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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

I took an Uber from the airport. The driver told me he always went the extra mile.

How did that go?

He dropped me off a mile past my destination.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Deep thoughts occur as I drive past his drive. I savored the morning surrounded by yellow wildflowers like goldenrods, sunflowers, cup plant and sow thistle, signaling the end of summer and the start of school.

I looked at the back of a laundry detergent box that had a photo of my missing sock on it. I’d gotten up in the morning wondering if I’d sustained an injury while sleeping or if I always felt that way. My wife was heading off to a ladies’ weekend. She ran through a litany of the things they’d be doing. I listened intently as a veteran husband should. She told me she was sorry, but no men were allowed. I remembered the things they were going to do, and I think that with time and counseling, I’ll be able to recover from that great disappointment. My wife and I bought a TV two Christmases ago after going years without one. We had led a remote-control-free life. So far, we’ve watched nothing but some college basketball games involving a grandchild. Why haven’t we watched more than that? It’s because I didn’t enroll in the TV Remote Control School, so I wasn’t going to watch TV in her absence.

I floated on a pontoon on a local lake, where I narrated the mysteries and marvels of the natural and human history of the area. Before we launched, I told a friend I’d rent him my lawn mower at a sensible rate to mow my lawn as long as he bought the gas. He didn’t jump at the chance. I mentioned I’d watched a loved one play tennis. I’ve known the fellow who refused to mow my lawn under those reasonable terms for a long time, so he asked me what I knew about tennis. That hurt. I do know how to spell it.

After three years of drought, Minnesota recorded the wettest April-June period in state history. In July 2020, Iowa entered a drought. It was the state’s longest since 1954-1959. It ended in 2024 after a wet spring.

I’ve learned

Happy 95th birthday to Ona Meyer. She was born the year the Great Depression began, but it wasn’t her fault.

Anyone who thinks onions are the only vegetables that can make you cry has never been hit in the nose by a large zucchini.

The highlight of many rural townships is at the top of a wind turbine.

When life gives you lemmings, jump.

Sometimes, “nothing makes sense” makes sense.

I’ll never be the man that one-size-fits-all clothing thinks I am.

I’ll never receive a free set of steak knives when I board a Delta flight.

Bad jokes department

Why can’t humans hear dog whistles? It’s because dogs can’t whistle.

What sports team is made up of criminals? The Pittsburgh Stealers.

Why are Apple stores so dark? They have no Windows.

I wanted to be a Gregorian monk, but I didn’t get the chants.

Hamburger Helper works only if the hamburger admits it needs help.

Using a turn signal isn’t like giving information to the enemy.

Jokes about tofu are tasteless.

Nature notes

Young robins swamped the birdbath. The enthusiastic and pugnacious birds were splishing and splashing. Chickadees and cedar waxwings kept me entertained. Waxwings are named for the waxy red tips on their secondary wing feathers. According to Doug Tallamy, professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, a pair of chickadees needs 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise a brood. Insects are best for feeding fledglings because chickadees can’t afford pizza or cheeseburgers.

A sultry afternoon didn’t stop the red-eyed vireo from singing, “Here I am. In a tree. Look at me. Vireo.” The ornithologist Bradford Torrey said, “The red-eye’s eloquence was never very persuasive to my ear. Its short sentences, its tiresome upward inflections, its everlasting repetitiousness, and its sharp, querulous tone long since became to me an old story; and I have always thought that whoever dubbed this vireo the ‘preacher’ could have had no very exalted opinion of the clergy”.

Most of our woodpeckers have black and white plumages, but the northern flicker is brownish with a white rump patch conspicuous in flight.

Grasshoppers rub their legs together—stridulation. Crickets and katydids use their wings to make music.

Meeting adjourned

If you want to call another a name, try “friend.” Be kind.