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Echoes From the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

Happy birthday. I didn’t get you anything.

That’s the same thing you got me last year.

And you haven’t used it up yet.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. I was navigating a new day. I had rings on my fingers and bells on my toes—or vice versa, and I could still fog a mirror.

I picked up a bunch of light bulbs at the hardware store. Many bulbs make light work.

The cashier said, “Lots of bulbs,” because she thought she should say something.

“I’m a light eater,” I responded, because I thought I should say something in return.

The Table of Infinite Knowledge

I stopped at the Eat Around It Cafe because food tastes best with a home or a cafe surrounding it.

I’m not a coffee drinker, but a knight at The Table of Infinite Knowledge told me the coffee was so strong it mugged people. He described it as too thick to stir and too wet to plow.

I enjoy spending time in places where my visit  doubles the town’s population. I’ve stayed in the dead guy’s cabin when the dead guy wasn’t there. The cabin had a shower, a bulletin board, a bed and a broken coffee maker that strong coffee had mugged.

I’ve learned

I had a security blankie when I was a tot. I retired it on my 18th birthday. It was an emotional support blankie. Family and friends do that blankie’s job today.

The memory of a deceased loved one’s voice fades much too quickly.

There are never lines to the bathroom at a waterpark.

What I used to do without thinking, I now think without doing.

Thanks to leaky brains, life is made of moments we don’t remember.

Ask Al

“Who are Snap, Crackle and Pop?” They’re the sounds made during a football game.

“What does winter provide the most of in Minnesota—snow, cold, wind, ice or what?” Drama.

“How did your grandparents survive the Great Depression?” They saved string.

Bad jokes department

The fellow told me he was in a McDonald’s drive-thru when the young woman behind him leaned on her horn and started shouting because he was taking too long to place his order. What did she expect? There were over 100 menu items. When he got to the first window, he paid for her order and his own. The cashier must have told her what he’d done, because she leaned out her window and waved to him and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” Arriving at the second window, he showed the guy manning the drive-thru window both receipts and took his food and the young woman’s food. She had to go back to the end of the line and start over again. He said her order was better than his.

What’s the difference between a camera and a sock? A camera takes photos, while a sock takes five toes.

Nature notes

It’s impossible not to be impressed by birds. One day, I watched a chickadee excavate a nest cavity. Its tiny bill had become a Swiss Army knife. Here’s an interesting fact: everything on Earth is either a chickadee or not.

Blue jays appeared to be having a party. They were likely celebrating a happy belated hatchday of one.

I saw seven crows perched, one each on seven fenceposts. I suspect it was a board meeting, and I hope good things came from it.

I enjoyed seeing a northern harrier, a slim, long-tailed hawk gliding low over a grassland while holding its wings in a V-shape and showing a white patch at the base of its tail. If I’d been closer, I’d have seen its owlish face, which helps it hear mice and voles. When I was a lad, it was called a marsh hawk as it hunted over agricultural land, marshes and shrubby wetlands. Its floating flight gave rise to the male’s nickname, “gray ghost.”

Steve Weston passed along the statewide 125th Annual Christmas Bird Count results from 90 counts done in Minnesota from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5. Frozen lakes kept Canada geese numbers 57% below the 10-year average. Wild turkeys, bald eagles, barred owls, Cooper’s hawks, red-shouldered hawks, red-headed woodpeckers, tufted titmice, eastern bluebirds, white-crowned sparrows and white-winged crossbills set records for high numbers. Ruffed grouse set a record, and sharp-tailed grouse nearly did. Pheasant numbers were down. 

Meeting adjourned

A kind word can improve the world. Anne Frank wrote, ”How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”