a weblog sharing info on outdoor skills and campfire musing by a guy who spends a bunch of time in pursuit of both
CULTURE
WHERE -
TALES ARE TOLD OF
Welcome to Roland Cheek's Weblog
Roland is a gifted writer with a knack for clarifying reality. Looking forward to more of his wisdom
- Carl Hanner e-mail
An ambitious farmer tried a highly recommended new seed corn. His crop was so abundant his astonished neighbors asked him to sell them a portion of the new seed. But the farmer, afraid he would lose a competitive advantage, refused.
The second year the new seed did not produce as good a crop, and when the third-year crop was still worse it dawned upon the farmer that his prize corn was being pollinated by the inferior grade of corn from his neighbor's fields.
To access Roland's weblog and column archives
Tip o' the Day
PSSST!
There's a week before Christmas and all through the house
Late ones are weeping; they feel like a louse
No shopping they've done, no gifts do they have
No lines they stood in, no frowns did they salve
Plenty time so they said, it's all good and fine
But days slipped away and their lives are on line
No friend is in sight, no savior aloft
To save wretched necks, 'til Roland did cough
One friend is awake and poised at the line
To dash forth with gifts and save you in time
Those gifts are great books, cut western in fare
'Bout cowboys and elk, and grizzled old bears.
Cheek wrote 'em all, research and design,
The best in the land; no reason to whine
Punch the button at right, or one down below
Then scroll through his work to find one that'll glow
Then order it fast, we'll ship to your friend
And Roland will sign and Jane will end
With a nice note to say you sent it to him
Because he's been good, and always your friend
The reason we'll do such a wonderful thing
Is because you are you, and readers are King
Brave heart, good mind who knows how to read
The best of the bunch, all books to take heed
So do it right now, while still there is time
To send out good cheer and make you to shine!
Novels from Roland's Validiction For Revenge Western Adventure series
GROWING THE GIFT OF GIVING
Christmas stands alone as the world's premier day, observed in so many ways by so many people as to seem almost unimaginable. Children bubble with anticipation while parents brim with love. Churches burst with worshippers. Carolers sing, strangers smile, bells tinkle, gifts are exchanged. Halls are decked, trees decorated, mistletoe hung. There are popcorn balls and roasted nuts and fruitcakes. Only the most heartless scrooge can resist such a season of Peace On Earth, Good Will Toward Men.
Our goodwill often extends beyond man or woman, child or parent, friend or neighbor to include our four-footed buddies: a bone for Fido, catnip for the household mouser, an extra shot of grain for the ponies come Christmas Day.
Not only are we so charged with a wish to extend Christmas cheer to domestic animals about us, but we sometimes anthropomorphise human feelings to extend to wildlife. How?
Copious numbers of folks will travel to city parks to feed ducks and geese on Christmas Day. Many rural home owners place salt blocks, turkey and rabbit mix, or deer licks as gifts for wildlife.
I know crusty ranchers who do year-'round battle with deer and antelope and elk who raid haystacks in winter and compete with the ranch's livestock for limited forage during summer. But come Christmas and that same crusty old rancher might pitchfork out extra flakes of hay for hungry elk. And the same rancher wife who curses cottontails in her carrots will take a broom to a hound dog who had enough temerity to chase that cottontail, expecially during Christmas week.
I haven't the foggiest idea whether an ancestor to the bull elk hanging around my neighbor's paneled haystack watched a star rise in the east some two thousand years ago, or even if the mule at the place down the road had a great-great-ad infinitum-granddaddy who stood to attention in a Bethleem stable. But I do know that same bull elk and same slack-jawed mule are both beneficiaries of the fact a baby was born in that stable on that long-ago day. And I believe all mankind is richer and kinder and gentler because of it.
Kind, you say? In the wake of all these wars and terrors and terrorists, you dare say man (who is not kind) is gentler because of an eastern star, a village stable, and a pregnant woman who couldn't find a bed in the inn?
Well, yeah. Maybe. Think how bad it could be had not that baby brought the message of peace and good will to others. And that perhaps a quarter of the world's people are exposed to that message, embrace it, believe in it.
But are the band of elk or antelope or deer richer and kinder and gentler because of the baby?
Who cares? You give gifts at Christmas for the giving, not for the receiving. If receiving gifts were the point of Christmas, we'd all soon give up gifts to our children out of boredom, because who needs another gold-and-black-striped tie from them in return? Or another pair of designer socks
The rancher forks off flakes of hay to the elk or antelope or deer because it makes him feel good to do, just as it makes one feel good to sprinkle a pail of molasses-flavored oats for the ponies, or spread acorns for the squirrels or sunflower seeds for the birds.
Besides that bull elk may be the one giving class to your meadow in June simply by deigning to graze there at break of day. He's another of the ones bringing Christmas to your household throughout the year. Doves cooing from the powerline in front of the house, or the cock pheasant crowing from a fence post to attract a mate, or the gobble of a wild turkey have their own springtime Christmas carol made special just for you. Odds are good, if you listen real hard, crickets will sing theirs in midsummer, as will the "plopping" of trout feeding on a bug hatch in the nearby lake. Christmas carols, you see, can come in many forms -- but you must listen!
Coyotes have a special just-have-to-sing melody that shares their exuberance in being alive and well and, yes, sharing. Crows and ravens, robins and sparrows sing in their own way. The whirr of a humingbird trying to make sense of your pink hair ribbon lifts one's heart. And who hasn't thrilled to sounds of migrating honkers on their way down from the Arctic.
Can we consider the splash of color made by the flitting bluebird? Doesn't it have it's own resonance? Or a cardinal. Theirs is a special visual music all their own.
I've not heard it myself, but I'd like to hear whale-speak, Imagine a mid-ocean Christmas carol from such leviathons!
I have heard a certain cackling pride coming from a chickenhouse where a hen just laid an egg -- sheer music, that. So is her rooster crowing at dawn; a wake up Christmas carol if ever I heard one.
There's no end to the music for those who watch and listen. You can be flooded with Christmas all year long if you watch and listen, and above all, give. The gift of giving, you see, has a way of growing on you.
Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:
www.rolandcheek.com
Recent Weblogs
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
There's a bunch of specific info about Roland's books, columns, radio programs and archives. By clicking on the button to the left, one can see Roland's synopsis of each book, read reviews, and even access the first chapter of each of his titles. With Roland's books, there's no reason to buy a "pig in a poke."
for detailed info about each of Roland's books
Read Reviews
Read their first chapters
For interested educators, this weblog is especially applicable for use in environmental and government classes, as well as for journalism students.
Roland, of course, visits schools. For more information on his program alternatives, go to:
NEXT WEEK:
ANALYZING ROLAND
www.campfireculture.com
source links for additional info
to send this weblog to a friend
to tell Roland what you think of his Campfire Culture weblog
to visit Roland's newspaper columns and weblog archives
No, Roland Cheek hasn't been in a gunfight at the O.K. Corral or punched dogies down the streets of Abilene. But he has straddled rawboned ponies over 35 thousand miles of the toughest trails in all the Northern Rockies and spent five decadeswandering the wild country throughout the West. now, after crafting six prior non-fiction books, hundreds of magazine articles, and thousands of newspaper columns and radio programs about his adventures, the guy at last turned his talents to Western novels, tales from the heart, dripping with realism, and based in part on a plethora of his own experiences. To learn more,
One of Roland's non-fiction titles, Dance On the Wild Side, graphically portrays the agonies and ecstasies of the adventurous life he and wife Jane led on their way to love and fulfillment
The cover says it all
- Ralph L. Woods parable
