'We're out of catalog'

ECHOES FROM THE LOAFERS’ CLUB MEETING

  I took my husband to Luxembourg for our 25th anniversary.

  Wow! What are you going to do for your 50th anniversary?

  I might go back and get him.

 

DRIVING BY BRUCE’S DRIVE

  I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I love seeing all the fireflies. It’s great to see someone using their blinkers. I got into a fistfight with a skeeter and successfully reduced the mosquito population by one.

 

  I’d been off running my mouth in front of an audience in South Dakota. I stopped in Sioux Falls on my way home to have a bite to eat. It was a restaurant I’d never been to before. I’d never had better food at that restaurant. In his book “Blue Highways,” William Least Heat Moon wrote, “There is one almost infallible way to find honest food at just prices in blue-highway America: count the wall calendars in a café.” He’d found that the more calendars, the better the food. There must have been a few in that eatery.

 

PUSH THEM AND THEY BECOME EGG ROLLS

  On my drive to a speaking gig in Texas, I was reminded that it’s an unwritten state law in the Lone Star State that you must pass the car ahead of you. An audience member, a fellow with a belt buckle doubling as a satellite TV dish, told me a story about his father, who had lived to be 97 because they made things better in those days. He said his father didn’t care how his eggs were prepared and regularly told his favorite waitress when she took his order, “Surprise me.” One day, she brought him two raw eggs in their shells.

 

THE HOUSE RAN ON  RECYCLED TOILET PAPER

  I grew up with an outhouse. The roof leaked, which gave us an outhouse with a shower. We recycled. Old catalogs and peach papers became toilet paper. I heard, “We’re out of catalog.” Now, Alexa is the speaker of our house.

 

I’VE LEARNED

  Watching Ben Cartwright on an old “Bonanza” TV show made me feel for Lorne.

 

  There is no good reason socks should match.

 

  Meteorologist Paul Douglas said 2 out of 3 USA storm damage reports come from straight-line winds.

 

  When I was a kid, we told Polish jokes. That might earn you the threat of a punch in the nose. We started telling Norwegian jokes. Those with Norwegian ancestry not only laughed, they told a better Norwegian joke.

 

IN THE HEADLINES

  Duane Kent was hired as the new city clerk. Clerk Kent is doing a super job.

 

  High school choir goes to Lima for some Perusing.

 

  Man loses his job at the ice cream shop because he refused to work on sundaes.

 

BAD JOKES DEPARTMENT

  What did Paul Revere say when he finished his famous ride? "Whoa."

 

  Who said, “Coming are British the! Coming are British the!”? Paul Reverse.

 

  Why is a giraffe’s neck so long? Because its feet smell.

 

  What do they say about forks used to cook meat as tough as shoe leather? These are the tines that fry men‘s soles.

 

NATURE NOTES

  Ah, fall warblers. They are all atwitter. The vastness of my world is revealed in the passage of these birds—a thrilling and memorable annual event for me. I jump on that seesaw between work and warblers. I look down at the work on my desk, and then I look out the window at the warblers. The bird waterer was at its busiest, but somehow became busier.

 

 Hummingbirds drink sugar water and chase others away from a chance of drinking sugar water. Mix 1 part white table sugar with 4 parts water. I don’t always boil the water, but it helps the sugar dissolve. Don’t add red food coloring to entice hummingbirds. The red parts of feeders attract the birds’ attention. Don’t use honey, fruit juice, soda, sugar substitutes, syrups or brown sugar.

 

  I put out grape jelly in small amounts to prevent a bird from becoming mired in the sticky stuff. Last week, I watched Baltimore orioles, red-bellied woodpeckers, brown thrashers, house finches, gray catbirds, downy woodpeckers and warblers (Tennessee, Nashville, yellow and yellow-rumped) feed on the jelly. I’ve never seen so many warblers feeding on the jelly. Tennessee warblers have been the most regular of the warbler chowhounds. American redstarts eyed the jelly, but I haven't seen them partake of its sweetness. No grosbeaks.

 

 Red oak leaves have pointed lobes, whereas white oak leaves have rounded ones. A bur oak belongs to the white oak group. Squirrels prefer the sweeter acorns of the white oak.

 

MEETING ADJOURNED

  A tip of the hat to Mark Domeier of Ellendale for sending this: “Don't just engage in random acts of kindness. Engage in planned acts of kindness.”—Julie Andrews