Echoes from the Loafers’ Club:

Where is the Hanson place?

It’s across the road from the Nelson place.

Where is the Nelson place?

It’s across the road from the Hanson place.

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: The thermometer on the dashboard of my car just matched the temperature on a school’s digital time and temperature sign. That rarely happens. I took it as a sign of good things. I probably should have bought a lottery ticket. I’ve never purchased one. I’m told I can never win unless I buy a ticket. That seems unfair.

Cafe chronicles

I sat down at a table that was so clean, you could eat off it. Men drank coffee passively from cups bearing their names as rented teeth worked their magic on sweet rolls. The coffee-drinking app on one man’s cellphone was declared completely worthless.

Another man spoke of his annual attendance at the local church. He claimed it made him a dependable churchgoer. He goes every Christmas without fail. He is a diet Lutheran.

I enjoyed pie smothered in whipped cream. I did so, even though I could still see a bit of the pie peeking out from under the whipped cream.

Two fellows talked about the good old days of 30-cent gas and only three TV channels. They talked about their youthful exploits and the simple pleasures of earlier times. After a lengthy discussion, one of them summed it all up by saying, “That must have been two other guys. We’re not that old.”

A blissful birthday bash

I enjoyed kraut dumpling soup at the Cottage Cafe in Amboy with my bride and friends. It was our way of celebrating my wife’s birthday and the natal day of a friend named Tim Scott. The food at the Cottage Cafe is always scrumptious, most always even better than that. I ate delicious soup in honor of the birthday celebrants. What a guy I am. I felt at home seated at that table. It felt like the time when I’d been moved up from the kids’ table to the adults’ table at Christmas. I didn’t know if I deserved it, but I was happy to be there. I had chased a dream. I try not to take things for granted. I realize how blessed I am to know who I know. I have so many heroes in my life; people who I look up to. I smiled as I sat with my heroes who liked me despite the fact I had always made my snowmen with eyebrows.

Customer comments

Viola Nolte of Fairmont said that her daughter mailed her a challenging jigsaw puzzle. Viola and her friends struggled to put the puzzle together. In the midst of that battle, one lady said, “The next time your daughter sends you a jigsaw puzzle, have her put it together first.”

Arlo Tweeten of Hartland told me his uncle Irving Tweeten umpired some baseball games in Wisconsin. One game featured a pitcher who threw faster than anyone Irving had ever seen. Irving called the fireballer’s initial pitch of the first inning a ball because it sounded low.

Darwyn Olson of Hartland said his mother Ethel had a great desire to be helpful on the farm. No job was beneath her. She did whatever tasks that needed doing. She was always asking her husband and son, “What do you want me to do?” When she found herself living in a nursing home, she continued to ask her family, “What do you want me to do?”

All the great men around me are dying and I don’t feel so well myself. A friend, Leslie Olson of Hartland, passed away recently. I’ll miss him. He and his wife Dolores had been married 64 years. Dolores told me that her daughter, Amy Brown of Owatonna, had been diligent in her photo taking whenever the family had gathered in the last few years. Dolores described the efforts of the hard-working camera with the words, “Funeral pictures.”

Euphemisms for death

Rick Mammel of Albert Lea wrote, “I’ve had one for many years, that someone is staring at the bottom side of sod.”

Nature notes

Red-tailed hawks don’t have red tails until they are over 2 years old. Immature birds typically molt into adult plumage — including a red tail — at the beginning of their second year.

Meeting adjourned

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.”