A photo of a photo

ECHOES FROM THE LOAFERS’ CLUB MEETING

Don’t you ever clean your beard? I can tell what you had for breakfast this morning.

 

Oh, yeah? What did I have?

 

Eggs.

 

You’re wrong. That’s what I had for breakfast yesterday.

 

DRIVING BY BRUCE’S DRIVE

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. It was a Goldilocks day: not too hot, not too cold, just right. I taught a writing class. One pupil was named Iris. I teach because I dream of one day being able to open accounts in the Cayman Islands, have safety deposit boxes in Zürich, or become a hard-charging shopper at Walmart. 

 

One student, not Iris, had dropped the Jell-O he had for lunch onto his new, white basketball shoes. It was an assault with a congealed weapon.

 

Iris had a new eraser. It was half-blue and half-pink. In grade school, I believed the blue half was meant for erasing ink. In reality, the pink half is designed for soft graphite pencil marks on standard paper, while the blue is meant for thick, durable paper. I tried the blue on ink scribblings. It tore the paper. I thought it erased ink because I believed in magic. I believed the school custodian lived in a closet because he was always coming out of or going into one.

 

I CUT HEADS OFF IN FILMS

I took a photo of a photo at a county fair to remind myself to tell the photographer how much I liked his work. I remember using film and waiting two weeks to see what developed. A bottle of ketchup provided no anticipation in comparison. I waited forever to get photographs back with a tall man’s head cut off in one picture.

 

I’VE LEARNED

Cabins are never built of cottage cheese.

 

In the first grade, I learned exits were on the way out.

 

I gave my turtleneck sweater to the Salvation Army. I had had it up… well, you know where with it.

 

If you eat ice cream before the meal and again after the meal, it’s an ice cream sandwich.

 

The clock on the wall hadn’t worked for years. We kept it there because we could depend on it.

 

BAD JOKES DEPARTMENT

Authorities arrested a guy for stealing hay. He couldn’t make bale.

 

Accordion to a recent survey, replacing words with the names of musical instruments in a sentence often goes undetected.

 

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there’s something wrong with your goldfish.

 

NATURE NOTES

It was a lovely day, one offering perfect weather in October. The everlasting summer didn’t last. Fall begins. Summer ends. Winter looms. The landscape turns the color of overdone meatloaf. I stopped at a pumpkin patch to have a pumpkin repaired.

 

I walked, moseyed, strolled, ambled, meandered, sauntered, wandered, ambulated, hoofed, traipsed, stepped, peregrinated, tramped, tiptoed, strutted, lumbered, waddled and toddled along, seeing many people on the trail who were taking their phones for a walk. The best things in leaf are trees. I played the "catch the falling leaf" game, a folk tradition that claims catching a tumbling leaf brings good luck, helps avoid colds, or grants 12 months of happiness. It’s a form of mindfulness that fosters focusing on the present moment and the beauty of autumn. I snatched a red maple leaf out of the air. It was a vision of loveliness. Yay, me!

 

Meadowhawks are small dragonflies, 1 to 1.5 inches long. The males are red, and the females are a yellow-orange color. They are tough, sometimes surviving into November.

 

Flattery will get you everything. Fluttery gets a monarch butterfly to Mexico. Their future is up in the air.

 

Migrating birds carry built-in calendars. Unlike other warblers, yellow-rumped warblers (butterbutts) don’t go far to overwinter, traveling to the southern United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. Some winter farther north on the east and west coasts. They survive harsh winters due to their ability to eat berries when insects aren’t readily available. They’re able to digest bayberry, juniper, wax myrtle and poison ivy berries.

 

A Jack-in-the-pulpit has red berries that glow on the forest floor, and the red sashes of ambitious Virginia creeper climb trees. Milkweed pods burst, having turned from green to a gray or brown color, and the seeds are mature when brown.

 

Bur oak (a white oak) acorns have fuzzy caps reminiscent of ushankas. Wood ducks, wild turkeys, squirrels and deer prize the acorns. White oaks have rounded leaf lobes, and red oaks have pointed leaves. A study found that squirrels eat 85% of white oak acorns shortly after discovery and store 60% of red oak acorns, which have larger amounts of bitter-tasting tannins than white oak acorns. 

 

MEETING ADJOURNED

“Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people.”―Roy T. Bennett.