Museum Review: The National WWI Museum

I knew about the place because another grad student had been part of the team working on the creation of the museum and assembling information and planning the museum. However, I’d never been there. So, things happened to work out that this past week I was able to go visit the Liberty Memorial and National WWI Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. As with most things in that part of KC-MO, getting there was not easy due to twisty roads and construction in progress. Between three maps and two navigators, the parking area was found.

Under the entry to the museum proper, WWI Museum. All photos by author.

You walk down under the main 1920s Liberty Memorial and Hall of Honor to enter the museum. There you find the atrium, some special exhibits, the ticket counter, restrooms, café, and a coat check/customer service counter. The restrooms are wonderful, I should add. Go before you enter the main museum, because there are no facilities inside the display area.

The guidebooks recommend allowing two or two and a half hours. I’d budget three or four, but I’m a military history nerd without small children or bored adults in tow.

The museum assumes that you are an American, and that you don’t have much military history background or knowledge about the world in 1914. As a result, I found myself biting my tongue several times during the introductory film, and later on as I read display information. It’s not incorrect, just . . . either traditional (“Germany started it!!”) or a little too bare-bones. Which means it is probably a bit of an overload for the casual visitor if he or she reads everything. I learned stuff, and it’s a great museum, but I’m not the target audience, pun intended.

The museum starts with 1914, and focuses on the Western Front. That makes sense, since it is aimed at Americans, and there were not many (if any) large groups of Yanks on the Eastern, African, or Middle Eastern fronts. The trench dioramas are not as memorable as the one in the Imperial War Museum, but they are good at showing what an ideal trench should have looked like.

Below is how a trench should have been drained, if the men could find rocks, if the water table wasn’t so high that the trenches flooded to men’s knees, if shells didn’t damage the trench, if . . .

Once you get through a series of very good displays about the different weapons and forces in the war, everyday life for the soldiers and war workers, and refugees, and some of the non-Western Front fighting, you are at the half-way point. There are some interactive displays that are currently on stand-by, but they look as if they would be excellent once everything is back up and running. Small side-rooms and displays allow visitors to see film clips and hear interviews, poetry, and letters from the time.

At the half-way point, a second film describes how the US got into the war. The theater is dark and shadowy, and not until the end of the film do you realize what is lurking below the seats. (I skipped the film, and caught photos of the battlefield by the light of the movie.)

I confess, I was running out of time when going through the US side, and didn’t give it the attention it deserved. That’s the problem when you Read All the Things!!! in any given museum (except the Leopold in Vienna. Sorry, that type of Modern Art does not appeal.) Some of the interpretations left me tongue-bitten once more, but I’m a professional historian, and not the target market for the museum. Later, after looking at who works as consultants and curators for the museum, some things became clearer.

Some things had not changed since, oh, the 1500s?

Bone saws, forceps, clamps and straps to cut off blood flow during the cutting . . .

However, some things were quite new indeed.

Those are all probably at least two minute exposures. Something that is not needed today, and probably not recommended, either.

The book store has a good selection specialist books, but very few general overview histories of WWI. Given the size of the shop, I can understand why, but having Keegan’s WWI history or a few other things like that would probably go over well with patrons. The reproductions of war posters, tee-shirts, and other things are quite good and well priced.

I highly recommend the museum. My complaints are those of a specialist, someone who spent several years doing deep research into the conflict and the events leading up to it in Europe, and so I’m going to whine about things normal people don’t notice and wouldn’t worry about. It’s not as visceral as are parts of the Imperial War Museum, which is probably good for younger patrons. Nor is it as in-depth as the Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, but since the US was only in WWI for a year and a half, well, that too fits the situation. It is a good museum, with excellent displays and presentations, and well worth the cost. Military, veterans, and others can get discounts.

Role Models

Besides my parents and a few other adults, I’m not sure who my role models were when I was growing up. Han Solo, perhaps? Then I locked onto military history, and while there was not one single individual I declared, “I want to be like that person,” I found a lot of values and ideas I tried to live up to. Ditto in certain fiction, because I was in a place where I needed inspiration along the lines of, “If she can survive that stuff, then I can get through High School.” If William Slim could reorganize and rebuild an army and then start fighting back, I could survive High School. And so on. Reading about Marie Curie and other women in medicine and science was interesting, and I remember all the big news about Sally Ride, but the fact that they were women wasn’t so important to me.

Later, I also had someone serve as a horrible warning as far as how not to treat coworkers and associates. He was an anti-role-model of sorts.

