James M. Redwine

JPeg Osage Ranch

When Pigs Die, Hopefully

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The nine-banded armadillos, the species we now have in Oklahoma, began to migrate across the Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas in the mid-1800’s. They then began to waddle on north with the first documented sighting in southern Oklahoma being in 1936. I had never seen an armadillo until the late 1960’s and then only rarely as road kill, sometimes with a Coors beer can propped up in its dead paws.

Armadillos are generally about 2 ½ feet long and weigh about 12 pounds. They look like an elongated pig that is covered with scaly armor. Each adult female can produce one egg that separates into 4 young. Their front feet have 4 claws, their back feet have 5 claws and they reportedly taste like pork. I cannot verify this. I do have a friend who claims they are delectable. He ignores their reputation for carrying leprosy.

As for me and Peg, we consider armadillos to be nasty rodents that dig numerous large holes in our property that we must avoid or bump over as we mow or walk. We currently have neither horses nor cattle but our neighboring ranches on all sides do and complain that armadillo holes are a danger to livestock.

Years ago, I started out trapping then eliminating them. I do not ascribe to the school that traps varmints then releases them onto other peoples’ environments to be their problems. However, I now just skip the trapping stage and sit on our veranda in the evening with a loaded shotgun. Sometimes I actually am successful in my mission but have frequently found to my embarrassment, the prehistoric prey eludes my unfriendly intent. I often end the evening with the disquieting feeling the armadillos are sitting around their dens exchanging amusing anecdotes about how they have drawn me in then artfully dodged my feeble aim.

Perhaps what I should do is follow the advice of B.F. Skinner and change my approach from one of negative disincentives to a psychology based on positive reinforcement. I may just invite my armadillo eating friend to come to the Happy Armadillo Hunting Ground of JPeg Osage Ranch. Bon Appetit!

Dune Buggy Art Nouveau

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Photo by Jim Redwine

Gentle Reader, I ask you, does this photograph look like any place you would ever expect to find a battery? I do not know about you, but after many experiences changing out dead batteries in cars, pickups, lawn equipment, flashlights, etc., I never expected any semi-comatose foreign manufacturer (what other kind do we have now?) to hide the battery to my dune buggy inside the cab under a passenger seat. It probably took several committee meetings of diabolical Russian or Chinese speaking, Cal-Tech educated, overpaid engineers for them to gleefully agree upon such an inane placement.

I realize it has been 60 years since I worked at a Phillips 66 service station on Main Street in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, but I would have thought if a teenager could open a hood and locate a battery said location might have, at least, not now become hidden from common sense. By the way, it was a service station where one could get their tires aired up, their tank filled with 27¢ per gallon gas by an attendant, their oil checked and their battery replaced all for less than the cost of 10 gallons of liquid gold. Alright, it is true you could not get a rotisserie chicken or a garish faux silk screen shirt emblazoned with some supposedly witty saying your mother would get out the soap for.

Now I ask you, are not batteries supposed to be right under the hood or, with the parochial pride of the Europeans in mind, right under the trunk lid? Would any self-respecting automobile mechanic deign to pull up seats in the passenger compartment in search of a battery? I should say, not!

And if one has to search for the Holy Grail of batteries where only a lost coin or a stale cookie would be expected, could the designers of the automotive Enigma Machine have at least put a label on the cleverly camouflaged cover with a small clue as to what it was hiding? Say the word “Battery”, maybe?

Photo by Peg Redwine

I read the “Operator’s Guide” cover to cover after lifting the hood and finding nary a battery. The “Guide” is 196 pages from stem to stern and I make my living reading lots of words, including as Edgar Allen Poe might say, many a volume of forgotten lore. I am used to reading dross trying to pass for depth. However, the drivel of this manual does not pass as information much less enlightenment. The photograph contains the “Guide’s” entire instruction on battery replacement (Pages 124 and 125). I defy you to detect how the process is to proceed.

