Rounding up cows

ECHOES FROM THE LOAFERS’ CLUB MEETING

What’s wrong?

I lost another ball today.

You should give up bowling.

 

DRIVING BY BRUCE’S DRIVE

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. It blew my whiskers off. A lot of farmland changed hands in May. Fierce winds moved the soil. The wind blew so hard that a hen laid the same egg twice.

 

When you think of Iowa, what do you think of? Was it eggs? Probably not, but Iowa is the largest egg-producing state, followed by Ohio and Indiana. My mother had the egg money she earned by selling eggs from her hens to Sibilrud’s Grocery Store, which she used to buy essentials like food. No one told her how to spend her egg money. Why would we? She spent it on us.

 

My mother was of such a height that the sun visor in her car blocked no sunlight from her eyes. If we were leaving at noon on Friday, Mom was ready to go by 9 Thursday morning. Mom liked her coffee strong enough to float a spoon. When served decaf and creamer, John Wayne became annoyed and famously asked, “Who turned my coffee into dessert?” John would have loved my mother’s coffee. Mom turned the end piece of bread toward the inside of the sandwich. She cut off the blue part of the cheese and we ate the rest. She was somebody who made everybody feel like somebody.

 

Do I miss talking to my mother? I never stopped talking to her. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

 

YOU ARE GETTING OLDER

If you can forget what you’re doing while you’re doing it.

 

If you remember driving cars with more cigarette lighters than seatbelts.

 

If your first-aid kit contained Band-Aids, Mercurochrome or Merthiolate, iodine and horehound cough drops. Mercurochrome, Merthiolate and iodine were used on scrapes and cuts. Iodine is an effective germicide still in use. Mercurochrome and Merthiolate were banned due to mercury toxicity. Any products sold under those names today use mercury-free ingredients. Iodine was the more effective antiseptic, and it created intense stinging. Mercurochrome was water-based and my favorite because it didn’t sting. Merthiolate had alcohol, so it carried a stinging sensation. Mercurochrome and Merthiolate left bright red-orange stains, earning those products the nickname “monkey blood.” Iodine left a dark yellow-brown stain. Kids blew on their treated wounds, hoping to lessen the sting or make the antiseptic dry faster. Horehound cough drops are traditional, old-fashioned herbal lozenges used to soothe sore throats and relieve coughs. Made from a member of the mint family, they feature an earthy, licorice-like flavor.

 

I’VE LEARNED

According to the USGA, a typical 18-hole golf course covers 110 to 200 acres.

 

BAD JOKES DEPARTMENT

What kind of water does a cat drink? Purrified water.

 

A friend asked me to help round up his 37 cows. I said, “40.”

 

My grandson swallowed a bunch of Scrabble tiles. His next trip to the toilet could spell disaster.

 

One-one was a racehorse. Two-two was one too. One-one won one race. Two-two won one too.

 

NATURE NOTES

I watched ring-billed gulls fly invisible roads in the sky. The European Seagull Screeching Championship takes place at the Verloren Gernoare cafe near the Belgian coastal city of De Panne. Ring-billed gulls are nicknamed McGulls, dumpster gulls, landfill gulls, fast-food gulls and french-fry gulls. I associate the cries of these iconic birds with tranquil weather.

 

Maple helicopters aren’t Mayo helicopters. The winged seeds of a maple tree are called helicopters, keys, whirlybirds, spinners, whirligigs, spinning jennies, whirlers, twisters, whirlwinds, wing nuts or samaras. Red maple samaras are red, in contrast to those of the silver maple, which are green in spring when the samaras of both the red and silver maples disperse. Norway, sugar and Japanese maples drop their seeds in the fall.

 

In the King James Bible, the Song of Solomon includes: “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land,” heralding the onset of spring in what is now the modern-day Middle East. Turtle derived from “turtur,” imitating the cooing call of a dove. The New International Version of that text is “Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.” The New Living Translation of the Bible reads, “The flowers are springing up, the season of singing birds has come, and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air.”

 

Get outside and count the dandelions.

 

MEETING ADJOURNED

“Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.”—Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire.