Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting 

You went shopping and you didn’t buy anything?

I looked, but my wallet remained clamped shut.

I thought you were going to buy one of those gigantic big-screen TV sets that cover an entire wall?

I was, but then I figured it would be a lot cheaper if I just sat closer to the TV I have.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I missed my exit and needed to go to Hokey Pokey Road to turn myself around. I do all my own stunts. Traveling is like most things in life. You never end up exactly where you were aiming. I’ve traveled just enough to think I could use an old Kansas road map to find my way across Missouri. One town was so small that its Walmart didn’t have a Subway restaurant in it. I stopped at a convenience store to put a little air in a tire. It wasn’t a gas station. It had no air pump. The only air was for breathing. That’s why it wasn’t a gas station.

I was in California and on my way to the Sacramento airport. I stopped at an In-N-Out Burger, which offers a basic menu limited to burgers, fries and beverages. The menu sign had a lot of red color. The color red is supposed to make people hungry. It works.

In the produce section

Chipmunks and/or voles had been taking bites out of my precious yellow pear tomatoes. The amount chewed from each tomato was small, as if they’d forgotten they didn’t like tomatoes until they’d taken a bite. I suspect this happens because the rodents had small stomachs that filled quickly.

Do you say “aunt” or “ant”?

I was listening to Diana Krall. She’s one of a good number of singers I believe inspires my thought process. There are times when I become discombobulated and feel as if I need a new brain. Listening helps. For some reason, I thought about my aunts. I have no living aunts. I’m auntless. I thought I had an ample supply of the good ladies. I even had three aunt Helens, but they’re all gone. Somebody’s aunt told me that she and her husband had been eating food each day for a combined 181 years.

Keeping Austin weird

Work took me to Austin, Texas. ”Keep Austin Weird” is the slogan adopted by the Austin Independent Business Alliance to promote small businesses in Austin. You’d think being the state capital would cover that.

Austin has nine months of summer and three months of fall. It’s advertised as The Live Music Capital of the World. It might be. All I know is that I heard a Jerry Jeff Walker tune playing everywhere.

I went to the Salt Lick in Driftwood. It’s where they barbecue everything including the napkins and the menu. Good food was piled high. I wondered if I’d ever need to eat again.

I visited the South Congress Bridge that crosses Lady Bird Lake. It’s quite a sight seeing the 1.5 million bats emerge from the narrow crevices in the underside of the bridge. They start to come forth about 20 minutes before sundown. Every insect I encountered was nervous.

I liked Austin, Texas very much, but it’s no Austin, Minnesota.

Nature notes

Birds usually face the same direction when sitting on utility wires for two reasons. When birds flock, they generally fly in the same direction. It makes sense that they face the same way before taking off. The other reason is that birds are built to face into the wind.

Eagles have strong nest site fidelity, meaning they return to the same nest and territory each year, particularly if they successfully produce young. A pair might choose to build a new nest in a different area if their previous nest failed to fledge eaglets or proved otherwise unsuitable.

  Benjamin Franklin didn’t exactly advocate for the turkey as the national bird. According to The Franklin Institute, he was against the bald eagle becoming the national bird, stating in a letter to his daughter that it was a “bird of bad moral character” whereas the turkey was a “much more respectable bird… a bird of courage.”

According to folklore, the wider the middle brown section of a woolly bear caterpillar, the milder the coming winter will be. The number of brown hairs has to do with the age of the caterpillar. It’s evidence of either a previous late winter or an early spring.

Meeting adjourned

Be kind and listen to the stories of others.