What goes up must come down

Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

  How do you spell Armageddon?

 

  I don’t know.

 

  Oh, well, never mind. It’s not the end of the world.

 

Driving by Bruce’s drive

  I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I went to Bruce’s birthday party. He got a lot of chocolate, but he’ll never get as much as he deserves.

 

  I had breakfast for dinner. A treat, whether it’s deserved or not. I was leading a tour far from home. It might have been in another galaxy, I’m not sure. I stayed in the dead guy’s cabin. That’s what they called it—the dead guy’s cabin. I didn’t know it was called that until I’d spent a night in it. It was a pleasant cabin, but it had a dangerously low ceiling, especially over the bed. I’m vertically enhanced. I figured the dead guy had been tall, too, and the cruel ceiling had cracked his skull.

 

  I was in a hotel in Missouri. It wasn’t a five-star hotel; it was a hotel that fit into my wallet. It had a motley collection of mismatched furniture. Every piece was a genuine Motley. I heard coughing emanating from the rooms on both sides of mine and from the parking lot. I checked the news to see if there was a whooping cough outbreak in the area. The only outbreak was one of thin walls in a cheap hotel.

 

I’ve learned

  Americans legally bet $166.94 billion on sports in 2025. When tribal sportsbooks, illegal offshore bookies, and political and event prediction markets are included, analysts estimate the total amount wagered annually is close to $300 billion.

 

  According to Forbes magazine, the worst-selling mass-produced cars of all time in one production year are Ford Edsel 2,848 cars sold in 1960, Lincoln Blackwood 3,300 in 2002, Yugo GV 4,000 in 1991, Pontiac Aztek 5020 in 2005, and Cadillac Catera 9,764 sold in 2001.

Local news

 

  Isaac Peterson was a standout quarterback at Rochester Mayo High School, surpassed 1,000 career points in basketball, and plans to play basketball at UW-Eau Claire. His father is Scott Peterson, and his grandparents are Kathy and the late Jim Peterson of New Richland.

 

Bad jokes department

  If you hold the sole of your foot to your ear, you can hear your hip dislocating.

 

  I thought I’d blacked out. It turned out I’d put my hoodie on backwards.

 

  I asked my wife what she liked best about me, "Is it my trim, athletic body? Or is it my astounding intellect?" She replied, “No, it’s your sense of humor, dear."

 

Nature notes

  I heard from Mark Domeier of Ellendale, who said that his father had told him that 90 days after a fog lifts, we will get precipitation, because what goes up must come down. Mark and his wife Michelle tested this and found it largely correct.

 

 It was hot enough to melt rocks. The corn was sweating profusely. Thunder rumbled in the distance. It wasn’t roaring. I learned that when thunder roars, go indoors.

 

  A cardinal sang with gusto, a definite showboat. I’m lucky to be thrilled by the sight of a cardinal. Minnesota’s first record of a cardinal was in Minneapolis in the fall of 1875. The first confirmed nesting was in Steele County in 1925 when a cardinal’s nest with eggs was discovered. The first record of a cardinal in Iowa was one that was captured in Iowa City in 1882.

 

  Crickets and katydids rub their forewings together to make sounds, while grasshoppers rub their wings against their hind legs to create the sounds. This process is called stridulation. Some grasshoppers also use crepitation, snapping their wings together in flight to make crackling sounds.

 

  If it looks like a tall dandelion with leaves resembling those of a thistle, but the spines lack sharpness; it’s a sowthistle, a perennial, that blooms July-October and grows up to 4 feet high. Prickly lettuce is an annual or biennial herb that blooms from July to September and can grow up to 6.5 feet tall. Prickly lettuce leaves have prickly edges that can be sharp, and a prickly midrib on the underside, while sowthistle leaves lack the prickly midrib. Both plants exude a milky sap when cut or wounded.

 

  White oaks produce leaves that have rounded lobes, whereas red oaks exhibit pointed lobes with a tiny bristle on their tips. The cap of the red oak acorn is scaly, while the white oak acorn has a knobby cap. The acorns of white oaks have a broader, shorter appearance and mature in a single year. Their caps are deeper, covering half the nut, and they’re more appealing as a preferred food source for many wildlife species. The acorns of red oaks are more elongated or ovoid and mature in two years. Their caps are shallow, covering the top quarter or third of the nut.

 

Meeting adjourned

  “Kind words, kind looks, kind acts, and warm handshakes—these are means of grace when men in trouble are fighting their unseen battles.”—John Hall.