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Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I’m thinking of taking some night classes.

Red Cross is teaching a class. Do you know CPR?

Of course. I know the entire alphabet.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. Harry Lillesve was my driver’s training instructor, and he told me that all his students had turned into good drivers. I thought, “Look out, good drivers, we’re turning.”

I thought of Mr. Lillesve when I was driving through town and saw a driver’s training car tipped over onto its roof. A friend, the instructor, was wearing a neck brace and being helped to an ambulance. “Look out, good drivers. We’re turning.”

A peregrination

I went for a hot air balloon ride in Arizona. The captain complained about his overhead expenses. I hoped he’d paid them.

I visited a thrift store. I enjoy looking at the books in used goods stores. As I did that, part of the ceiling fell on me. It was just bits, so I had no concussion-like symptoms. For some reason, I felt the need to buy something, but I couldn’t find anything I wanted. I ended up paying $1 for a cassette recording of Aunt Nellie’s funeral service. I didn’t know Nellie, but it sounded as if she would have been worth knowing.

I saw a small slice of an Iowa-Penn State basketball game on the Big Ten Network. The game was played at the Bryce Jordan Center in State College, Pennsylvania, the home court of the Penn State Nittany Lions. One commentator said that the arena had been taken over by the Ohio yellow of the Ohio Hawkeye fans. Oops. It’s difficult for a human to go more than a few minutes without making a mistake, but I could hear Hawkeye fans wincing. Iowa won the game.

I’ve learned

The Powerball jackpot is up to two dozen eggs.

There is so much divisiveness in the world. We need togetherness. That’s why we need to eat more hotdish. There’s togetherness found there.

There are days when news-canceling headphones sound like an excellent idea.

This country has won every Super Bowl ever played.

Gloves are a handy invention.

Bad jokes department

Someone broke into a house, stole the eggs and left a pan of water behind. Police believe it’s the work of poachers.

What did Attila the Hun and Winnie the Pooh have in common? They had the same middle name.

Three conspiracy theorists walked into a bar. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence.

A man heard a knock on his door and when he answered, he didn’t see anyone. Then he looked down and saw a snail looking up at him.  The guy became angry at being bothered by a snail. He picked it up and threw it across the street and into the woods. Seven months later, the same guy heard another knock at his door. He opened the door and saw the same snail again. The snail said, “What was that all about?”

Nature notes

Why is a flock of turkeys called a rafter? Perhaps it’s derived from the word “raft” in its meaning of a large or motley collection of people and other things. Maybe it’s because when early European settlers in America built houses and barns, turkeys perched in the rafters of the unfinished buildings. Or because when turkeys roost in trees, the trees resemble the rafters of a building. Another theory is that the word “rafter” came to imply “stitch together” in Medieval English and was used for groups of turkeys. I visited with a fellow who thought a flock of turkeys should be called a gobble. Male turkeys are called “gobblers” because of their famed call. It fits the mold—a group of geese is called a gaggle, but a gobble brings to mind scenes of gluttony from a Thanksgiving table.

February is the breeding season for cottontail rabbits, skunks, raccoons, squirrels, great horned owls, bald eagles, coyotes and foxes.

Where I live, which is inside a house, we get little snow there other than what I track in. The yard gets more snow. On average, we receive more snow from October to January than we do from February to April.

We all know the sound of a bird. It might be the quack of a female mallard duck, the honk of a Canada goose, the haunting calls of a loon or the voice of a robin. Robins sing “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.”

Meeting adjourned

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