The field of flicks

ECHOES FROM THE LOAFERS’ CLUB MEETING

  I got a quote to have my roof repaired.

  What was the quote?

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.

 

DRIVING BY BRUCE’S DRIVE

  I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. It was too hot outside and too cold inside. I left the business I’d visited and noticed a pile of Amazon boxes at a nearby home of shoppers in their prime. I thought of a time before air conditioning, when Amazon was just a jungle. I grew up near the village of Bath, home of the Bath Store, before it became a ghost town. I recalled a conversation with another boy. He’d told me that his family called Bath “Poptown.” I asked him why.  

 

  “Because you can get pop there,” he said.

 

  “Can’t you get pop everywhere?” I asked.

 

  “I don’t know, we don’t go everywhere.”

 

THE FIELD OF FLICKS

  I enjoy baseball and movies, and movies about baseball. “Bull Durham,” “Major League,” “Field of Dreams,” “A League of Their Own,” “It Happens Every Spring,” and “Angels in the Outfield” are fine film fare.

 

  I recall the last Twins game I attended. I sang, “I don’t care if I never get back,” in the key of off. It was the peanuts and Cracker Jack talking.

 

  The last movie I saw in a theater was delightful, but the trailers of upcoming movies were so loud I couldn’t hear others eating popcorn.

 

I’VE LEARNED

  I bought a 24-pack of bottled water. Earlier, I’d purchased a bottle of water at an airport. The airport bottle cost more than the 24.

 

  I got a shingles shot. I’m thinking of getting a vinyl siding shot.

 

  A bug zapper is a fly-by-night operation.

 

  My dog ate a small chair. The veterinarian has requested a stool sample.

 

  In 1930, only 8% of American homes had an electric refrigerator.

 

  A coming attraction shown in a theater is something that looks better than the movie you’re about to watch.

 

  The USDA found the average U.S. corn yield in 2024 was a record 179.3 bushels per acre. In 1975, the average U.S. corn yield was approximately 71-80 bushels per acre.

 

According to the National Corn Growers Association, David Hula of Charles City, Virginia, set the record of 623.84 bushels per acre in 2023.

 

THE NEWS FROM HARTLAND HAROLD

  I looked at grainy photos of bygone grocery stores offering food, produce, dry goods, men’s wear and shoes. Sibilrud’s (Kenneth) Jack Sprat Foods in Hartland. Phone Tilden 5-2077. Anderson’s (Dorothy and Walter) Jack Sprat Foods in Freeborn. Phone 2555. This nursery rhyme inspired the store name, “Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so betwixt the two of them, they licked the platter clean.”

 

  My wife and I dined at Casa Zamora, a retiring restaurant that began in Albert Lea in 1969 and got better all the time.

 

BAD JOKES DEPARTMENT

  I hate to brag, but I have the memory of one of those big gray animals.

 

  The worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades.

 

  Justice is a dish best served cold. Otherwise, it's justwater.

 

NATURE NOTES

  I heard a whistle, a plaintive “Ken-ne-dy.” Here’s a fun fact: only .003% of eastern wood-peewee males are named Kennedy. That’s not true. The peewee produced this call: “pee-a-wee!”

 

  I found wild turkey and blue jay feathers in the yard. Does that mean we’ll be seeing naked turkeys and jays? Turkeys molt all of their feathers each year, and molting is most pronounced during the summer. Jakes molt first, followed by the hens that didn’t nest or hatch a brood, and toms molt after their breeding activities wane. Successful hens with broods and hens that have renested molt last. Blue jays also molt in summer, and some jays drop all their head feathers simultaneously. That’s why I see bald blue jays each year.

 

  On a lovely day in August, what better thing to do than to consider winter? Winters can be treacherous, and it’s the only season that happens twice a year. According to folklore, a narrow orange band on a woolly bear (woolly worm) caterpillar predicts a harsh winter, while a wide orange band means a mild winter. Folklore says the number of fogs in August will correspond to the number of snowfalls in the coming winter.

 

  The Baltimore oriole migration peaks in August and September. It may seem that by Labor Day, they have all gone back to school, but there are always some that linger longer before heading to wintering grounds in Florida, the Caribbean, Central America and the northern tip of South America.

 

MEETING ADJOURNED

  “Be kind, don’t judge, and have respect for others. If we can all do this, the world would be a better place. The point is to teach this to the next generation.”—Jasmine Guinness.