Echoes from the Loafers Club Meeting

How old do you think I am?

I’m not good at this, but I’d guess 67.

You’re right!

Well, you certainly don’t look it.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his driveway, thoughts occur to me, such as: What is comfort food? I know. Years ago, when I was a teen, I came across a stalled car. I knew the driver. He was a good guy. I offered him a ride home. He accepted my offer, but only on the condition that he’d buy me supper. I gladly accepted. We stopped at a local supper club. He’d been drinking and had a couple of snorts before the food arrived. Then he did something I didn’t expect him to do. He fell asleep in his mashed potatoes and gravy. The mashed potatoes and gravy provided warmth and comfort. He likely wouldn’t have found that in a lettuce salad.

Aisle be seeing you in all the old, familiar places

“Have you seen an exasperated woman who looks like she might be married to someone like me?” I asked a woman in a big store.

The woman smiled and nodded towards many female shoppers before saying, “Pick one.”

I’d lost contact with my bride as she walked through a long cold medications aisle. We’ve all been in that kind of an aisle. It’s typically filled with coughers, wheezers, sniffers and sneezers. The air dripped with germs. I’d bailed on her because I wasn’t sure I could hold my breath from one end of the aisle to the other.

A man I met there was looking for some kind of smoking cessation gum. He tapped a forefinger on his cellphone case. It appeared his nerves had turned the world into a percussion instrument. He told me that he’d quit smoking after puffing two to three packs of cigarettes each day for years. He said the price of his heater of choice was around $9 a pack.

I mentioned how much money giving up smoking was saving him. He admitted to saving a lot of money, but he was unable to find any of it.

Nature notes

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “Not all those who wander are lost.”

Tolkien must have done a Christmas Bird Count (CBC), where things (leaves, clumps and clods) look more like birds than birds do.

During a 2017 CBC, the idiot light indicating low tire pressure refused to disappear from my car’s dashboard although the tires had been checked and not found wanting air. It was 18 degrees below zero. I went walking around outside counting birds because my personal idiot light was on. I do several CBCs each year. Rituals are important, so I count birds with an idiotic verve. I hoped a rickety day turned into a bird-studded one. The cold, snow and binoculars presented a cartoonish scene similar to the video Sparky Stensaas of Wrenshall, Minnesota, made wherein he used a frozen banana to pound a nail into a board at 25 below.

I hadn’t walked long before a friend questioned my sanity, “Are you nuts?” He’s a caring guy who was gobsmacked. He wondered how I could count birds, as they weren’t numbered or wearing nametags. I counted without a whimper. Stoicism is a classic attribute of my people. I was properly attired, so I didn’t shiver like a Chihuahua displaying a keen awareness of the tenuous world situation.

Not all birds want to be counted. They are happy to remain shrouded in a veil of anonymity. I was taken with a lovely red-winged blackbird I encountered. I thought of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by the poet Wallace Stevens. “It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing and it was going to snow. The blackbird sat in the cedar-limbs.“ I’m not sure what that means, but I like it. I consider each bird a feathered jewel. Steve Houdek of Onalaska, Wisconsin, told me, “There’s always a gold nugget in every birding day; one just needs to find it.”

Watching birds and counting birds go together. We like things that can be measured. When I read a book, it has page numbers. I count birds because I’m still trying to figure things out.

A couple of friends, Terry Taylor and Peter Mattson of Austin, saw a pot-bellied pig ranging free during the CBC. I saw several black squirrels (melanistic gray squirrels) and that made me happy.

Do I have any advice for those doing a Christmas Bird Count at -18? I do. Keep your hat on.

Meeting adjourned

Be kind. Santa is still watching.