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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

That movie I saw last week was excellent. I wanted to read the book, too, but I couldn’t.

Why not?

It was too dark in the theater.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. Everything was nearly copacetic when my phone vibrated. The caller was from the south. He asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Minnesota. His follow-up question was, “Why?” His comments concluded with, “The weather there.” A couple of weeks later, his address was dumped on by more snow than the snow-removal folks, if there were any, knew what to do with. Winter weather in the south should eliminate many of those kinds of questions for the rest of the winter. No matter where they live, people have their own winter miseries to deal with.

The day hadn’t greeted me warmly. I went for a walk when it was -20 on my local path. By itself, that was an order to cease and desist, but there was also enough of a wind to make my nose want to run back home. I finished the walk slightly chilled. Once in the friendly confines of my humble abode, I opened the freezer to warm the house.

It was the kind of day that made my neighbor Crandall find cheerfulness hard to take. Crandall likes to waddle away from his ingrown La-Z-Boy just long enough to peek out the window to see if there might be a Bigfoot doing the hokey pokey in his yard.

I grew up in a cold bedroom. How cold was it? I needed to scrape the thick frost off my windows to see out of them in June. I kept a chair close to the bed so I could put on a T-shirt and jeans before heading down to the shower in the basement.

I’ve learned

Every shopping cart is an autobiography.

On the TV show “Lassie,” Timmy never once, in the show’s 571 episodes, fell into a well.

I visited Harvey Benson of Harmony at his rural home, which has a lovely and lengthy driveway. That means when Harvey turns into his drive, it’s still a long journey to get home.

According to Climate Zone, Des Moines gets 134 days a year where the minimum temperature is below freezing temperatures, Rochester gets 134, Minneapolis receives 156, Duluth 184 and International Falls is blessed with 197 days.

I’ve never bought a pillow.

WalletHub compared all 50 states across 31 key indicators of a positive commute with data set ranging from average gas prices to rush-hour traffic congestion to road quality. Kansas was the best state to drive in and Hawaii the worst. Iowa ranked 4th and Minnesota 12th. https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-drive-in/43012

Bad jokes department

How do nudists clean their eyeglasses?

The city of Two Bits has recycling bins labeled: Coulda bin, Shoulda bin and Woulda bin.

My neighbor Cruella said: “My husband thinks he’s a lawn mower. I’m taking him to a doctor just as soon as the neighbor returns him.”

Nature notes

“Why is an oak tree keeping its leaves in the winter?” It’s called marcescence and is a juvenile trait. Theories abound as to what benefit a tree derives from persistent leaves. The dead, dry leaves might make the tree unpalatable to deer. The living snow fence of leaves might trap moisture for a tree to use. Marcescence could preserve leaves for mulch in the spring. Or it might be just to give us something to wonder about. Nonnative buckthorn leafs out early and retains its leaves late into the fall, creating dense shade that helps it outcompete many native plants.

“Did Ben Franklin really want the turkey to be our national bird?” The story about Benjamin Franklin wanting the national bird to be a turkey is a popular myth. Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter criticizing the original eagle design for the Great Seal, saying that it looked like a turkey. In that letter, Franklin wrote that the “Bald Eagle…is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly…[he] is too lazy to fish for himself.” Franklin noted that compared to a bald eagle, a turkey is “a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America…He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage.” Ben defended the honor of the turkey versus the bald eagle, but he didn’t propose it become one of America’s most important symbols.

Meeting adjourned

Kind people are the best kind of people.