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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

What’s wrong?

My doctor wants me to have elective surgery.

Well, don’t worry, you have my vote.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Deep thoughts occur as I drive past his drive. I called a company with a question. I got the hold department. That department did its job and put me on hold. They didn’t care for phone conversations. With that frustration as fuel, I opened the garage door and raised a moistened forefinger to determine which direction the wind was blowing. I wasn’t far down the road before I encountered a situation that doesn’t make many feel fallstalgic. This is the time of the year when a driver could spend time following a farm combine moseying down the road on a field tour. When this happens to me, I try to make a weather prediction (The next few days will bring weather) and to think of the name of a Kardashian (Not one of them is named Kerfuffle). I tried to decide what my favorite song and my favorite movie were. I tried to identify the make of a car without seeing its name. The combine slowed my pace. Not a bad thing.

I didn’t get my knickers in a twist. I’d left early, so I had no reason for hurrying. I wasn’t in search of a rare uneaten ear of sweetcorn.

I stopped and talked to Mrs. Johnson. She said her doctor had told her she should watch what she eats. She knew it was good advice, but she didn’t like what the doctor wanted her to watch. A nurse had asked her if she had a living will. She did. Will is her second oldest boy and lives in Topeka.

I took my car in for servicing and received some good news. The floor mats still had some life in them and didn’t need replacement. It was a ray of sunshine.

In local news

Shhh! The Walls Have Beers liquor store opens.

The Parallel Line Club never meets.

Local poet laureate retires for no rhyme or reason.

Waldo starts a GoFindMe page.

Sweater shop hires a used cardigan salesperson.

I’ve learned

I’m never sure which side the cellphone goes in a formal place setting.

Not every plastic lid is meant to fit something.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve as long as it rhymes with conceive or believe.

A car park means a lot.

I wonder

Did the brain name itself?

Why haven’t I heard anyone mispronounce “Pinocchio”?

Why don’t people with good tastes in music play it loud in a car with the windows down?

Are there conspiracy theories about other planets being flat?

Did the guy who invented the snooze button ever invent anything else or did he never again get up early enough to invent anything else?

Nature notes

Having a bird feeder is like having a backstage pass. I watched mourning doves drink at the birdbath. Pigeons and doves suck up water like a horse and both males and females produce pigeon milk in their crops, which they feed to their young. Europeans introduced rock pigeons to North America in the early 1600s.

I watched pelicans herd fish into the shallows for easy eating. It ended in a fierce feeding frenzy. It was an incredible fish drive, similar to but wetter than the cattle drives Rowdy Yates participated in as the ramrod of the crew that drove bovines on the Sedalia Trail in the TV series “Rawhide.” Rowdy, played by Clint Eastwood, worked under trail boss Gil Favor. They moved cattle from San Antonio, Texas, to Sedalia, Kansas, while being prodded along by Frankie Laine’s voice singing, “Move ‘em out, head ‘em up, Rawhide.” The pelicans worked without music.

Moles rarely come to the surface where owls, hawks, weasels or snakes might get them. Because of their musky odor, moles are unpalatable to some predators, but raccoons, coyotes, foxes and skunks dig them out. Domestic dogs and cats kill moles but rarely eat them. A mole eats earthworms, Japanese beetle grubs, cutworms and more.

Where did “naked as a jaybird” come from? It has an uncertain origin. The expression from the 1800s was naked as a fledgling jaybird, naked as a fledgling robin or naked as a fledgling. At some point, people dropped the word “fledgling” from the idiom. In the 1920s, J-bird was an abbreviation of the word jailbird. Before giving them uniforms, jail authorities stripped new inmates naked and disinfected them.

Meeting adjourned

“Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!”—Henri Frederic Amiel.