Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I’ve just joined the most exclusive club in the county.

How exclusive is it?

I’m the only member.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his driveway, thoughts occur to me, such as:  I needed to walk to stave off planned obsolescence. The weather wasn’t on its best behavior, so I opted to take a brisk hike in a quiet mall. I listen to an iPod while walking. I enjoy podcasts. There are even podcasts about podcasts. I use wireless earbuds. It’s a feeble attempt at being cool. I ran into a friend. Not literally. We small talked. He ribbed me in the way of guys by saying, “You look odd with those things in your ears.”

The joke was on him. I look odd with anything in my ears.

Snakes on a plain

I canoed the Missouri River, camping where Lewis and Clark had during their epic adventure. I read Stephen Ambrose‘s book about their trip as I traveled. One morning, there were two baby rattlesnakes near my sleeping bag. They were seeking warmth. I like snakes, but I like rattlesnakes best at a safe distance. I gave my bag a good shaking. No harm was done. Another paddler told me that he’d once pitched his tent on top of a baby rattler. When he discovered that, the man became rattled.

Why not, I had a pen

My first book signing was many years ago at a big Barnes & Noble store in the Twin Cities. I sat at a table with three famous authors. They were renowned. I was a newspaper columnist. They had written many books each. I had written none, but I’d colored some. I signed books at Barnes & Noble that day. They weren’t mine, of course. People asked me to sign the books they had purchased in the store. I hesitated, but yielded to their encouragement and wrote, “Thanks for buying this book” and signed my name. It might not have turned them into rare books, but they certainly became peculiar books. One of the book buyers suggested I write who I was under my signature. I wrote, “Not the author.”

Ask Al

“Why hasn’t a Minnesotan ever been elected president?” Would you want a Vikings fan to have access to nuclear weapons? Think of Green Bay.

“Do you know how to play a banjo?” I don’t know, I’ve never tried.

“Do you have any tips for planting potatoes?” Make sure all the eyes are facing Idaho.

Al Batt’s Brain cramps

Sooner or later, a man learns that not everything that looks like a towel is a towel. The sooner he learns that, the better.

The only timeshare I’ve ever had was when I borrowed my father’s Timex wristwatch.

If you want the best doctor, ask a member of The Rolling Stones for a referral.

Most kitchens have crumby toasters.

Nature notes

Summer just wants to have sun. Summer comes from the Old English sumor, from the Proto-Germanic sumur, Old Saxon sumar, Old Norse sumar, Old High German sumar, Old Frisian sumur, Middle Dutch somer, Dutch zomer or German sommer.

It was nearly bird-melting hot as I walked on wet ground. Sedges have edges and clamorous sedge wrens. Insects hadn’t thoroughly bested me, but the deer flies were unrelenting as they tormented me. They go for the head and neck when biting people, inflicting painful bites using knife-like mouthparts to slice the skin and feed on blood. Fortunately, deer flies aren’t a disease vector here, but some people suffer allergic reactions to the bites. In addition to humans, these biting flies also attack cattle, deer and horses. Deer flies are most common in June and July.

I visited a park just to listen to the ethereal, flutelike songs of a wood thrush. Thoreau wrote this of the wood thrush, “This is the only bird whose note affects me like music, affects the flow and tenor of my thought, my fancy and imagination. It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It is a medicative draught to my soul. It is an elixir to my eyes and a fountain of youth to all my senses. It changes all hours to an eternal morning. I long for wildness, a nature which I cannot put my foot through, woods where the wood thrush forever sings, where the hours are early morning ones, and there is dew on the grass, and the day is forever unproved, where I might have a fertile unknown for a soil about me.”

Meeting adjourned

  “The noblest art is that of making others happy.” ―

— P.T. Barnum