Following up on Rails Run post I thought I would apply some more thoughts to think outside the square. This is for Rails and anybody else who might appreciate it.

It is put in to lighten the thread a bit, but may also be thought provoking. It has helped me in the past while researching non racing issues. Maybe it might have a place here too.


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THE CALF PATH


One day, through the primeval wood
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
but made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then two hundred years have fled,
And I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail.
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up the next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued then trail o'er vale and sleep
And drew the flock behind him too,
as good bell-wethers always do.

And from that day o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men would in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
because 'twas such a crooked path.

But still yhey followed - do not laugh,
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent and turned and turned again,
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And travelled some three miles in one,
And thus a century and a half
Thet trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street,
And this before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.

And soon the central street was this
Of a renownwd metropolis,
And men two centries and a half
'trod in the footsteps of that calf.

each day a hundred thousan rout,
Followed this zig zag calf about,
And o'er crooked journey went
The traffic of the continent.

A hundred thousand men were led,
By one calf three centuries dead,
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day,
For such reverence is lent,
To well estabisshed precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach,
Where I ordained and called to preach,
For men are proned to go it blind,
Along the calf paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in and back and forth,
And still their devious path that others do,
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.

And how wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf,
Ah, many things this tale might teach,
But I am not ordained to preach.

Sam Walker Ross, 1895


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Maybe the above helps LG understand my thinking as well.

Star