None of my role models looked like me. None were nerdy, overweight girls growing up in the Midwest or High Plains. Perhaps Lessa of Pern and Talia from Valdemar might have been close. William Slim certainly wasn’t, neither was Admiral Chester Nimitz, nor “Pappy” Boyington. Nor Erwin Rommel, not all the submarine commanders whose books I devoured. But there was something about what they did, and their approach to the world, that made sense and that made me want to behave like them, even though my circumstances were very different from theirs. The fact that they were military men, or fictional characters, didn’t matter to me. It wasn’t important that I have a role model who looked like me. Since my Mom was in a science field, I knew that girls could grow up to do science, or anything else.

I was thinking about this as I read a new military biography of Prinz Eugene von Savoy. His private life was . . . private, much to the frustration of later historians and writers. He didn’t have any flamboyant affairs. His wife was not well known (too well, in the end) in the royal court like John Churchill the Duke of Marlborough’s, in part because Eugene never married. He might have had a mistress, or he might have looked at his mother’s adventures in the court of Louis XIV and have decided that power and military campaigns ranked far higher on his list of interests than did physical intimacy*. No one knows. However, since his enemies accused him of, to use today’s term, being gay, he has been lauded and praised as “the first great gay general since Alexander the Great or Richard the Lionheart.” Except Richard has been dropped because he was an icky crusader. Funny, no one claims that Tilley, the great general for the Habsburgs during the Thirty Years War, was gay even though HE never married.

The argument seems to be that “because this historical figure never married, and was accused of being [whatever], therefore he/she/it is the role model needed today by young people who might be [whatever].” Role models are people who accomplished a great deal, not people who accomplished a great deal and look just like or act just like [characteristic]. At least in my world. If kids are told “Oh, no one like you can be a pilot,” well, the adult is to blame unless there is a solid, physical reason for the denial. For example, anyone who still tells girls, “No, you can’t fly the plane, but you can be a flight attendant if you want!” should be thumped with a wing spar, or landing gear leg.

I grew up in the benighted years of the patriarchy, and Reganonomics, and it didn’t matter that I was a girl. I’ve had people turn me down for a job because I’m too small (valid in one case, not so in another), and in one case because they couldn’t take the legal risk of hiring another women after a Spectacular Horrible Warning soured the chances for a whole lot of people. [No, I was not informed officially, but tell-a-pilot and the flightline grapevine are very effective. I wasn’t surprised, just peeved at the Horrible Warning.] Girls, poor kids, kids who don’t look like their heroes, it doesn’t matter – kids need role models who can inspire and encourage, who show how to do it. That’s what society needs to be teaching and showing.

*The more I read about his childhood, the more convinced I become that Eugene von Savoy preferred power, wealth, and military success to marriage. Once he made a name for himself, his mother trying to match him up with various noble women in order to advance her own position probably just iced the cake.

I’m back . . .

in as many pieces as I left with. I visited the National WWI Museum (strongly recommend), went to a book store, and had a good time visiting family. Blogging resumes tomorrow.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dates to 1620-21, and the harvest festival celebrated by the Plymouth Separatists and their Indian neighbors after both groups managed to survive a rough year. The Separatists were not the rigid, stereotypical “Puritans” that most people associate with New England. Those folks arrived later. The first group were more mellow in their understanding of religion and tolerance, and the group included Strangers as well as “Saints.” Miles Standish, for example, was a Stranger, who worked as hard as anyone and helped nurse and protect anyone who fell in the disease outbreak that winter. Giving thanks for the harvest and the One who provided it was natural, and an English as well as Indian tradition.

“Harvest Home” is not longer something most people in the US, Canada, or elsewhere do unless you are part of a farming community or follow a certain cultural tradition. If you are in a city, you probably don’t farm, so it doesn’t apply. “Harvest Home” was the bringing in of the last sheaves of grain or sacks/baskets of root crops. It led to a community celebration, or at the very least to the land owner treating his workers to a good meal and good beer/ale. The work wasn’t over, not at all, but the time-critical harvest was done and the grain and other things had been brought safely home. “All is safely gathered in/ Ere the winter storms begin.”

Today, Harvest Home means grain is in the bin or at the elevator, the root crops are gathered, and the combine or digger can be put away for a while. No more working from can’t see until “so tired I’m hallucinating” in order to save what can be saved. Farm wives no longer have to shuttle meals out to workers at all hours of the day and night while taking care of the kids and running into town for parts and supplies if needed. There’s time to breathe, to rest, to prepare for cleaning equipment ahead of winter, to take inventory of the harvest and the crop year.

