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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

There’s something wrong with this oatmeal.

It’s not oatmeal. It’s chicken noodle soup.

Oh, then it’s pretty good.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Everything was nearly copacetic. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I visited a friend in Harmony. I’d planned on bringing him some multicolored Asian lady beetles, but I forgot. Luckily, he already had some.

A stranger waved me to his table and asked me to sit down. He’d been in the audience the night before when I’d told some stories from the stage. He was celebrating because his doctor had told him everything was in the correct place. He’d been eating his dinner by cellphone light: a hamburger with nothing on it—no mustard or ketchup. I suspected it was because he’d sent his condiments to the chef. He had no fries or salad. Maybe he wasn’t one to take sides. He’d been a triangle player in the high school band. He’d been responsible for every little ting. Now he played a guitar. I was in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Apparently, a lot of Minnesota snowbirds winter there because the man, a lifelong Alabamian, told me that when he retired, he was going to move to Minnesota and drive slowly.

I don’t know what street I was driving on, but I could see Wrigley Field from my borrowed Prius. In Chicago, I did a river tour and loved the history presented. The SS Eastland was a passenger ship that rolled over onto its side while tied to a dock in the Chicago River in 1915. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed. I looked at The Bean, a sculpture with a reflective surface that encapsulates the Millennium Park experience. It wasn’t as beautiful as a nearby tree, which was a stunner. I watched a 16-inch softball game played without gloves and ate a deep-dish pizza at Lou Malnati’s. The pizza was different (not a hotdish, but with hotdish tendencies) and delicious.

I’ve learned

The inventor of the time machine died next week.

Most people go their entire life.

“Happy birthday” is best sung in the key of off.

Everything costs too much until you become accustomed to it.

Halloween originated with Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival. Participants wore disguises and offered food to ward off ghosts. This practice evolved into dressing in costumes and performing a trick to receive a treat. The Wunderlee Candy Company created candy corn in the 1880s, and it proved popular among farmers who loved the corn kernel-shaped candy. Candy corn is divisive—folks love it or despise it.

Anybody who enjoys a delicious leg of salmon appreciates genetically modified foods.

I’m lucky because

My mother never called me by our dog’s name.

A cow has never bitten me.

I have walked tall and have never tripped over a woolly bear caterpillar.

Bad jokes department

A visitor was arrested at a national park after running from a grizzly. He faces charges for running with a bear behind.

I went to a telekinetic ice cream shop. They can make a root beer float there.

I wonder if the guy who coined the phrase “one-hit wonder” ever came up with anything else?

The man had the Midas touch. Everything he touched turned to mufflers.

Nature notes

There was a lot of scurrying going on. It must have been the squirrel series. Chickadees were busy in an endless pursuit of food. Birds make my life a little tweeter.

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s research found that part of the hippocampus increases in male squirrels during the caching season in the fall. This doesn’t happen in the brains of females. Females can already remember where they put that acorn or where their husband’s dress shirt can be found. This seasonal plasticity is necessary for males to think like females in the fall when they’re hiding all these nuts. It’s possible that the hippocampus, the memory and spatial organization area of the brain, increases 15% in size in the fall.

Texas has an estimated white-tailed deer population exceeding 3 million wild deer. If captive deer are included, Texas has more than 5 million deer. Other states with droves of deer are Michigan (1.7 million), Alabama (1.7 million), Mississippi (1.7 million), Missouri (1.4 million), Wisconsin (1.3 million), Pennsylvania (1.3 million), North Carolina (1.3 million) and four states with 1 million: Minnesota, Arkansas, Georgia and Kentucky. Deer are crepuscular, so be watchful for them at the shoulders of the day.

Meeting adjourned

Heed the angel on one shoulder and not the devil on the other, and be kind.