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Echoes from the Loafer’s Club Meeting

I’ve got group today.

How are you coming along with your fear of speed bumps?

I’m slowly getting over it.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I traveled relentlessly for years, which caused me to be inundated by messages from hotels, tours, festivals, conferences and airlines. One discount airline offered a flight for $9. It was hard to ignore that price. I couldn’t stay on the ground for $9. My only question was if they used actual airplanes and pilots. They assured me they did. I figured the $9 was a loss leader to get people into a  plane and then raise the price for future flights. I reasoned the $9 seat would get to its destination as quickly as a $509 one. It didn’t, and it didn’t cost $9. They charged extra to sit inside the plane, to sit down and to breathe air. There were no seatbelts. I was given a roll of duct tape instead. The lack of legroom gave disabling cramps to those half my size.

Runza Restaurants in Nebraska offer a temperature-related sale in the winter. Temperature Tuesdays set the price of an original Runza sandwich at the 6 a.m. temperature. If the temp is 0 degrees or below, the sandwich doesn’t cost a penny. The original Runza sandwich is a blend of seasoned ground beef, mixed with cabbage and onions, inside bread.

I’ve learned

Big heads house tiny minds.

Winged monkeys are something to worry about.

The soup aisle in a grocery store has expanded to options unimagined.

Bad jokes department

Scientists located the world’s largest bed sheet. More on this story as it unfolds.

Who was the most famous hard-of-hearing astronomer? Carl Say It Again.

The old man called his children to his deathbed and said, “Look at my hair. It’s completely gone now. My hair can’t be saved, but see the forest. There are many trees, but eventually, they’ll all be cut down, and this forest will look as bald as my head. I want you to plant a new tree in my memory each time a tree is cut down or dies. Tell your descendants to do the same. It will be our family’s duty to keep the forest strong.” And they did. Each time the forest lost a tree, the children replaced it, and so did their children and their children. The forest remained lush and lovely, all because of one man and his reseeding heirline.

Nature notes

The first bird I saw on New Year’s Day was an American crow. It’s challenging to sidestep a crow. It had a scholarly look, so I suspect the crow had made a point of being the first bird spotted. Crows are big believers in caws-es. The popular holiday tune “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is a bird lover’s delight. The lucky recipient ends up with 23 birds by the end of the song. It’s one partridge, two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, six geese and seven swans. In the original published version, it was “four colly birds,” not “four calling birds.” In England, “colly birds” was a name given to blackbirds. That blackbird differs from those of this country. It’s a common European thrush, and the male has a black plumage and yellow bill. Merriam-Webster‘s entry for “colly” notes that it derives from the Old English word for coal and means to blacken with or as if with soot. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “colly bird” as an old popular name for a blackbird. Colly is a dialect word for coal dust. So, a bird the color of coal could be a crow in my version of the song. This colly bird or a calling bird was calling or cawing. That crow knows more than I’ll ever suspect about crows.

I do Christmas Bird Counts (CBC). I decide where I think birds might be, then I look for them. Simple, huh? Being out among them is a wonderful experience—visiting with the people I meet, doing some walking and seeing lovely birds. I looked for rough-legged hawks, which I called Christmas hawks when I was a lad, a hawk with feathered feet for warmth. I can’t grow feathers, so I wore wool socks. They feed on small mammals—moveable feasts. I’m amazed by how birds know everything about everything in my yard. I feed the birds and they feed my curiosity. It’s a story filled with drama and sunflower seeds.

Meeting adjourned

“The root of joy is gratefulness.”—Brother David Steindl-Rast.