the team before the game and again at half-time that our discipline and fierce rage to win will help us avoid penalties and force O.S.U. turnovers, I am comfortable that the ghosts from 1945, 1967 and Coach Lee Corso’s 1979 Holiday Bowl conquest of previously undefeated B.Y.U. will become the magic of Hoosier myth and lead to victory number 11 in the 2024 football season.

It need not be said that win number 12 over Purdue to crown our championship season of 12-0 will forge our way to the crest of the College Football Playoffs. As Hoosier James Whitcomb Riley might have said:

“When the frost is on the football and O.S.U is numb and in the shock,
And you see the humbled wobble of the once proud Buckeye cock,
Then it’s good to be a Hoosier and a champion one turned out,
For the struttin’ once proud Brutus will go into whimperin’ rout.
When I.U. brings him to heel, he’ll tuck his tail twixt his legs,
As Ohioans rend their togs to rags, we’ll leave them suckin’ on their eggs,
Scarlet and gray will fade away and might as well be hocked,
When the frost is on the football and O.S.U. is numb and in the shock!”

As the gun sounds in Columbus, Buckeyes ’l be fodder for our fans,
Ohioans will mumble to themselves as they stumble from the stands,
’Ole U.S. Grant will rise up, draw his sword and rail at young J.D.,
Ne’er on my watch, young man, was such a loss allowed to be.
Not so fast Ulysses, as your boss in the big dust up,
I, the Hoosier rail splitter, say quit complaining, take a sip from this bitter cup,
For ne’er again will Hoosiers have to bear the Buckeyes run amock,
When the frost is on the football and O.S.U. is numb and in the shock!”

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Filed Under: Authors, Football, Gavel Gamut, Indiana University, McFaddens Bluff, New Harmonie, Personal Fun Tagged With: Coach Curt Cignetti, football, Hoosiers, Indiana University, James M. Redwine, James Whitcomb Riley, Jim Redwine, Ohio State University

The Sweet Science Revisited

November 7, 2024 by Peg Leave a Comment

Ray Stallings. Picture taken by Peg Redwine.

For those few of you who might miss reading my weekly column, Gavel Gamut, I will point out to you that this past week I fractured my shoulder while working around JPeg Osage Ranch. I feel I must rely on past columns for a while, such as, those that have dealt with my interest in amateur boxing. The following column appeared the week of September 4, 2006 and involved Peg’s and my friend Ray Stallings from Burnt Prairie, Illinois. I will rerun it as it appeared almost 20 years ago. I hope you enjoy reading, or perhaps rereading it.

 “Amateur boxing has fewer fatalities and far fewer serious injuries per participant than high school baseball or football.  It is a sport like wrestling where the participants are matched according to size and where bouts are won based on the number of legal blows landed on the front, top-half of the participants.  The force of the blows is not a factor.  For example, a punch that knocks a boxer down counts no more than a punch that simply lands in the scoring area.

Boxing is called the sweet science because a student of the game who can apply the lessons of boxing when actually in the ring can defeat a superior athlete who relies on brawn. As the old adage goes, “The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.”  Of course, the related adage is also true: “But that’s the way to bet.”

In other words, the science of boxing is only a factor in the equation.  Such elements as experience and physical abilities are often more determinative than theory. And whereas it is often true that it is not the size of the boxer in the fight but the size of the fight in the boxer that matters, it is also true that heart alone may not be enough.

Such was the case with our young protagonist, Ray Stallings, from Burnt Prairie, Illinois, in his match against Calvin Brock in 1996.  Should you have read this column last week, you may recall that we left Ray all alone in the ring with one of the best amateur heavyweight boxers in America.

In round one, the left-handed Brock came out confident that the gawky, red headed Ray was just there to validate Brock’s status as champion.  From my position in Ray’s corner I thought Brock was almost indolent as he kept Ray off balance with his powerful right jab, then occasionally came back with a straight left to Ray’s head.  This display went on for about the first two minutes of the round until Ray’s nose was bloodied and his back was bleeding from being forced into the ropes.

 But with about a minute to go, Ray, who is also left-handed, came up from his position doubled over in a corner with an awkward looping left hand that caught Brock square on the chin.  Even with the protective headgear, I could see Brock’s eyes roll up for a brief second as his knees slightly buckled.  From that point on, Ray’s character and Brock’s experience were at war.

When Ray returned to our corner after the first round, Peg, who was working the corner for the first time, could not bear to look at Ray’s bloody nose or his back and arms that matched his red hair.  She handed me the spit bucket and water bottle with her eyes locked on the canvas of the ring.  Peg later told me she was wondering what we were going to tell his parents, who were also our good friends, if Ray got seriously hurt.

Ray was gasping for breath and pleading for me to pour water on his head.  It took the first half of the one-minute break just to stop the bleeding.  When Ray could finally talk, he said, “Jim, he is really good.”  I almost said the truth that was on my tongue, “You’re darn right he’s really good!”  Instead I said, “You got his attention with that straight left.  From now on just keep throwing it as much as you can.”

Round two was a coming of age for Ray and an awakening for Brock.  I could see the puzzlement in Brock’s eyes and the hesitancy in his punches.  I could almost hear him thinking, “Who is this kid?”  Ray pounded his straight left for the whole three minutes and the spectators who had gathered to watch Brock’s coronation begin to yell for Ray.

When Ray struggled back to our corner after round two, I sneaked a peak at Brock’s corner and saw his trainer giving him a tongue-lashing.  Peg and I could only pour more water on Ray as I told him to double up on his right jab and keep throwing that overhand left.  Ray could barely breathe and he could not talk.  As the bell for round three rang, it was anybody’s guess as to who would win.

Brock came out firing and Ray was too tired to block the blows.  At first it looked like Brock’s superior skills were just too much for the skinny red head from Burnt Prairie. But about halfway through the final round, Ray figured out how to move to his left, which was away from the left-handed Brock’s power.  Then Ray figured out how to throw his left straight into the taller Brock’s solar plexus.  Brock began to wilt and Ray’s new found fans began to chant: “Red, red, red.”

When the final bell sounded, Ray had nothing left, but that was more than Brock who had to be helped to his corner by his worried trainer who caught my eye and put his thumbs up: “Great fight!”

Well, you remember that amateur boxing is scored by the number of proper blows, not the stuff that dreams are made of, and the judges gave the razor thin decision to Brock.  But the seeds of Ray’s current quest to be an Olympic champion were sown that night in 1996.

Next week if you are available, I’ll bring you up to date on where that odyssey stands. For as you may recall, Ray had that little inconvenience of thyroid cancer to deal with between 1996 and October, 2006. That is when he climbs back into the ring in Oxnard, California, once again against the best amateur heavyweights in America to win the right to compete for the honor of representing his country in the Olympics.

After Ray got sick, but before he knew why he tired so easily after the first round, he kept trying to box but kept losing.  Many of Ray’s friends and some of his family were more afraid he would get hurt than get to the Olympics.  But as Rudyard Kipling wrote in his poem, “If”: “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…you’ll be a man, my son!”  Ray did, and Ray is.”

 

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Filed Under: Friends, Gavel Gamut, Personal Fun, Sports Tagged With: amateur boxing, Burnt Prairie, Calvin Brock, If, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, Ray Stallings, Rudyard Kipling, the sweet science

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