Echoes From the Loafers’ Club Meeting

Enjoying your melon-sized muffin?

Yup.

You’re supposed to take the plastic wrapping off the muffin before you eat it.

I thought it was a little chewy.

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 world might not be ready for four-way stop signs. Why can’t misery love being alone? Think twice, speak once. I want slow food fast.

I almost wrecked my Hesperus

It’s nearly impossible for me to walk by a backhoe without watching it work. Each backhoe is an expedition in itself. Not quite like Lewis and Clark, but close.

I consider the Lewis and Clark Expedition to be this country’s great, epic adventure. It boggles the mind as to how they were able to accomplish what they did without the use of a single selfie stick.

I found my mother’s memory just as amazing.

My mother liked Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She memorized “The Wreck of the Hesperus.” She was able to recite this long, narrative poem until her dying day.

I couldn’t memorize my school locker number.

I decided to learn things by heart other than the statistics on the back of baseball cards.

I tried to find contentment in memorizing one of Longfellow’s quotes, “We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.”

I needed to do more. I told my mother that I was going to memorize Evangeline, an epic poem by Longfellow. This poem is longer than our winters.

I tried. I felt like Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner, but I kept at it.

And I did memorize it, but just the title.

Serving as a bad example every winter

I don’t think that it’s the difference between optimism and pessimism, but when a winter storm is forecast, my wife expects the worst and I expect it will miss us. I figure that those in the weather predicting business tend to foretell more storms than we could ever get. They do so for two reasons. If they predict a storm that doesn’t happen, we are happy. We’ve dodged a bullet. If they hadn’t informed us of a possible storm and we get one, we are unhappy. My wife is wise in taking precautions. The cold and snow can be a lethal combination. I marvel that -40 degrees Fahrenheit equals -40 degrees Celsius. We get lots of snow at home. We’re subject to river-effect snow. The Le Sueur River can be cruel.

I shoveled deep snow and put letters in the mailbox. I lost both my shoes in the process. My Crocs weren’t winter ready. My shoeless feet became so cold that my feet turned blue. Actually, only one was blue. The other foot was black. I was wearing mismatched socks.

It could have been worse. When I was a boy, walking five miles to school, uphill in both directions, I was too poor to have shoes. I wrapped my feet in barbed wire.

When basketball players rush the stands

I watched a high school boys basketball game between the Triton Cobras (Dodge Center, Claremont, West Concord) and the GFW Thunderbirds (Gibbon, Fairfax, Winthrop) played on a neutral court. It was an exciting game with Triton winning by a single point.

After the game, the players and staff of the two teams shuffled by one another, touching hands and chanting the traditional, “Good game.” Then the GFW players walked across the court and moved into the stands to shake hands with their fans and thank them for being there. That was nice.

I asked the coach of the Thunderbirds, Rich Busse, about the habit. He said that the team had instituted the custom some years ago to express appreciation for support and to let everyone know that it’s not all about the final score.

I found it a delightful sign of respect and gratitude from a team worth rooting for.

Nature notes

American goldfinches molt twice a year, acquiring bright, yellow feathers in the spring before breeding and olive-brown feathers after nesting in the fall. The fall feathers are denser, providing needed insulation. The color of their legs, feet and bill change with each molt. In fall and winter, their legs, feet and bill are a dark grayish-brown. In spring and summer, they change to a buffy yellow-orange.

Meeting adjourned

William Arthur Ward said, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” Be kind.