Baseball and Herding Competition: San Diego Scottish Highland Games and Gathering Of the Clans 2011

Herding competition is like baseball. For long periods of time nothing happens and unless you understand the rules and back-story of the game, when something does happen you won’t enjoy its importance. As a result, baseball and herding competition announcers are experts in the sport whose job it is to teach and entertain the crowd during the long periods of time where there may be nothing visible happening and explaining the rules and back-story. The more entertaining they are while teaching the better we like them.

Mr. Joe Williams, Our Announcer for the Highland Games herding competition spoke over a microphone to those of us seated around the field and explained how the event was supposed to work—the scoring, the obstacles involved, and what the dogs and handlers were expected to do. He told stories of what actually happens because working with animals is unpredictable. The back-story in herding competition is as necessary to the sport of herding as understanding the audacity of baseball’s suicide squeeze or what it means to hit into a 6-4-3 double play is necessary to enjoying baseball. Mr. Joe Williams announced the herding competition at the Scottish Highland Games humorously and well.

The event begins when a handler and his dog herd four sheep from the top of a hill down the grass toward the handler and dog waiting in a prescribed area near the obstacles and in front of the crowd. The competitive dog’s handler whistles, the dog runs uphill toward the sheep, and the clock begins. The handler whistles and the dog drives the sheep through the iron cross—a set of fences forming a cross with alleys inside for the sheep to move through—back through the gates at the far side, and ultimately into the “exhaust pen,” the enclosure into which the sheep are driven after each run. Required obstacles vary depending upon whether the dog is a novice or a mature herd dog. The events are timed and there is no over-time allowed.

Unlike most professional sports profanity or profane gestures are not allowed. Transgress and you will be removed from the competition. For a dog, biting the sheep is cause for expulsion.

Mr. Joe Williams told the crowd how to react if the sheep were driven into the crowd. “Grab your child, hold it, and sit still because the sheep are very good at avoiding you.” There was only one time where the sheep were running toward the crowd and parents began to grab their children. The sheep ran left at the last moment.

Handlers know each other and walking through the handler area is like walking through a family reunion with the “Hey, Bob” and “How’sNangetting on, Sally?” and “Did Nina make it to the competition?” comments.

As it is true for all sports, herding has a unique language. There is the exhaust pen, fetch gates—a pair of gates or hurdles, the peg—where sheep are gathered before the trial, drive gates—another pair of gates, and the post—where the handler stands until the sheep reach the shedding ring—a circle close to the post. The handler may shout “Come-bye!” telling the dog to circle the sheep Clockwise, or “Away!” for the dog to circle the sheep the other direction (counterclockwise, or “Anti” clockwise). Most of the time (at this competition) the handler whistled and the dog moved according to the whistle. The more experience the handler-dog team gets, the more fun they have and the more money and fame they win at competitions. A $55 entry fee gives you a chance at a $1,000 first prize. This seemed like serious money to me until I heard the story that the sport begins as a hobby with the purchase of a border collie and then the ranch and sheep are purchased to give the dog something to do.

This proud and noble sport has evolved for hundreds of years, aided by the fact that herding is part of earning a living for the sheep farmers (and cattlemen) of the world. Johannes Caius, physician to Queen Elizabeth I wrote a Treatise on Englishe Dogges in 1576 that discusses “The Shepherd’s Dogge” and how he “bringeth the wandering weathers and straying sheepe” where his master wishes, and sometimes where we can look on and enjoy.

Don’t miss the competition at the Games next year. Enter the main gate, turn right, and listen for the next Mr. Joe Williams over the loudspeaker.

Washington: A Legacy Of Leadership – Book Review

Paul Vickery, Washington: A Legacy of Leadership, Stephen Mansfield, series editor (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 272 pages, $15.59.

Washington: A Legacy of Leadership by Paul Vickery is written at a level that lends itself to be easily read in a day. It is a dispassionate account of the public life of the father ofAmerica, a man who led the revolutionary Army through hell to victory, and a man who led the country for two terms as its first president. It gives evidence thatWashington earned and deserved every accolade given to him; he was an honorable, high-minded, and selfless man. With over 17,000 books about George Washington on amazon.com alone, this book is a good place to obtain a broad overview of the life of the nation’s first president.

The author, Dr. Paul Vickery received his PhD in history from the Universityof Oklahoma, and works as an “edu-tainer” on cruise ships, teaching and acting history to enthusiastic crowds. The editor, Stephen Mansfield, has shepherded several books in The Generals series, including Washington, Sherman, Lee, MacArthur, Patton, and Pershing. He is also a best-selling author and speaker, whose works include The Faith of George W. Bush, The Faith of the American Soldier, and Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill.

“The purpose of this volume is to examine the events that led to the transformation of George Washington from a twenty-one-year-old appointed major in theVirginiamilitia to the commander in chief of the American forces (xv).” The author does so primarily by examining the battlesWashington’s armies fought. The chapter titles reflect this focus, and as the author steps us through history, illustratingWashington’s strengths, weaknesses, good decisions and poor. He was not a perfect man, but he was a man who loved his country and was dedicated to the cause of her liberty, despite the cost.

Mansfieldclaims in the preface that a realistic, balanced work on the father of our country “will endear our nation’s generals to us and help us learn the lessons they have to teach…. for they offer lessons of manhood in an age of androgyny, of courage in an age of terror, of prescience in an age of myopia, and of self-mastery in an age of sloth (x).” He hopes that we will emerge “a more learned, perhaps more gallant, and, certainly, more grateful people (x).”

I cannot say if I am more gallant for having read the book, but I confess I am more aware of Washington’s sacrifice and am, as a result, more grateful for it.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from Thomas Nelson publishers in exchange for writing an honest review.

5 Cities That Ruled The World – Book Review

I just read “5 Cities that Ruled the World” by Douglas Wilson. It is the first book of the author’s that I have reviewed, and the first book of this type that I have reviewed. It was easily read, and might be a good companion to a more rigid book of history.

The five cities discussed are Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York. The author offers a narrative and selective history of each city’s legacy to the modern world. From the text (notwithstanding the author’s comments) my understanding is that the legacies are as follows: Jerusalem – a legacy of the heart; Athens – the legacy of reason; Rome – the legacy of the Republic and the Papacy; London – the legacy of literature; New York – the legacy of wealth.

The book ends with an epilogue that is best to be avoided. It appears to belong to an entirely different book, and it rambles around various ideas that the author might have been well served to include in the text for each city.

My only argument with the author’s occasional bold statements is that he insists the United States is an empire. It is not, it has never been, and it has no designs of ever becoming an empire.  Economic and cultural influence is not the same as empire.