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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

I had a rough morning.

What happened?

I got up.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I’d put some blueberries on my oatmeal because I wanted the blueberry of happiness to visit me for breakfast. I needed it to recover from a Minnesota goodbye in Iowa. That’s where you say “goodbye,” but you never leave. You spend a long time at the exit door. It’s called “doorknob” therapy.

Out the door, I went for a long walk before climbing into my car. Life encourages us to walk as little as possible. We have drive-thru everything. Bank, food and pharmacy. Growing up, we had drive-ins—the root beer stand and the Passion Pit. Now we can shop without leaving the couch.

The clinic chronicles

I looked at my watch. There were no clocks on the wall because they don’t want you to know how long you’ve waited. I miss having a watch that I needed to wind. Those watches from my past have all gone with the wind. I was in the clinic, filling out a form. One of the questions asked who my closest relative was. I couldn’t answer it. I wasn’t sure if they meant from the clinic or my house.

The guy seated next to me was procrastinating on his form-filling duties. He told me he had some concerns with his liver and had asked his doctor if he had anything for his liver. The physician recommended fried onions.

I’ve learned

Time flies when you’re procrastinating.

I’ve known a lot of men named “Lefty,” but I don’t know a single one named “Righty.”

I was in the breakfast food aisle of a grocery store, checking cereal numbers, when a friend told me about a recent oil change to his chariot. He worried because there was no next-oil-change-due reminder sticker placed on the inside of his windshield. “Are they going out of business?” he wondered. “Don’t they want my business?” “Didn’t they change the oil?” That’s how rumors start.

Stopping the production of pennies makes no cents.

At least 37.8% of people who use statistics make them up.

One for the road means a visit to the bathroom.

HeadBox analyzed noise levels across the country using 10 key factors, from packed streets and heavy traffic to buzzing bars and constant flight activity. These factors highlighted daily noise exposure and gave a clear picture of the states with the highest sound levels. The noisiest state was New Jersey, followed by Florida. Alaska was the quietest, followed by Minnesota. Iowa was the 45th loudest.

I had a Shetland pony when I was a boy. Little horse on the prairie.

Dizie is a bad dizzy spell.

Bad jokes department

If you placed a blue whale on a regulation-sized basketball court, you’d have to postpone the game.

Wolverines paint their claws red so they can hide in cherry trees. Have you ever seen a wolverine in a cherry tree? That’s because its disguise works.

I have a cousin named Grandpa. It’s a family name. He’s from Iowa and says Minnesota is a lovely state, but it’s full of Minnesotans.

How do lumberjacks work from home? They log in.

Nature notes

It wasn’t “Love Train,” a 1982 hit by the O’Jays. What I heard were blue jays, handsome birds with substantial vocabularies. The vocal birds like to hear themselves squawk. What I heard were pumphandle calls or queedling. “Queedle, queedle.” The musical call has been likened to the sound of a squeaky clothesline, whistles or a complaining pumphandle. Jays learn the call of a hawk species that inhabits an area, and then mimic it when they near a feeding station. That often causes the birds at the feeders to scatter in panic, allowing the jays to have their pick of the food. An aggressive blue jay uses its loud calls (“jay,” “jeeah,” “queedle, queedle”) to alert others to danger. It’s unknown whether jays develop this ability to warn others that a hawk is close or as a manipulative device. Many blue jays might be named Jay or Jake. The purpose of pump handle calls is to communicate distress or alarm. Blue jays emit these calls when they sense danger and when they want to alert other members of their flock to a potential threat. The nature of the call catches the attention of other birds and prompts them to be alert.

Meeting adjourned

“Life is mostly froth and bubble, / Two things stand like stone, / Kindness in another’s trouble, / Courage in your own.”—Adam Lindsay Gordon.