Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

Taste this.

Sure. Hey, it’s not half bad.

Really?

Yeah, it’s all bad.

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: A fellow from Oklahoma called me. He complained of the chugholes there. We call them potholes or chuckholes here, but with all the rain this year, I call them lakes. I suppose that if pigs flew, we wouldn’t complain about the rain.

Nearly toppled by a teal

I visited a dying friend. He told me that weather was everything. He was a quiet man for the most part. I kidded him that his stories all began with, “The end.”

He claimed to have left me his weather in his will. All I’ve ever wanted from the weather is that it suits my clothes.

He must have had a lot of rain in his weather. Numerous rains had produced prodigious numbers of mosquitoes.

I was doing a marsh survey at the Great Marsh located at Myre-Big Island State Park. The mosquitoes were sucking me dry. The early morning had turned just light enough to see where I was stepping. I walked along, whimpering at my predicament, when something hit me. It wasn’t an idea. I was hit by a flying blue-winged teal. It made my tongue slap my brain. Not the entire duck collided with my head, just a bit of the wing. If the whole duck had conked me on the bean, it might have left me unconscious to be preyed upon by bloodthirsty mosquitoes. Instead, I got a facial from a few feathers.

YDIY. You-Do-It-Yourself

I stood there, smelling the new tires. I was waiting to have my oil changed. Not my oil, my car’s oil.

It wasn’t long ago that I changed the oil on my car. Times have changed. I’m still capable. I do a lot of DIY projects. Most of them are flossing my teeth. I outsource other things, farming them out to the professional community.

My grandfather dug his own well. I had a new well dug. The farther in the hole the well drillers went, the deeper in the hole I went.

A local electrician stopped by to fix some things. I’ve known him forever and some. I remember when he ran off to join the circuits. He did the repairs as I wondered how many light bulbs it takes to change a person.

A new water tower went up in my hometown. I thought it should have been a giant coffee cup. That would be the sleep disorder-sized cup of coffee.

Old Man McGinty

Old Man McGinty, the youngest Old Man McGinty ever, was all slicked up like 10 pounds of new eels. He is a perfect example of YOOO! You’re Only Old Once. He had helped his sister celebrate her wedding anniversary. She remembered how her husband had proposed to her back when the earth was cooling. He said, “How would you like to be buried in my family plot one day?”

Old Man McGinty doesn’t think that his brother-in-law has gotten any better with time, but he believes that the appreciation of life improves with age. The older Old Man McGinty gets, the more he values life.

Just in the news

Jim Ed Bull, a letter carrier in rural Oklahoma, has a 187.6-mile mail route, the longest in the United States.

An outfit called WalletHub delved into the relative emotional health, physical well-being, work environment and community activities of people across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and declared Utah to be the happiest state followed in order by Minnesota, North Dakota, Hawaii, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and California.

Markin Consulting estimated the economic impact of the State Fair at $250 million during its 12-day run. By comparison, the Minnesota Vikings had annual revenue of about $280 million. The average fairgoer spends $75. Martha’s Cookies employed 500 people and 4 million mini doughnuts were sold at the Fair.

Nature notes

“When do fawns lose their spots?” Most fawns are born by the end of the first half of June. They begin nursing immediately and are weaned by September. They are able to digest forage by that time. Most fawns lose their spots during the first couple of weeks of September. The adults transition from reddish-brown summer coats to thicker and darker fall coats in late August and early September.

Meeting adjourned

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero