Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting     

I thought the weekend would never get here.

Why does it matter to you? You’re retired.

I know, but I needed a couple of days when it doesn’t feel like I should be working.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I was far from home and having reading-withdrawal symptoms. I stopped at a big drugstore to get a newspaper to help me digest a breakfast. It was a huge emporium. Much too big for the likes of me. I wished it had been the size of the Rexall drugstore of my youth. That Rexall had a free library displayed on a large magazine rack. I’d read “Mad Magazine,” ”Cracked,“ “Classics Illustrated” and various comic books until an employee of the drugstore informed me that my free reading privileges had been suspended for the day. The gigantic drugstore selling newspapers was so large, I had to get a prescription just to find my way out of it.

Eating at The Eat Around It Cafe

It was French day at the cafe. French toast and fries. It’s an eatery where they care to please rather than impress. The food was generally regarded safe for human consumption. The waitress told me that everything is edible once.

We talked of the weather. Dangerous storms had wreaked havoc in the area. The rains had been stump floaters in the company of tornadoes and high winds. Photos of damage to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in Easton found their way quickly to us. The steeple had been toppled by high winds and crashed onto the roof on its way down. I sat next to a friend at a wedding there when he’d told me he wanted his funeral held there. I reminded him that he was Lutheran. He said he knew that before adding, “But just look at that beautiful woodwork.”

We expressed proper melancholy and then one of us provided comfort in the traditional way of my people, “Well, I suppose it could have been worse.”

Wearing a shirt pocket smile at a potluck

I was having a great day. I wore a shirt with a pocket on it. That’s a good thing in itself, but to make it even better, I was wearing that shirt to a church basement potluck. It was put on by folks who took bringing a dish to pass seriously. That caused me to grin like a goat eating thistles. A grin refers to a facial expression that reflects a beaming smile. When someone smiles in an unrestrained manner with mouth open and teeth visible, that’s grinning. A smirk is half a smile and a giggle is a partial laugh. A smirk is a facial expression that conveys smugness and scorn. It isn’t an innocent smile or the grin of a fool; it’s a sneer expressing scorn or derision. A smirk is a way to mock or taunt a person or situation. There were no smirks at the potluck.

In 1998, a study tasked participants to either hold a pen between their teeth – causing them to grin, or hold a pen between their lips — inducing a frown. Participants were then shown cartoons and asked to rate how funny they were. The study found those who were grinning were more likely to giggle at the cartoons. Scientists at the University of Kansas conducted a study in which they assessed the impact of smiling on one’s physical and mental state, coming to the conclusion that making yourself smile can help lower heart rate during stressful activities. There are those who disagree, but why not smile instead? If you want to make yourself smile, put on a shirt with a pocket on it and attend a church basement potluck.

Nature notes

I fall for fall each year. The leaves of the trees provide a pleasing palette. Faith Baldwin wrote, “Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.”

In the 1600s, people began using the phrase “fall of the leaf” to refer to the autumn season. Over time, it was shortened to fall. The word fall comes from the Old English word feallan, which means “to fall or to die.”

Variable numbers of blue jays migrate and the distance they travel varies. Some jays might migrate south one year, stay north the next winter and then migrate south again the following year. There has been no determination as to why their migration is complicated.

Meeting adjourned

“Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson