If

The third vowel, and the sixth letter in the alphabet. Put them together and you have a word, IF.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the word is a conjunction, putting two ideas together to create a single thought, but one that is dependent on a certain action.

A boss of mine once told me “You can’t get anything done IF you don’t get out of bed.” A very correct statement.

In the movie “Field of Dreams” the phrase ‘IF you build it, they will come’ kept being whispered by the ghost of shoeless Joe Jackson until Kevin Costner’s character leveled all his corn and built a baseball diamond. Shoeless Joe and his team did show up, but it was probably not such a good idea when it came time to pay the bills.

The word IF can also precede controversy. IF you take away an apex predator from an ecosystem, then the ecosystem will be out of balance. IF you put it back into the ecosystem, things will come to normal. But IF you don’t think he will eat the easiest prey (cows), then you shouldn’t be on the committee. I believe the return of the wolf is good and important, but only IF we keep him in check.

IF you read the newspaper, I commend you. It is good to keep up on the things going on around you, including this column. An acquaintance of mine once told me “You should trust everyone, but IF you do then brand all your cows.”

I’m now in my second month of reporting the Valley’s sports and news. I enjoy my new position and IF I do a good job, maybe they will keep me around. I quite like getting to know the athletes and also their parents here in the Valley.

The thought that comes to my mind is IF the Encampment men’s basketball team stays on their roll, they will make it to state. IF they do, it would be a great building block for my reporting to follow them through regionals and into the state bracket.

Way back in 1895, a poet and inspirational writer named Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about Dr. Leander Starr Jameson and an attempted British raid on the Boers in Southern Africa. The failed raid was said to be the catalyst for the three years of the Boer War in South Africa.

IF you try to invade a people and fail, it might start a war.

A line of that poem, written over one hundred years ago, was chosen to adorn the player’s entrance into center court at Wimbledon: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same ...”

Kipling also wrote a stretch of words from “The Jungle Books” that seems to apply to all sports teams, and also to life itself.

“Now this is the law of the Jungle-- as old and as true as the sky;

And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, and the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk the Law runneth forward and back--

For the strength of the pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the pack”.

I would like to wish good luck to all the sports teams in our Valley. I would also like to leave you with those inspirational words written so long ago. I refer to them whenever things get tough, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading, and remember to spay or neuter your pets.