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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

Want to hear my Batman impersonation?

Sure.

Up, up and away!

That’s Superman.

Thanks, man.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I noticed signs that had persisted long after the businesses had closed. I saw one proclaiming gas for $1.63 per gallon. I stopped, but I couldn’t tell if the gas pumps were working because they were long gone and they’d taken the gas station with them. It was a no-service station.

Signs for departed businesses haunt the roadsides. They act as aged decoys drawing in unsuspecting travelers in need of what the bygone commercial enterprises had offered.

We all receive different instructions. The man wore an analog watch on one wrist and a smartwatch on the other. He didn’t want to be late for anything. He said his father wasn’t good at remembering to flush. That was because he had grown up with an outhouse. Most outhouses are out of business. They survive in parks and out-of-the-way places. Port-a-potties abound at festivals and similar gatherings. The outhouses weren’t likely to have left any signs behind when they vanished.

A friend called to tell me a mouse story. She found many pieces of paper rolled into little balls in a kitchen drawer. They were the wrappings from Hall’s cough drops—menthol honey-lemon flavored. I recall a kid who tried to solve the puzzle posed as “How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” Mr. Owl licked it twice before biting it and declaring the answer to be “Three” to one of the candy world’s perplexing puzzles in the classic 1970 TV commercial. Tootsie Pop fans everywhere tried to provide a definitive answer. An honest Mr. Owl would have said, “Who (Hoo) knows?” The world may never know. Maybe the mouse in the kitchen drawer was trying to determine how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Hall’s cough drop. One thing is certain: my friend won’t be awakened at night by the sound of a coughing mouse.

I’ve learned

A bookshelf is a books’ shelf.

They aren’t making yardsticks any longer.

No carpenter ants ever become plumbers.

I want to write a mystery novel or do I?

Every household staircase of my youth had at least one creaking step.

6:30 is my favorite time of day, hands down.

Shifting my car into reverse takes me back.

Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit because his mother’s uncle was a doctor there. Six weeks later, he was back in Little Falls. He was a mail pilot who became the world’s most famous person by flying a single-engine plane for 33 1/2 hours from New York City to Paris without an inflight movie in 1927.

Bad jokes department

I love my furniture. My recliner and I go way back.

Did you know that nothing in the English language starts with the letter n and ends with the letter g?

Stephen King has a son named Joe. I’m not joking, but he is.

When my wife gets angry, I put a cape around her shoulders. That makes her super angry.

What do doctors do for people obsessed with yachts? Prescribe anti-buy-yachtics.

Nature notes

American white pelicans flew over. The upper mandible on some had developed a flattened, semicircular, fibrous plate (horn, bump or sail) called a nuptial tubercle. Pelicans mature enough to reproduce develop a nuptial tubercle unique to the American white pelican, which falls off when mating season concludes. The size of the tubercle is variable. Its purpose is to make a pelican more attractive to mates. Upon molting into its eclipse plumage at the end of the breeding season, their crests turn gray and their eye color changes from dark to light. Both the males and the females develop tubercles.

I saw oak and ironwood trees clinging to their dead brown leaves over the winter. This retention of dead plant matter is called marcescence. New spring growth eventually dislodges these dead leaves. Scientists have named the process, but are unsure why it exists. They theorize that marcescent leaves provide a fresh layer of mulch around the tree and add nutrients for growth in the new year. Another thought is that these leaves help conserve soil moisture in the spring by adding shade to the forest floor. Another hypothesis holds that marcescence is a defense mechanism against browsers such as deer.

Meeting adjourned

“Let us learn to live with kindness, to love everyone, even when they do not love us.”—Pope Francis.