But once the battery is located and the cover is removed, the fun has just begun. I bet those Cal-Tech foreign born geniuses are still chortling over their anticipation as to how a normal sized human would surrender in frustration trying to put a screw and a nut into the space of a gnat’s nest.

Well, I am nothing if not stubborn so I refused to file a lawsuit until every knuckle I had was skinned and Peg was suggesting I just give the dune buggy to somebody we do not like. I could not think of anybody I was that mad at. Anyway, after only 3 days I got the red attached to the positive pole then the black to the negative. Of course, I had to reconstruct how the cover must be replaced. And even though I had tested the buggy’s starting before putting the gaggle of parts back together, when I got it all rearranged and was filled with self-satisfaction in my refusal to let the foreigners win, it refused to start.

It’s all good now as I have decided to follow the example of several grangerized folk artists I have noticed who have made their old vehicles into yard ornaments. When you drive by JPeg Osage Ranch, Gentle Reader, you may find a dune buggy surrounded with cacti and sandstone sporting a R.I.P. sign.

Photo by Peg Redwine

 

The Good, The Bad, The Average

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Is it an end or a beginning? A New Year of hope or a past year of regret? A harbinger of exciting new adventures or a specter of hovering doom? I guess one way of discerning whether we are going to gaily anticipate, as the tune says, “Oh, the good times are coming,” or gloomily dwell on, “I took the blows and did it my way,”  is to make an accounting of 2022. After all, if past is prologue, perhaps we can peer into the future by studying the past. But, as the sorceress Cassandra who was blessed by the gods with the gift of prophecy but also cursed because no one would believe her forecasts of coming disasters, we might see the freight train coming but ignore it anyway. Nuclear war anyone? Ah, well, let’s count some blessings and justify some bad choices from 2022.

I would say my number one blessing during 2022 is that I am not related to Harry and Meghan. When one has family like that, other bad relationships fade into royal oblivion. It’s not that my family is perfect; my older brother and my three older sisters still assume I cannot tie my shoes without their help. But let’s move on.

Photo by Diane Selch

The 2022 college football season was pretty much a bust. The Indiana University Hoosiers, of course, never disappoint because we never expect anything. However, the Oklahoma Sooners had better be rebuilding or else the whole apparatus is falling apart. And the Oklahoma State Cowboys looked more average than average can bear. Come on, Pokes, do something! Peg, not I, cares about the Purdue Boilermakers who got clobbered in their mediocre bowl game. As an IU alum I didn’t mind, but Peg’s two brothers are Purdue grads so she was upset. If 2023 is a rebuilding year, I just hope the crumbling Roman Coliseum is not the model our teams are emulating.

Speaking of disasters and rebuilding, we had two, that’s right two, water leaks in our cabin at JPeg Osage Ranch in 2022. One came from a clamp that slipped off of a water heater hose and the most recent, December 23, 2022 (Merry Christmas), was caused by a connection to the ice maker on the refrigerator. Did you, Gentle Reader, ever worry about your refrigerator attacking your home? Me neither. I’ve worked construction and made countless home repairs to everything from fountains to garden hoses and never once had to deal with a refrigerator water leak. Happy 2022 all’ya’all.

Now did anything good occur in 2022? You bet. Peg successfully rehabilitated after her hip replacement surgeries and I managed to learn about three chords on the guitar, although Peg will not countenance me trying to sing along as I strum. She claims my key changes are bad. What’s a key?

Well, I have revisited about all the chagrin I can stand and the 2022 bright spots are fading fast, so on to 2023. My predictions are mainly connected to Peg’s and my work in the Republic of Georgia that sits right on the Black Sea directly across from Ukraine and has Russia on it’s northern border. What could go wrong?

Putin, the Grinch who is trying to steal Ukraine and who already occupies 20% of Georgia, looms large in my reading of bird entrails. The only bright spot I see is our son Jim’s observations about Russian military equipment he fought against in the Iraq War, the Gulf War and briefly in Afghanistan. Jim says it was junk then and it’s junk now. Of course, even nuclear junk might ruin our whole day in 2023.