Today, in the US, we give thanks for food and shelter, for health and well-being, and for the opportunity to give thanks. Some of us are with family of blood, or family of choice, or are working so that others can have a little time away. Giving thanks reminds us that we are not the center of the universe (unless you are a cat, in which case I congratulate you on your good taste in blog reading). Other people make the good things in life possible for the rest of us – farmers, power-company employees, physicians and EMTs, soldiers and sailors and airmen, the folks working at the grocery store . . . Whether you believe in a higher power or not, stopping to give thanks is a good way to keep a proper sense of proportion about the world.

I hope you have something to give thanks for, and that today is a good day for you and yours, wherever you are.

In the Air or In the Water?

We’ve been having a lot of fast, intense weather changes here at RedQuarters. Nothing as exciting as Buffalo “See You After the June Thaw” New York, but going from the 70s to the 20s to the 50s to the 20s F for high temperatures. Combine this with the start of the Thanksgiving-Hanukkah-Finals-Christmas rush, and sanity seems to be a passing mood, not a permanent status.

We got some snow on Monday, just enough that everyone blinked and said, “Oh, that’s snow,” and went on with life. On Friday, we had cold and grey skies, and everyone went bonkers. Well, not everyone, just 90% of the people on the road. Or so it seemed. Perhaps it was the reopening of a large swath of a major through-street. Perhaps it was the “Friday before Thanksgiving.” Perhaps it was “pretend we’re all cats with the zoomies.” Whatever it was, the morning commute turned from “intermittently not dull” to “a touch interesting.” And that was nothing compared with the folks who came to work half an hour or so later. Apparently, in that thirty minute interval, there were wrecks, fire truck call-outs (activating stop-lights that normally don’t come into use), people changing lanes for no apparent reason and without bothering to tell anyone, people in the left turn lane turning right (!), and other moments of vehicular excitement.

By the time I left work, it was “I’m going to drive too fast, or too slow, for no apparent reason, or do both at random moments because feel like it.” Then a young person in a yellow sports car with target fixation tried to remove my bumper as I attempted to exit the coffee drive-through.

Athena T. Cat kept talking at everyone, then ignoring me, then tracking me down when I needed to work, then ignoring me when I had a free moment. Cats.

Oh, and I got to see something new at the gym. You now apparently do a big lift, push your hoodie hood back, get off the bench, change weights, return to the bench and carefully arrange the hoodie hood just so, then do another lift. The edge of the hood must be three inches back from the top of your forehead, no more or less. Or so it seemed. I must have missed the memo, because I don’t own a hoodie. Nor do I quite understand wearing a long-sleeve hooded sweatshirt with the hood up in a warm gym while doing intense exercise. But I tend to collapse when I overheat, so I try to avoid wearing warm clothes indoors when I’m going to lift and/or do cardio.

Since I drink the water and wasn’t inspired to act crazy, I guess it was in the air.

Guess Who?

Let’s see: Goth, waistcoat with watch-chain, boots, slightly grey widow’s-peak, and Hunting knife. Hmmmmm . . .

He’s a custom design from TerriDragons, a small shop that sells hand-made pop-culture and custom dragons in different sizes. She also has stationary and jewelry, among other items. This is the second dragon I’ve gotten, and both are very high quality. (The other is Tuomas from Nightwish). https://www.terridragon.com/dragon-store

I have a little tradition of getting myself a dragon of some kind when I finish a series. He seemed appropriate.

Something Sweet

So, I’m writing a series of short stories/ fairy tales, that are quiet, soft, and happy. Here’s part of the first one, “The Little House on Kitten Paws.” The end of the excerpt is not the end of the story.

Es war einmal a young girl named Gretchen. She lived with her mother and father in a snug wooden house at the edge of the village, where the fields and forest blended one into another. A painting of flowers and vines decorated the side of the bright white house. Other houses boasted paintings of animals, or geometric designs, also in bright colors. Like the other village houses, a good vegetable and herb garden grew behind the house, away from the path through the village.

Gretchen’s father owned a team of horses, Hansi and Stein, and a fine wagon that carried wood and grain and other things for people in the village. He’d come from “away,” perhaps as far as two towns distance. Gretchen’s mother had ten generations in the village burying ground. Gretchen took after her mother—plain of face but skilled with her hands, and blessed with moon-colored hair that shimmered white-blonde. She spun wool, making both fine thread and sturdy yard for the weavers. She knitted and embroidered. The family’s garden prospered despite being so close to the cool forest, but not so well that the other village women envied them.

Gretchen went into the forest with her mother and other women to gather berries, nuts, and herbs. Her mother knew more about the plants of the woods than did other women, as had her mother. They picked nettle tops and dock leaves, blackberries and tart gooseberries, purple-hued foxglove for making calming teas, chamomile, and other things. Some of the women knew mushroom lore, and trimmed the large, tan, flat mushrooms that grew like little shelves from some trees. Everyone knew that puff-balls from the pasture carried the goodness of the sun. Gretchen and her mother traded their wild herbs for mushrooms and garden herbs.

One midsummer day, when she was ten years old, Gretchen and her mother went into the forest without the other women and girls. “You are old enough to see the great treasure of the woods,” her mother told her. They left the path to the berry bushes and followed an older, narrow trail into the cool shadows of the deep forest. The underbrush shrank as the trees loomed tall. Birds called, and puddles of sunlight glowed here and there, where the thick leaves permitted it. After a time, they came to a clearing lush with sweet-herbs and grass. The summer sun poured blessings down from above, warming the air. Gretchen heard a cheerful, quiet babble of flowing water. “There,” her mother whispered. “What do you see?”

Gretchen leaned forward, looking at a spot in some tan-gold rocks where light danced on water. “A spring, Mama?”

“Yes.” Her mother led her across the grass and they stepped carefully on two stones in a small creek. “This is a sweet spring. Nothing bad may grow here, and the water is safe, no matter how hard it rains or storms. A saint blessed this spring, and the clearing around it.”

Gretchen stared at the herbs and flowers, and at the clear water. Cresses waved gently in the stream, green and soft, and a little silver fish flashed across the water, then hid once more. “Which saint, Mama?”

“No one knows, it was so long ago, before the village grew. Nothing bad can stay here, Gretchen. Anything that grows is safe,” her mother repeated, pointing to unfamiliar red berries growing among the blades of grass.

“Yes, Mama.”

“Do not speak of this to the others. It is not a secret, but it doesn’t belong to the village.” Her mother gestured to the forest around them. “It belongs to the woods, and the saints. We may come here to visit, but not to stay.”

[SNIP. Things happen, and Gretchen, now 15, leaves home to seek her fortune]

The next morning, before the sun had begun to fade the morning star, Gretchen gathered her warmest things and fled to the forest, trusting her mother’s words. A few birds chirped as she walked with hesitant steps along the narrow path. The darkness hid the big stump and other familiar guides. A heavy “whunf” came from between the trees to her left and she sped her steps as much as she dared in the near-darkness. The trees hid the false dawn and stars. An owl hooted three times, and Gretchen whispered the charm against evil spirits. A few threads of mist—pale wisps like lost spirits—rose between the trees.

Slowly, as the sun drew closer to the unseen edge of the world, Gretchen saw trees and bushes. A faint shimmer of silver coated some of the big leaves. “The dew,” she whispered, and nodded. That was it. The forest smelled as it always had, both full of life and a little cold. Spring’s warmth always came late to the deep woods.

Soon, the trail reached the clearing and the spring. Gretchen set her bundle down at the edge of the sunny verdure, then took a drink from the stream. The water tasted sweet and soothed her stomach. A bit of color in the damp grass caught her eye, and she ate a few of the little white berries. Her hunger eased. “Thank you,” she told the grass and water, then returned to the edge of the clearing. Now what should she do? The warm sun took away the soreness in her shoulders and back. Soft bird chirps and the music of the spring made her sleepy, and she lay down, her head on her bundle. “I’ll just rest a moment.”

Footsteps, soft and steady, woke her. She opened her eyes to find a house sitting in the meadow! Gretchen blinked. No, not sitting, standing. Soft paws like a kitten’s feet grew from each corner of the little building. Cheerful red shutters and golden walls seemed to welcome her. Moss grew here and there on the roof, making fur-like stripes. The house stopped at the spring, then walked back into the grass. It settled down like a cat, front paws curled under as it sat in the sun. Gretchen smiled. It couldn’t hurt her. She stood, stretched, and dared to come a little closer. “Hello?” She said, quietly, one hand out as she would approach a strange cat.

