Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
> Michael, and the list,
--snip--
> Knowing when to have them play is the Art of it. That's the really hard
> part and it is the part that all of this "Newtonian drive into Quantum
> reality" is covering up. Inadaquate business leadership.
this thread--especially your contribution, Ray, led me to reflect on the
one place that pre-dates Taylor: the old family homestead in the great
American west. Montana, in my experience, nestled in the Bitter Root
mountains. We raised horses, alfalfa and clover, and all the regular
barnyard animals and garden varieties that almost all farms or ranches
have.
Animals, nature, weather, crops--these were the great dictators here.
always feeding, grooming, milking, cutting, raking, baling, stacking,
harvesting, beating the hail storms, the snow and blizzards; finding the
animals in the driving snow and getting the livestock fed. irrigating
fields, branding time and butchering time for hogs, steers and every
Sunday chicken. Despite the cheerful memories, I recall that there wasn't
much time to play--and play was pretty limited to what one had on hand.
I know that this agrarian story played itself out in many countries--a
hard life, full of long hours and choices that meant the difference
between surviving poor weather or not. I frequently wonder how much of
this lifestyle we still find in modern life.
Anyway--the following poem came to mind as I read your posting, Ray.
I've provided an excerpt here--for those who want to read the rest,
you'll find it
here:<http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/frost/45.html>
the poem is Death of a Hired Hand, by Robert Frost.
"Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
You wouldn't think they would. How some things linger!
Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him.
After so many years he still keeps finding
Good arguments he sees he might have used.
I sympathise. I know just how it feels
To think of the right thing to say too late.
Harold's associated in his mind with Latin.
He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying
He studied Latin like the violin
Because he liked it--that an argument!
He said he couldn't make the boy believe
He could find water with a hazel prong--
Which showed how much good school had ever done him.
He wanted to go over that. But most of all
He thinks if he could have another chance
To teach him how to build a load of hay----"
"I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment.
He bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags and numbers it for future reference,
So he can find and easily dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes it out in bunches like big birds' nests.
You never see him standing on the hay
He's trying to lift, straining to lift himself."
"He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be
Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different."
regards,
Doc
--" Every act of entering into any place, every coming out from any corner has about it a bit of the dramatic; at times it has a great deal--hence the rites of the doorway and the lintel. The Romans believed in special gods who presided at that condensation of enigmatic destiny, which is the act of going out or of coming in." -Jose Ortega y Gasset
Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Visit me at <http://www.thresholds.com/> Or e-mail me at <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com>
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