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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

The power was out in town for a few hours last night.

Where were you when the lights went out?

In the dark.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. My wife enjoyed a sweet roll that a yellowjacket coveted and kept landing on the baked item. The roll was delicious. My wife ate around the wasp.

A friend asked how much rain I’d received at our place. We’d been blessed with 2 inches of precipitation. He told me I lived in the right spot as he’d gotten only an inch. Ours was a dry rain. I’ll bet his was a wetter rain.

Go ahead, bake my day

I like pie. My mother used to make a birthday cherry pie for me each year. In the movie “Michael” from 1996, John Travolta played the Archangel Michael and Andie MacDowell sang: “Pie, pie, me oh my, Nothing tastes better, wet, salty and dry/…/Pie, me oh my, I love pie.”

For years raisin pie (funeral pie) has been served at wakes, as a reminder that sweetness endures. Before refrigeration was prevalent and fresh fruits weren’t readily available, dried raisins were.

My wife and I worked at the soup and pie supper at church each year. People lined up early, not because they enjoyed standing in line, but because they wanted to put a claim on the sour cream and raisin pie. The ingredients include eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, raisins and sour cream (dairy cream that has soured).

In “Little House in the Big Woods,” Ma Ingalls made vinegar pies. It sounds like a desperation pie, but it’s delicious. Again, fruit was hard to find and expensive, so cooks swapped the acidic juice from things like lemons for vinegar. The vinegar gave the pie a tartness that helped cut the sweetness of the filling. Water pie is a pie made with six ingredients: water, flour, sugar, vanilla extract, butter and a pie crust. I’ve not tried it, but I’ll bet it’s scrumptious.

I’ve learned

Men shouldn’t worry about getting older. They’ll still be able to do stupid things.

No one claims that we have the best politicians in the world.

Behind every great man is the drawer his wife needs to get to.

A late friend, Bill Bryson, used a cane after recovering from surgery. He had a hitch in his get-a-long and his slow motion brought the ire of a rooster. The feathered alarm clock had been looking for an opportunity to move up the pecking order. It attacked Bill three times, the last time Bill took a tumble while attempting to fend off the furious chicken. It didn’t end well for the rooster, who became the headliner at a Sunday dinner. Bill said the meat was tough, but he’d never enjoyed chicken so much. The moral of the story is to be careful who you pick a fight with.

Ask Al

“Why do some fish live in saltwater?” Because pepper makes them sneeze.

“What bee is good for us?” It may bee vitamin bee.

“What is the chief industry in Minnesota during the winter?” Chipping ice.

Nature notes

I saw a single chimney swift at the end of September. It seems odd when I see only one. It’s like eating a single potato chip. “I can’t see just one,” I tell myself. But for the past several Breeding Bird Surveys, I’ve counted one swift.

The surgeon told me to think of a pleasant place before I went under the knife. I stared at a chimney in my thoughts. I’m no chimney sweep and haven’t even played one on TV, but I travel around each year, hoping for a good crop of chimney swifts. When the swifts zoom into a chimney to roost, it’s a curtain coming down on a magnificent play. Swifts may look like flying cigars, but they are memories on the wing. I remember those moments when I need them because I learned little in medical school as I was never in medical school.

Earwigs like moisture, but they’re capable of drowning. During a rainy season, earwigs may attempt to enter your home to get away from the rising water. Because they like moisture, they might enter a home when things get too dry outside. In a drought, it’s not uncommon to find earwigs in basements.

Jerry Viktora of Ellendale told me his uncle said the first 3 days of a season forecast the rest  of the season.

Meeting adjourned

“There are no small acts of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.”—Mary Anne Radmacher.