Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I’d love to buy a new car, so I’m taking vitamins each day.

What do vitamins have to do with buying a new car?

They might help me live long enough to be able to afford one.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I had been a guest. I’d eaten an ample sufficiency. The TV was on low volume, showing some sort of national dog show. I glanced at it occasionally. I noticed that none of the dogs featured were breeds we’d ever had on the farm. I heard music coming from another part of the building. It was barking dogs woofing out “Jingle Bells.” None of that seemed all that special to me. It should have. My grandparents would have considered such occurrences a magic carpet ride.

I get excited about Christmas each year. I look forward to it, but I can’t help but look back at Christmases past. As a boy, I got brown bags from the school, the church and the city each Christmas. It was a big deal. I got the same brown bag of goodies at each place. Each bag contained a red delicious apple that wasn’t delicious, aged peanuts in the shell, ribbon candy that was so hard any leftovers were used to fill the potholes in the streets, and another hard candy, with a Christmas tree icon on each piece, that was like chewing marbles. It sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. It was wonderful.

The poppy queen

Annie was my hometown’s poppy queen. She held sales records. After World War I, the poppy flourished in Europe. Scientists attributed the growth to the soils in France and Belgium becoming enriched with lime from the rubble left from the war. The red poppy came to symbolize the blood shed during battle after the publication of the poem “In Flanders Fields.” In 1920, the poppy became the official flower to memorialize the soldiers who fought and died during the war. In 1924, the distribution of poppies became a national program of the American Legion. Members of the American Legion Auxiliary distribute poppies with a request that the person receiving the flower make a donation to support veterans and active military personnel.

Annie lurked in the post office, waiting for unsuspecting prey. I visited the post office six mornings a week. Annie sold me a poppy day after day because I was too stupid to wear the poppy she’d sold me the day before. She didn’t request a donation each time. She demanded one. I’d protest that I’d just bought a poppy from her yesterday. Annie asked why I wasn’t wearing it and then sold me another. One morning, I awoke with a goal. I wasn’t going to buy another poppy from Annie. I put five of them on my shirt and one on my necktie. I was a living poppy tree. I walked into the post office with great confidence in each stride. Annie wasn’t there.

Ask Al

“What would you say to a new resident of your neighborhood?” Hello.

“How would you describe a small town?” If it’s big enough to have a 4-way stop intersection and it has two cars stopped at signs, each driver will be encouraging the other to go first.

“You are a tall guy. What have you found to be the easiest way to take off your socks?” I sneeze them off.

Nature notes

Folklore says that if you have a bird nest in your Christmas tree, your family will experience health, wealth and happiness in the coming year. Birds don’t nest here at Christmas. Use an artificial nest for your tree as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, purchase, or barter, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such a bird except under the terms of a valid Federal permit.

Raccoons winter in places like tree cavities, animal burrows, abandoned buildings, chimneys and rock crevices. They stay in their dens and sleep lightly during bad weather. When temperatures and weather improve, they’re out looking for food. They eat as much as possible in the fall, in order to build an extra layer of fat. They don’t hibernate, but hole up in dens during the nastiest winter days and are capable of sleeping for long periods of time. Raccoons are typically solitary creatures, but sometimes den in groups during cold weather.

Meeting adjourned

“Remember, this December, love weighs more than gold.”—Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon. Al adds: Remember this all year.