A wayfaring storyteller
Thu, 07/16/2026 - 12:00am
ECHOES FROM THE LOAFERS’ CLUB MEETING
I bought an encyclopedia.
A set of encyclopedias?
No, I bought one volume at a garage sale. Let me know if you need to know anything from rabbits to the Ryukyu Islands.
DRIVING BY BRUCE’S DRIVE
I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I was wearing my “A Bigfoot saw me” T-shirt. At least, I think that’s what it was. It was a blurry T-shirt. Our cat never sets a paw outside. She is strictly an indoor cat, but she enjoys the outdoors without all its perils. She watches from a window. One of her regular viewing opportunities is a chipmunk that visits our deck. The cat’s whiskers dance, and she meows a silent meow. If she could talk human, I think she’d be saying, “Newman.” Newman was the iconic postal worker and Jerry Seinfeld's eccentric arch-nemesis in the TV sitcom “Seinfeld.”
I bowl once every too many years. The last time I rolled a heavy ball toward ten pins coming at me in a triangular formation, I talked to a fellow who was about to turn 90. He told me he still enjoyed watching people bowl. His favorites were the bad bowlers. The more gutter balls they threw, the more he liked them. That was because he had been a "pin boy" in his youth. He worked in a sunken pit behind the lane, where he had to dodge flying pins to reset bowling pins manually, clear fallen pins, and return bowling balls. Gutter balls made his job easier.
We shared a meal because we shared a first name. We placed our order. He ordered a sweet roll for dessert. The server brought the roll first. He used a fork and a knife to eat it. I asked him if he always ate his dessert first. He replied, “Whenever I can. You never know.”
I’VE LEARNED
There is only one “i” in “umpire.”
Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of August 2021–August 2023 showed 32% of adults age 20 and older consumed fast food on a given day.
Alaskans spend the highest share of their income on healthcare of all the states. Utah spent the least. Iowa is the 34th highest, and Minnesota 42nd.
A WAYFARING STORYTELLER
I was in the southwestern Iowa city of Stanton, which has a 95-foot-tall water tower featuring a unique cup-and-saucer design that replaced the 125-foot-high Swedish coffee pot, which was a 50,000-gallon (640,000 cups of coffee) ode to the town’s Swedish roots. It also honored Stanton native Virginia Christine, known as “Mrs. Olson” from the Folgers coffee ads. The new cup-and-saucer water tower is a 150,000-gallon (2.4 million cups of coffee). The Stanton Historical Society moved the old coffee pot water tower to its grounds.
BAD JOKES DEPARTMENT
I do CrossFit. I cross my fingers and hope my clothes fit.
Which letter is silent in the word "scent," the s or the c?
How do you spell “orange”? The fruit or the color?
If you fall asleep while reading old magazines, you’ll wake up with back issues.
I ate a kid’s meal at McDonald’s. It really upset his mother.
NATURE NOTES
Jewelweeds (spotted touch-me-nots) bloom from July through September. Moisture beads on its leaves and glistens like jewels in the sun. A favorite of hummingbirds, it has trumpet-shaped flowers and seed capsules that explode when touched. The watery sap of jewelweed is reputed to help soothe rashes from poison ivy and stinging nettle.
It’s a good day when I spot a crab spider on a wildflower. They are white or yellow with two pink or red slashes along their sides. They can change their color, a process that can take several days, and are easiest to find on pink flowers. Crab spiders get their name from their crablike appearance and their ability to walk sideways. They are passive hunters that wait motionless for insects to come within their grasp. I’ve heard that to mate without being eaten, the male must tie up the female with silk. After mating, the female breaks the restraints. I’ve read that the male covers the female loosely with strands of silk, which is a part of courtship referred to as a bridal veil. The latter is the true story.
I watched a thirteen-lined ground squirrel (striped gopher or squinny) scurry across the sizzling pavement. The midday sun might have been giving the little animal a hotfoot. Ground squirrels run with their tails straight out. Chipmunks run with tails held upright.
A friend threatens to go Carl Spackler on the raccoons putting a crimp in his bird feeding. Carl Spackler was the golf course groundskeeper who dynamited gophers in the movie “Caddyshack.”
MEETING ADJOURNED
Be kind. We all share the same air.