Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting:

“If I had Warren Buffet’s money, I’d be richer than he is.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, I’d have both his money and mine.”

 

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: where I live, we have air that hasn’t even been breathed yet.

 

I grew up along the shores of Mule Lake

You might be from Mule Lake if you floss by eating sweet corn.

I watched Barney Fife as he and Matt Dillon helped Perry Mason find Lassie. We didn’t get very good TV reception.

As I did my farm chores, I didn’t dream of becoming Barney Fife, although that would have been a worthy goal. I dreamed of becoming a licensed driver who owned a car.

When that dream became a reality, I was the proud owner of a car that had its value doubled whenever I filled it with gas. It had no horsepower. It had possumpower.

I put oversized tires on the rear of the car. They were much bigger than those on the front. I didn’t do that because it looked cool. I did it because it fooled the motor into thinking it was going downhill.

 

Shopping takes a wrong turn

I drove by a business that had closed recently. Sad thing. It was someone’s dream.

I recently walked into a store I frequent. I’m somewhere else more than I’m in the store, but I do shop there for business supplies. I came though the front doors. That’s a good place to start. These doors that lead to other doors are the kind that open automatically when they sense the presence of a customer. I stepped through those doors and turned right. That was wrong. Turning right led to the exit doors. I backtracked and entered the store through the doors made for entering. I turn right, the wrong way, almost every time I enter that store. I blame it on Credence Clearwater Revival. I enjoy listening to CCR. In their song, “Bad Moon Rising,” there is the line, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” That’s the line, but it sounds as if they are singing, “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

A lot of stress can be eliminated by never passing a restroom. Therefore, I turn right.

 

There was a story there

I stopped to get gas at Fleet Farm in Owatonna. As I filled the tank, a man drove past me driving an old Murray lawn tractor. He didn’t roar past me or zoom by me. It was more of a mosey. I paid for my gas forged from gold and continued my journey northward. As I turned off Bridge Street onto the I-35 entrance ramp, there he was motoring down it. I’d have loved to talk to that fellow.

 

Peter and the Wolf

In grammar school, one of my best days was when we listened to “Peter and the Wolf” on a record played on, what else, a record player. It was a composition by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1936; a children’s story spoken by a narrator accompanied by an orchestra. A flute played the bird’s theme, an oboe played the duck’s, and a clarinet played the cat’s theme. Watching birds is a symphony.

 

Did you know?

They advertised X-ray specs in the funny books. They were supposed to allow you to see through things. Feathers were sandwiched between two sheets of cardboard from which the glasses were cut. When you looked through the two 1/4-inch holes, you looked through the feathers, which diffracted light and created the impression of an x-ray.

Gazelle, a trade-in site for consumer electronics, said Tallahassee led its “Top Ten Klutziest Cities” list. New Orleans was second. The ratings were based on the percentage of cellphones exchanged that were cracked, dented or water-damaged.

 

Nature notes

I saw an opossum run over on the road. A car had hit it. Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the opossum it could be done. Opossums don’t understand cars. They stop in the middle of a road to look at a speeding automobile. As Pogo Possum, in Walt Kelly’s famed comic strip, said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The Virginia opossum, with 50 teeth, eats nearly anything. It has two litters of 6 to 20 each year. They have many babies so that some might avoid being hit by a Buick.

 

Meeting adjourned

A kind word makes the old feel young and the poor feel rich.