Echoes from the Loafers’ Club meeting:

I was an old lion tamer. I quit last year.

Why did you quit?

I ran out of old lions.

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: if I were a chicken, an egg would be the same price as a new Cadillac.

If you don’t like the weather, blame the weatherman

I haven’t put the snow shovel away yet. I don’t want to rile the gods of winter. I spoke at a couple of things in Luverne, Minn., during this reluctant spring. The windshield wipers of my car were employed all the way there and back. Luverne had been suffering from a lack of moisture, as well as temperatures much lower than average. A farmer in that area told me that he’d just planted some corn. He said he was told that corn should be stored where it was dry and cold. That described the soil perfectly.

Mother’s Day

My mother taught me how to cook. Sort of. She showed me how to use a toaster. She taught me the right way to use it. Being able to make toast was a giver of goosebumps. A banquet of burned peanut butter sandwiches moved within my reach.

I have wondered since that time who it is who uses the highest setting on a toaster. And what do they use it for, thawing permafrost?

My mother taught me the right way to do many things. Turning bread into toast was but one of those things.

Happy Mother’s Day.

I wanted to live in a treehouse

Back when the only tablet I had was made by Alka-Seltzer.

Back when our family reunions had an entire table covered with nothing but homemade pies. LOL. That meant “lots of lard.”

Back when “The Wizard of Oz” was appointment viewing.

I had received a GE transistor radio and a much-wanted book by John Steinbeck for my birthday.

I placed the radio on top of the book and positioned them on my nightstand so they would be the first things I’d see when I opened my eyes in the morning.

Added to the bouquet of frying bacon and brewing coffee coming from the kitchen, they made for the start of a fine day.

My friends the ex-cons

In the process of chasing the horizon, I drove through Prairieville, Sogn, and Wangs, three Minnesota towns that can’t get much smaller. A stranger waved at me. I waved back. Your cousin who lives there says, “Hi.”

As I left Sogn, I listened to an NPR story about our overcrowded prisons.

My grandmother and aunt lived in a very small town in Iowa. It was nearly nonexistent. They lived next to a couple of elderly bachelors. I was told that the two old men had spent time in prison, but neither my aunt nor my grandmother would tell me why. As a boy, I visited often with the two old bachelors, trying to find out why they had been in prison, without asking them. I’d hold up a newspaper showing a headline of some crime and say, “Why would anyone ever do something like this?”

They seemed nice. Maybe prison had changed them.

Customer comments

Viola Nolte of Fairmont began teaching country school in 1935. She had 30 pupils in grades one through eight. She was paid $35 a month.

Ric McArthur of Morpeth, Ontario wrote, “The National Institute of Health has just released the results of a $200 million research study completed under a grant to Johns Hopkins. The new study found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.”

I overheard a coach yelling out instructions during a girls basketball game in Prior Lake, “Guard your man. Don’t let her out of your sight!”

Nature notes

Doug Bushlack of New Richland asked how to discourage grackles at the feeders. Don’t use tray or platform feeders that allow grackles to land. Tube feeders surrounded by cages work. They allow small birds to enter, but not larger birds. There are feeders with adjustable, weight-activated perches that close when a heavier bird, like a grackle, lands on it. Feeders can be made unappealing by shortening or removing perches. Reduce the amount of seed that birds throw out by replacing seed mixes with black-oil sunflower or hulled sunflower seed. Use safflower. Grackles eat many kinds of seed, but don’t favor safflower.