(Internet Published) Mar 2001
The World is full of unhappy who do not know what they want but will never
be happy until they get it. Very, very few men are ever allowed the time to
become dedicated to a hobby. It is to my disgust that so many men want to
make a commercial enterprise out of what should be a simple hobby or just
flying for pleasure.
Extremism is not a hobby. When a hobby becomes a commercial enterprise or
one man trying to better another for gain, I begin to despair. Why do men
want to beat each other and make each other look like fools? The spirit of
competition is very human but also very primitive and highly illogical.
A man should be able to appreciate his own pigeons in flight and to go and
see his friend's pigeons in flight. After all this is how the interest in
pigeons started. When my own pigeons fail to well, I criticise them. I don't
need anyone else to do this for me! When they do very well, the odds are
that I am the only one there to see them. When the time comes when a man has
to please another man, then surely that is a poor situation.
I mostly enjoy the flying and behaviour of my own birds, or I put up with
them when they don't do as well as I expect. Sometimes after an exercise I
say "You marvellous little birds" - Other times I am not happy with them and
call them all a useless lot of plugs. Well, this is pigeon flying isn't it?
We have to take what comes!
At the end of each day a man asks have I done my best? A man who has not
done his best at his job for his family, friends, or for his birds is not
what I would call a regular guy, and I have no time for such as these.