Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting:

This soup is terrible.

That’s not soup. It’s oatmeal.

Oh, then it’s delicious.

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: I saw bicyclists and motorcyclists wearing helmets. A bicyclist ran a stop sign in front of my car. Maybe I should have been wearing a helmet, too? The best way to forgive someone is to ask for forgiveness in return. The first thing to get for a family project is a mop. In a perfect world, mosquitoes would suck fat instead of blood.

The cafe chronicles

The coffee was so strong it even woke up the people who didn’t drink it. I don’t drink coffee, but apparently it doesn’t need to be that good early in the morning. It just needs to be coffee. I like good tea. There’s a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln that says, “If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

As I said, I drink tea. A fellow loafer told me that anyone who wakes up in the morning and doesn’t crave a cup of coffee, probably isn’t worth waking up.

Those thrilling days of yesteryear

I plopped down in an easy chair. It was comfy, bad springs and all, and the perfect perch for me to enjoy reading a Steinbeck book I’d checked out of the library. Something made a sound as I sat down. It was the sound of something breaking. Just then, my mother walked into the room.

“You’re not wearing your new glasses,” she said. “You haven’t misplaced them? I hope you know where they are.”

I did. I knew exactly where they were.

An account of a cruise

I was a tour leader on a delightful cruise. It was a give-and-take- journey. I was given food or had my photo taken each time I turned around. People go on cruises to see what puts on more pounds — waists or suitcases. It’s where a seasick individual sends postcards reading, “Having a time. Wish I were there.”

I asked the captain how many miles per hour the ship was traveling. He said, “Knots to you.”

Don’t ask

I admit it. I’m hard to live with. I’m terrible to be around in the morning. I wake up cheerful. When I set my alarm, I awake before it has a chance to go off. I’m not aware of a term that describes the ability to wake up just before an alarm sounds. My cousin Roger Batt of Algona asked if there’s a name for asking a question that you already know the answer to. Parents find this an effective method of uncovering deceit. “Where have you been?” “What have you been doing?” are often asked when the parent knows where and what. Children learn to answer questions with questions, such as “What do you mean?” “Who told you that?” and “Why do you want to know?”

Asking a question that we already know the answer to isn’t really a rhetorical question. A rhetorical question is one in which no answer is expected or required.

I’ve been told that a great lawyer knows the answer before he asks any question. A teacher’s job is to ask questions she knows the answers to.

A term I was taught was a “known-answer question.” It’s rather unwieldy, but descriptive.

Saying goodbye, but hoping it isn’t

Life is a balancing act. We each are one of the Flying Wallendas. We do and say what we need to get by.

Some people find it hard to say, “Goodbye.” My cousin Harold “Mike” Batt of Cedar Falls was a small boy when he accompanied his brother Dick, on the day Dick left for the army. Mike said “goodbye” and never saw his older brother again. Dick was killed in action.

My brother Donald found it difficult to say “goodbye.” When he was in the service, he said goodbye to a good friend. That friend was killed that day in battle. Goodbye had a frightening finality to it.

Donald said “goodbye” in other ways. “I’ll see you,” “I’d better get” or “Well, I suppose.”

Meeting adjourned

“Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.” — Edwin Arlington Robinson