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Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I watched someone do 50 pushups yesterday.

Do you think you could do that?

Of course. I could watch someone do 100 pushups.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. March came in like a weather report. The winter ends when I can be sure my face won’t fall off in an icy wind. A friend likes to celebrate the end of winter with the Captain. When he was young, it was with Captain Morgan. Now it’s with Cap’n Crunch.

I stopped at a kilt shop in Seattle because I’d never stopped at a kilt shop in Seattle before. The shop offered stylish kilts with functional pockets suitable for a Sunday go-to-meeting at the local Lutheran Church. A customer, not wearing kilts, told me he regularly wore them. Trying not to be dumber than absolutely necessary, I asked him if wearing a kilt was difficult to get used to.

“No, he said, “it’s a breeze.”

Life is not a Super Bowl commercial. I had a stroke. Now I have an excuse for not remembering someone’s name. I got up in the morning, walked to the bathroom, and looked at the mirror. I like to smile at the mirror every morning. I figure if I can’t smile at my image, I won’t be able to smile at anyone else. A second benefit is that at least I’ll make one person smile that day. I took a gander. My odd reflection looked odder than usual. One side of my smile had a severe droop to it. A trip to the ER followed by an ambulance ride, with a few minor bumps in the road, to another hospital where after telling 73 healthcare professionals (each of whom was an angel) my name (spelling included) and birthdate, before they asked to see my smile, I spent a few days in the hospital and am now on the mend. I recommend the aspirin suppository and the saline solution drip. The removal of the countless sticky EKG electrodes allowed me to get something off my chest—hair. I’ve moved from taking no prescriptions to taking enough pills to put my piggy bank on a rapid weight-loss program. I shouldn’t have spent all my “Jeopardy’ winnings on that Salted Nut Roll. My smile has returned. I’m happy to see it.

I’ve learned

Crwth, pronounced “krooth,” is an ancient stringed instrument associated with Welsh music. It’s also called a crowd.

Hamburgers taste the best when they’re surrounded by a small-town cafe.

Being an adult is eating something, not because you like it, but because you’ve paid for it.

Texas has the most counties (254). I thought Rhode Island would have the fewest, but they have 5. Delaware has the fewest with 3. Iowa has 99, Nebraska 93, Minnesota 87, Wisconsin 72 and South Dakota 66.

Bad jokes department

A librarian’s favorite vegetable is quiet peas.

Attention BMW and Audi drivers: If you’ll move your seat forward slightly, you can get even closer to the rear bumper of the vehicle ahead of you.

I’m investing in stocks—beef, vegetable and chicken. I hope to become a bouillonaire.

What do you call a car parked outside the cathedral’s bell tower? The hatchback of Notre Dame.

Nature notes

I watched trumpeter swans. The DNR Nongame Wildlife Program collected swan eggs in 1987-1988 from Alaska. Several friends of mine, Carrol Henderson and Steve Kittelson in Minnesota and Jim King in Alaska, were instrumental in this endeavor. The eggs were incubated and the cygnets reared at Minnesota’s Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area in Anoka County until they were two years old. Releases began in 1987 near Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge in Becker County and continued for over twenty years at Tamarac NWR and other sites. Swan Lake in Nicollet County, known as Manha tanka otamenda by the Sioux (“Lake-of-the-Many-Large-Birds”), is where trumpeter swans were first documented to be nesting in the United States.

Great horned owls begin nesting in abandoned nests of squirrels, hawks or crows in January or February. Female owls lay one to five eggs, which hatch in 30 to 37 days. The “horns” atop a great horned owl’s head are tufts of feathers called plumicorns. This owl is a winged tiger that isn’t a picky eater—it eats skunks. A meat never found in the best sandwich shops. The owl’s handshake is firmer than a weightlifter’s.

The breeding seasons of most spiders coincide with the transition from summer to fall.

Meeting adjourned

I’m sending you kind thoughts telepathically. Keep smiling. I wish you good health.