Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting:

“I lost three balls today.”

“Where were you golfing?”

“Who said anything about golf? I was bowling.”

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: I discovered gold the other day. It came out of a gas pump

The news from Hartland

The Corporal Store (one day, it will be a General Store) reminds shoppers that the western department is on the east side of the store and that they will match all prices higher than theirs.

Cat arrested and charged with tongue thefts.

Things No One Wants Store offers a 10-for-the-price-of-1 sale.

I’ve learned

“Ah, ha” moments come right after “oh, oh” moments.

Forgetting where you put things is an effective exercise program.

We should listen to our bodies unless they trash talk us.

The boy nose diets

My young grandson was eating some onion-flavored corn snacks and put one of them up his nose.

I related this tale to a friend, who asked a question she already knew the answer to, “I wonder which side of the family he takes after.”

Perhaps this youngster will one day, after eating all the pickles in a jar, save the juice for use as a sandwich dip.

My grandson knows he’s supposed to eat the snacks, which I find nasty, but he also knows that he’ll get more attention if he places one in his nose. I think he might have stumbled upon an innovative, new diet. When we want to lose weight, we stuff snacks into a nostril instead of eating them.

Camping with a cat

A friend told me she and her husband went camping with their seven kids and a cat. They filled a Suburban the size of an apartment with people, camping supplies, and a cat. The cat went along because it wasn’t always easy to find a good cat sitter in that part of the world. They took along a nice china bowl for the cat to eat from. The family did that because they knew that while cats enjoy camping, they don’t want to do without the finer things in life while they are roughing it.

Did you know?

John Wayne was born Marion Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, in 1907. He grew up in California and earned his nickname Duke as a child because he was always with his Airedale dog, Duke. People began calling him Little Duke. He liked that name better than Marion and it stuck.

According to the Writers Guild of America the top 10 best written TV series of all time are, in descending order, The Sopranos, Seinfeld, The Twilight Zone, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mad Men, Cheers, The Wire and The West Wing.

Louisiana is the state with the highest percentage of native-born residents at 78.8 percent. Michigan is second at 76.6. Iowa is seventh (71.7) and Minnesota eleventh (68.8).

Nature notes

I checked a bluebird box housing nesting tree swallows. There was fur in the box. I suspect it had been plucked from an eastern cottontail rabbit that had been killed on the road. Only about 1 percent of bunnies live to be 2 years old. A Buick bugs bunnies. A road isn’t the best habitat for a rabbit. It’s bad rabbitat. Almost everywhere else is good habitat for a rabbit. Under the deck of a house is a great spot for a rabbit. It hops out from the security of that location whenever it’s hungry and uses its incisors like scissors to devour vegetation. This has little to do with anything, but a rabbit’s tail is sometimes referred to as a scut. Tree swallows favor large feathers, particularly white ones, for their nests. I surmised that the fur had been placed there by a black-capped chickadee that had considered the nest. Chipping sparrows and tufted titmice also use hair from animals for their nests. There are no titmice in my yard and the chipping sparrows would not use the nest box. A robin’s nest in a small tree teetered precariously in the strong wind. My wife tied the nest in place. The robins didn’t miss a beat in feeding the three babies. It had been dry. It became wet. We all knew it would happen. Each season of each year has its own agenda. It rained hard as I watched the mother robin spread her wings to make sure her nest of babies was adequately covered and kept dry.