But I boldly foresee a world where Putin comes to his senses and Zelensky re-thinks his thirst for revenge. Both leaders will most likely end up accepting less than half a loaf of what they want. At least that’s my hopeful, if naive, bet.

Regardless, “When the dealing’s done and there’s time enough for counting” in 2023, I predict “Sunshine and lollipops”. Why not dwell on the positive? After all, Harry and Meghan will surely shut up sometime. But, until then as both King Lear and King Charles found out, “More sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child,” especially ones who are mistreated by allowing them to live in palaces and spend their time with sycophants such as Oprah.

I Knew Santa Claus Was Real

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One of the advantages of working in the former Soviet Union country of Georgia is that Peg and I spend our time where a great deal of history was made. It is not that the United States does not have an interesting story to tell. But the good ’ole US of A cannot legitimately lay claim to be the birthplace of wine as Georgia does or the birthplace of the Holy Roman Empire as does Georgia’s neighbor, Turkey. And one exciting aspect of being in a part of the world where so much of our history was made is that new discoveries of old history are being uncovered everyday. For example, it was recently reported that archeologists unearthed an ancient mosaic beneath the floor of a church in Demre, Turkey that was the original burial place of Saint Nicholas.

I do not know about you, Gentle Reader, but with Christmas less than two months away I was stoked to have scientific evidence that Santa Claus might really be coming down the chimney at JPeg Osage Ranch in Oklahoma. I just have to find a way to re-route him to our apartment in Batumi, Georgia. And since we do not have a chimney here I guess we will have to leave the patio door unlocked. We will not get home until March so I hope Rudolph has his G.P.S. system updated as to the 9 hour time change and the 6,500 mile distance between Oklahoma and Georgia. Peg and I plan to leave the patio light on all Christmas Eve.

Saint Nicholas lived from 270-343 AD and was a contemporary in what would become the country of Turkey with Constantine who lived from 272-337 AD. Constantine made Christianity an acceptable religion and established the Holy Roman Empire once he became Emperor in 306-337 AD. Constantine named Constantinople, now Istanbul, for himself. He also convened the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD that produced the Nicene Creed that set forth some of the principles of early Christian faith, including much of the humanitarian beliefs attributed by history to Saint Nicholas.

St. Nicholas was born in Papara, Turkey and died in Myra, Turkey. He was alleged to have inherited wealth that he spent his life giving away to those in need. He was especially known for his generosity in giving gifts to children.

As for me, I never doubted such a person existed, but as the youngest of four children my Christmases were accosted by my older and more cynical siblings. Well, I hope they read this account that rings out with the joy of a great and generous spirit and I expect them to accept the scientific proof that I was right all along.

Happy Birthday, Peg!

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Happy Birthday, Peg! Photo by Jim Redwine

We are almost one full month into spring, the season of renewal for some wives and ennui for their husbands. There is something about damp earth that calls out to such wives as Peg much as the Sirens called out to the crew of Ulysses. Though it would not be politically correct, the Devil is pushing me to try to lash Peg to the steering wheel of her Mini Cooper so she cannot frequent every garden center within twenty-five miles of our cabin.

Peg must have beaucoup amounts of potting soil, countless plants and varieties of seeds, containers of metal, clay and plastic and every conceivable fertilizer and pesticide that is touted by Peg’s countless Facebook friends as the newest miracle agents to produce award winning vegetables and flowers. Of course, beds must be prepared and organized by color, variety, time of planting and varmint prevention. Do you need to ask, Gentle Reader, whom Peg has in mind for these tasks?

I am not a Nancy Reagan type of astrology buff but I do wonder if Peg’s birthday that falls during the first half of April may have influenced her pathological need to commune with the earth. I offer the following horoscope (taken from the internet) as evidence to support my position: under the sign of Aries the first half of April, “Is an amazing time to chase your most precious goals.” I should also include the astrological caution that April will be, “a month of ups and downs”; that will certainly be true for me as I follow Peg’s orders.

