It’s funny the admonitions from childhood that still occasionally echo in my mind. This one came to me in my morning shower. I grew up in a household of six, and was I frequently either being warned about using all the hot water or I was running around in a towel screaming “who used all the hot water?” So now in a household of two frugal adults who always have enough hot water I still watch my usage.

I am the same way about overhead lights. I still hear my dad’s “do we own the electric company?” when lights are on in unoccupied rooms. Forget the logic about LED bulbs lasting forever with little electricity, I run around turning them off. Of course, Charlie does the same before he hears me yelp from downstairs “I am down here!”

Just wondering if others of you still hear old, no longer useful, warnings in the background of your mind.

A few days ago I looked up from my research at the sound of machinery. Looking out, I was intrigued to watch the town’s public works men picking up leaves from the curb. Years ago they would have been burned in each yard, but air pollution concerns changed things. Our town, with its thousands of trees, collects them all, composts them at the dump, and uses them for mulch.

This was the first time I really studied the process. A couple of men used blowers to get stray leaves into the main pile. Then a vacuum tube sucked them into the truck. When I saw this tube bobbing and weaving I was reminded of an elephant’s trunk. It turns out it was being directed by a young man with a remote control device looking suspiciously like a video game joystick. While the job was getting done, I suspect he was imagining evil invaders, not mere leaves, being sucked up by his skillful hands!