The red-painted door opened, and the little house on kitten feet tipped toward her, making it easier for her to enter. She returned to her bundle, picked it up, and dared to step inside. “Oh!” A cozy sight met her eyes. A good, snug wood stove all clean and white sat beside cupboards of dishes and jars with flour and other things. A small bed tucked into a corner, near two chairs and a table. Spinning things waited under one of the windows, and a snug pantry waited near the cooking area. She looked around, then went back out and asked, “May I stay?”

The house trembled a little, and she heard a soft rumbling sort of sound. It purred! Gretchen petted the wooden wall, then returned to the house and put her things in the proper places. She needed wood, though. Gretchen crossed the clearing and gathered wood from the forest, away from the blessed meadow, and brought it back to the house. She lit a small fire in the stove. The rumble grew louder, and she felt the house sway a little, as if the paws made kneaded the ground like a happy cat. The swaying soothed Gretchen’s fears. She slept well that night in the little bed.

Come the next morning, the house had moved to a different place in the woods. Gretchen went out and gathered fruit and some early nuts, as well as herbs. She found fresh water and filled two buckets. Then she swept the little house. It wiggled, as if the broom tickled it. Then she swept the walls outside. The house purred, content.

(C) 2022 Alma T. C. Boykin All Rights Reserved

Release Dates, Author Updates, and An Apology

First, the apology: I said I’d have the next Familiars two-book set available in print this fall. I put it off and put it off, and I apologize. I will try to do better after the new year. I need to go through and fix errors and typos, then send the files off to my cover and formatting person.

If all goes well, I will release the next Familiar Generations book around December 15th. The title is The Hunter in Shadows.

I finished the rough draft of “Lord Adrescu’s Sword” and will release it in late January – early February.

I hope to have some light fairy-tale fantasy stories done by late February, and then the short stories and novella (perhaps) for the next Familiar Generations book. After that it will be the Scottish-inspired novel, Familiar Generations, and perhaps the nomads vs. city-dwellers novel. “Blue Roses” will probably release as a stand alone short story, since it’s not really light and fluffy.

I will be away from the internet next week, so there will be fewer posts, and I might close the comments, just so that people don’t get held in moderation for a long period of time.

“What Is the Meaning of Life?”

My first two answers were “A Monty Python movie” and “42.” Neither of those where what the speaker had in mind, so I kept my trap firmly shut. I can act like a grown-up, on occasion. If there are a sufficiently large number of witnesses.

Then me being me, I ran through three of the catechism answers that I remembered (none of which apply to the church where I currently sing. Of course.) Personally, I’d argue that meaning is personal, not collective. The speaker went along the chosen topic and my mind wandered off into the weeds, then over the river, through the woods, down the primrose path, past the Slough of Despond, and drifted back toward the official topic when the phrase, “What were his last words,” came along.

And again, my mind wandered, this time to Randall Thompson’s “Last Words of David.” David’s last words were a command and testament, in the sense of testifying about something. “He that ruleth over men must be just; ruling in the fear of G-d” That’s the charge, the command. And if the ruler is just? “He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even as a morning without clouds when the tender grass riseth out of the earth after rain.” The obedient man will be blessed and will prosper. During the middle ages, someone’s last words were very, very important and people gathered to hear them.* Often, final disposition of property happened at that point, and the individual was thought to be closer to the divine, and so might offer a warning or revelation. If the person was dying in public (i.e.executed), then it was anticipated that he or she’d have a speech, sometimes humorous, sometimes dramatic, occasionally a confession “Yes, I was terrible and I deserve this and don’t do what I did.” And of course we have modern jokes about “Here, hold my beer!” or “What could possibly go wro—” and so on.

Death used to be a community matter, too important to happen in solitude, if possible. The meaning of life used to be a community matter as well, although I suspect the majority of people wouldn’t phrase it like that. Having relatives in the church yard meant that you belonged to the place. Going back much farther, having relatives in the chamber tombs and mounds surrounding Stonehenge also meant that you and your people belonged. The ancestors watched as the transition from life to death concluded for the individual, and the community feasted to honor the dead and the living. Life was family continuity, blood-kin or faith-kin, and the meaning of most people’s lives was to ensure that another generation or two had property and a good model to build upon.

What is the meaning of life? What is a good life [insert Conan quote and all it’s myriad variations here]? No idea, but a lot of other people have ideas about it, some I agree with, some I boggle at, some that make me want to take a long shower after I apply automatic weapons fire to the idea.

*No, it was not good for public health when infectious disease was involved. But germ theory hadn’t been invented yet.

Why Follow Someone?

Granted, sometimes it is a case of following someone out of morbid curiosity to see what disaster is about to ensue, so that either plausible deniability may be ensured, or to see just how bad it could possibly be . . .

[Speaking of which, NO POLITICS! Please.]

I was thinking more about “What motivates the Hunters to follow a certain leader?” When you have a generally merit-based society, what causes some people to start turning to a particular individual and treating that person as a leader? I do not think of myself as a leader, but other people do. I freely admit, I’m not entirely certain why, save for the “morbid curiosity and entertainment value” aspect of things. But why do the Hunters follow Skender and Arthur? Why do they follow Danut Adrescu? What motivates people to follow, when other options are available?

In Danut Adrescu’s case, blood ties play a role. He’s the clan leader, descended from clan leaders (or their sisters, depending on who was born first and who outlived whom) going back a long way. He and his half-brother have been trained to be leaders, and the others in the larger group have a set of expectations about what the clan chief is supposed to do, how he’s supposed to behave, and how he will reward virtue and punish vice. Adrescu’s going to have to do a bit of the latter, assuming he survives whatever the Ottomans seem to be hatching, assuming that Codrin’s vision is truly precognitive. Radut has also earned the respect of the other men and women, in his case partly because he refuses to allow a crippling injury keep him from doing what needs to be done. His skill as both a horse trainer and horse rider also play a role. Kinship as a tie of military service was found in feudal Japan as well as other places. When in doubt, follow your kindred, circle around the center of the larger family’s property, and protect those related to you – that’s one of the oldest loyalties in the books, literally.

There’s not as much opportunity for loot with the Hunters as in traditional armies. You could argue that the Fruits of the Hunt are loot, and it’s true that the Hunters in Adrescu’s time were not averse to confiscating the goods of people who were proven to be getting into mischief, be it mundane or esoteric. Should Adrescu have to face the Ottoman Turks, his soldiers and Hunters will grab what they can if they win. It’s tradition, and a good reward. In our world, even into the early modern era, there were people who fought with, oh, Prince Eugene of Savoy, because he had a record of winning and rewarding his men very well. Or of letting them reward themselves from the enemy. When the monarchs and princes couldn’t pay their hired soldiers, the men found loot on their own – see Rome, 1527, and Charles V’s problem with losing control of his troops. In Eugene’s case, it also tied into charisma. He took care of his troopers, even when he considered them swine. He tended to win more often than he lost, he ended up with loot at some point during most campaigns, and he tended to be impartial when it came to discipline.

Skender and Arthur proved themselves to the Riverton clan as Hunters first and foremost. Then Skender began quietly taking on more and more duties, especially the lesser duties of the senior Hunter. The then-leader was old, in poor health, and couldn’t do those things. Skender showed that he had the needed skills, sense of duty, and training to lead, should the opportunity arise. Arthur supported his brother, and may have on occasion dealt with other Hunters who might have posed threats to Skender. Perhaps. Maybe. No one ever admitted to doing such, and Skender could more than take care of himself. So when the old clan leader died, the Elders and Hunters agreed that Skender was a reasonable choice. It wasn’t without challenges and fights, as series readers have probably surmised. And every so often a Hunter would push things, leading to injuries.

Now? Skender and Arthur have both proven themselves, and no one is suicidal enough to take them on as a pair. Arthur served as head of the Hunters, overseeing training and ensuring order more-or-less. The other Elders and retired Hunters knew about Arthur’s injuries and how hard he pushed himself, and admired him. The younger Hunters respected him profoundly, feared him, and occasionally challenged him. Once or twice, a younger Hunter went to Arthur for counsel, and he provided it without demeaning the younger man or telling others. When it appeared that he’d been mortally wounded on the Hunt, it hit the “puppies” hard. Skender was the senior Hunter, true, but Arthur was their leader. At the same time, when Skender took full responsibility for his brother’s injuries, Skender gained more respect as well (although it didn’t stop some of the youngsters and Elders from growling about it, well away from the rest of the clan.)

Why follow? There are a lot of reasons. Experience, family ties and tradition, the hope of reward, the desire to be present when the dreadfully creative disaster unfolds (because great stories sometimes start with, “Ya’ll won’t believe what Bubba did this time.”) Me? I like a leader who gives me a long leash and who states clearly what needs to be done, what is being done, and why (when possible), and who supports subordinates when the chips are down.