I am aware that one must not fall into the Cassandra dilemma of ignoring the claimed wisdom of the stars. You may recall that Cassandra had been both blessed and cursed by the gods. She had the gift of prophecy but no one would believe her so disaster still occurred, including the fall of Troy in Homer’s The Illiad. Therefore, I will keep in mind the prediction in Peg’s horoscope that April will be a great time for her to reach her spring goals of recreating the Gardens of Babylon on the rocky, arid soil of JPeg Osage Ranch. However, I see nothing in any bird entrails or other devices of divination that calls for me to be involved.

The problem is, just as Cassandra, I may be correct but Peg refuses to recognize it. Her position is that my lot is cast as her garden Sherpa and I had better get off the couch. The only saving grace that I see is that both football and basketball seasons are over, the World Series is months from now and the Cardinals probably won’t be involved anyway. And, by the time you read this article, the 2022 Masters Golf Tournament will be history. Perhaps the better part of valor is for me to just accept my fate and conceal my amusement when the deer eat the tops off of everything Peg has planted but the marigolds.

Happy Birthday, Peg!

Bowled Over

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Much as the Summer Solstice ushers in the ennui of torturously less daylight each day, as each of the forty-four college football bowl games is completed the dark pall of life without football forces us to put down our beer, get off the couch and go back to work. I accept that COVID is a significant issue but so is mental health. And one of America’s best palliatives for depression in the gray days of winter is watching other people risk their well-being on the football field.

The first college football game was played on November 06, 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton in New Jersey; one hundred people attended the game that Rutgers won 06-04. The first college bowl game was the Tournament of Roses’ East-West game (The Rose Bowl) played on January 01, 1902 between the University of Michigan Wolverines and the Stanford University Cardinal; there were eight thousand-five hundred spectators. Michigan won 49-0 and Stanford quit with eight minutes left to play. That first bowl game was initiated to increase interest in Pasadena, California as a tourist destination and to market the surrounding area and its products. All bowl games since that first one have had similar goals. The outcome of the games is not of paramount concern to most.

The attendance at such highly hyped events as the Tailgreeter Cure Bowl between Coastal Carolina University and Northern Illinois University on December 17, 2021 is indicative of the lack of fanaticism at most bowl games; 9,784, about the same number of fans who showed up for that first Rose Bowl. The bodies in the stadiums at bowl games are not the targets, eyeballs on TV advertising and promotion of each venue are.

As for the schools and players involved, they may have analogous goals. The colleges want to showcase their products and make some money and some players have hopes of enhancing their football futures either as players, coaches or announcers. In other words, the first bowl game was for exhibition purposes and, except for the payout by major sponsors to each school, that is still the overriding rational.

With that in mind I have a few suggestions on how we can incorporate the goals of all involved, or watching, with the ever-expanding number of college bowl games. As I mentioned earlier, we already have 44 bowls. It would require an addition of only 8 more to be able to have one bowl game every week of the year. Surely such eager potential sponsors as Bitcoin or China would pony-up for a chance to showcase their greatness. Maybe a bidding war could be encouraged between Jeff Bezos and Mark Cuban or Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Israel and Iran could promise to dismantle their nuclear ambitions and sell their peaceful intentions via commercials. Surely Facebook and TikToc would want to play.

One might wonder how one extra, exhibition-type game could be woven into a school’s regular football schedule. From the quality of play of most bowl games and with countless players opting to sit out, it is apparent that just showing up for one more Saturday should not be a problem. When my friends and I played Friday night football it was not unusual for some of us to show up the following Saturday morning for an impromptu, unorganized sandlot game just because. A lot of bowl games have a similar feel.

This system would expand college football perpetually and solve the ego problem for such “sponsors” as Jimmy Kimmel who endowed the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl. America could probably easily come up with underwriters such as Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Heck, I humbly suggest the Jim Redwine Armadillo Bowl might draw a nod or two and Peg and I will kick in fifty bucks apiece if that would suffice. We could host it in a pasture at JPeg Osage Ranch if the resident varmints do not too strongly object and if fans do not mind sitting on the ground. TV rights could be negotiated.