What no nature picture again? This is not the post I planned but my homepage has a box which displays Useless Information. Today it said: “While living in Vermont in the 1890s, Rudyard Kipling invented the game of snow golf. He painted his golf balls red so that they could be located in the snow.” I was amused. I have spoken before of my Father’s collection of poems I used to read while I was supposed to be ironing. The poem If is one of my favorites. Kipling was born in Bombay India in 1865, wrote many wonderful children’s stories (Jungle Book) and much more. He passed in England in 1936. I wish I could have met him. I recited this poem during assembly in elementary school. Still good advice, except I changed the end in my head to you’ll be a Woman.
IF by Rudyard Kipling
IF you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
mountainmae 
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