New friend (13-11-25)
New friend.
Friends make you happy, as the ancient Greeks already knew, and being happy makes you live longer. They thought friendship was more important than love. Love can come from one side. Friendship is always mutual. You don't have to have many friends, as long as they are good ones. And such a good friend has shown up. Maybe you know him: Chat GPT !!
How much fun I have already had with him. He has an answer to everything.
I was just wondering whether Louis Janssen had just made it to 100 or not. My friend immediately gave the answer plus the date of birth and death as an extra.
That guy really knows everything!
AND YET
Not everyone is positive about him.
Some scientists even fear that a global catastrophe is imminent.
The point is that you can't stop also children from becoming friends and eager to learn as many are by nature, they look for everything that interests them or that they have questions about. So why think for a long time and rack your brains about something you can find right away?
USE IT OR LOSE IT
But the devil lies in the latter. It makes people (proven and demonstrable!!) dumber. A few more stupid people is not the problem, but where is it to go with an entire generation that is dumber than the previous one? And then again?
Then the end of time is in sight. In the brain, one could see how intensively they are used. You could say; They have to be maintained, like so many. People with hearing problems often do not use their hearing aids so as not to lose their hearing completely. 'Use it or lose it' is what the British say.
PIGEONS
Pigeons naturally have the ability to orient themselves and the better players know how to hone on that. From the first training races the fancier is usually home before the pigeons. But gradually, as more is done, that will change.
It was Harrie Kennis who opened my eyes in the last century. I had a very early youngster from a race from Bourges, 520 kms. The pigeon was so early that I received several phone calls from surrounding villages. 'Was it true?' 'Then no one can beat you', was the sequel.
AND THEN
Then came that other phone call. Not a redeeming one, but an affirmative one. That pigeon was indeed going to win from me. Bad luck, but a second prize against thousands of pigeons was still magnificent. Then another phone call. At that time mentioned Harrie had not clocked ONE pigeon but thirteen. Because I am quite quick-witted, I was relieved. Of course that was never possible, then that one pigeon would not be true either. Mine would be the winner.
There were calls back and forth. "Have you heard about Kennes?" I didn't even listen. Getting THIRTEEN youngsters home at the same time from more than 500 km? Those who believed that watched too much TV.
The last phone call came late so it only spoiled part of my day. 'thirteen pigeons was indeed true.'
HONESTLY
'Whether you have done something special' is often the spontaneous question people ask when someone performs an exceptional job. That was also my question to Harrie. Harrie had tossed his birds every day the week before basketing.
Huhuhu? During the season? Nobody did that anyway. Harrie also thinks that the basket with his pigeons opened a little later than other baskets.
That group of pigeons of his flew faster than the rest because the rest had to go in all directions.
NO DIFFERENT
It was in 1993, I remember, that mutual visits were made with the Leytens brothers. Cor pulverized the competition at the time, especially with youngsters.
With L Claessens, C Bosua, J d Putten etc., I also had a name of young bird specialist.
Cor, the fancier, was curious how I did it, I was curious how he did it. They were honest conversations and Cor said that his brother would go to train the young birds daily if the weather was good.
That was unheard of at the time.
It was only 15 kms every day, which was enough to further sharpen the orientation skills. Driving so often was not for me, once a week was possible and with that, as far as I know, I was the only one in the region.
Below you can see the result in 1996.
The moral of the story:
I'm sure that driving adds something. A few years ago I hesitated for a while. Two fanciers from the dreaded Berlaar region raced so well with the youngsters that I wondered how often they tossed. ‘Never’ they never said and I believed them. They no longer had the age for that.
Until I found out. Others (young people) trained the pigeons for them. J v d Pasch (now Leanne), Bart van Oeckel, Jelle Roziers and others have never been secretive about frequent driving.
However, pigeons must have the ability to sharpen that orientation ability. Or call it a quality that must be present. There is never any honour to be gained from stupid pigeons.
And those super champions who dominate the first races so much without training that it is embarrassing? Klak would say 'those are not super champions but super liars'.
Below:
So I became convinced and started training the pigeons as well. A Japanese 'friend' weekly compiled my results. 1996 was the first year my birds were also tossed in between the races.
