Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

“How do I get back to the interstate highway?”

“Go back the same way you came.”

“I can’t remember how I got here.”

“I can’t help. I wasn’t with you.”

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: When it comes to weather, we remember the highs and lows, not the averages.

Things I’ve learned

1. If you think that people don’t care how you look, try cutting your own hair.

2. Lutefisk should be eaten only during the months with a Q in their names.

3. Remembering things isn’t hard, but forgetting them is easy.

From the neighborhood

My neighbor Old Man McGinty, the youngest Old Man McGinty ever, told me that when he was a boy, his father led the horse that Old Man McGinty rode to school. People complained that Old Man McGinty had no respect for his elders. He rode while his father walked. So his father started to ride the horse while Old Man McGinty walked to school. Then people grumbled about how terrible it was that a boy had to walk while his father rode. So they both walked. Then people said that they were foolish for walking when they had a good horse to ride.

I asked Old Man McGinty for the point of his story.

He replied, “I learned that you can never please everyone.”

The perils of peregrination

I was speaking at a conference in a fine hotel. My room had a Sleep Number bed that allowed me to adjust the firmness of the mattress with the touch of a button. I didn’t get much sleep. I stayed awake doing math. I ate breakfast in the hotel’s self-service nook. A busy spot early in the morning. A fellow diner spilled apple juice on the floor. He began to clean up the spill with napkins. A hotel worker told him not to worry about it and that the worker would clean the floor. The man continued to mop up. The hotel worker smiled and said, “It’s nice to see someone who is willing to clean up his own mess.”

Prehistoric prom

I remember my senior prom like it was a long time ago.

I don’t remember what the theme of that prom was. I think it involved a plucked ostrich, black licorice, and dynamite, but I’m not sure. The band was Wilford Brimley and the Thick Moustaches. I shuffle-danced to the music with my lovely date, trying to be cool without knowing how. It was the end and it was the beginning.

It’s what we get

We spend much of our lives being almost but not quite. In this case, it was almost spring but not quite.

I was sitting in my car at a gas pump, emptying my pockets. A friend told me, “Up the street the snow is coming down.”

The wind soughed through the advertising signs surrounding the convenience store. It was the middle of April and it was snowing. Real snow, not those flurries that panic parts of the world but are ignored by winter-weary people. Snow! Snow! Some saw the day as a glass that was half-empty with a fly in it. Not me. I realized how fortunate I am. I have experienced thundersnow and I have seen snow fleas.

The calendar said that it was spring. The seasons are what we expect. Weather is what we get.

Marital bliss

A lifelong friend named Keith Wakefield was married on his bride’s birthday. The couple celebrates their anniversary on her birthday. One year, Keith gave his wife a pair of earrings — one for their anniversary and the other for her birthday.

The question man

The man told me that he was from Duluth.

“What do you do there?” I asked, being nosey.

“I was born there,” he answered.

He apparently had had a lot of free time in his life.