Echoes From the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I’ve got some bad news for you.

Give it to me. I’m sitting down.

I just painted the chair you’re sitting on.

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: Calories make the world go round. Most things are like toilet paper. You never realize what you have until it’s gone. The original punch line was, “Ouch!”

Fowl consideration

I could still fit into the clothes I wore in 2015, so it was time to think of food. Chicken came to mind. A chicken dinner, and I didn’t mean corn, would be sublime. The hotel clerk gave me the phone number of a nearby provider of fried chicken. She said that they delivered. That sounded like a plan, as I needed to put the finishing touches on a couple of magazine articles.

I called in the order and got to work. When I work, I lose track of time. At least until my stomach growled. I looked at the time on my digital device. Three hours had passed.

I’d been looking forward to fried fowl that would never arrive. My order had gone to that place where unfulfilled orders go.

I learned a lesson. Don’t count my chickens before they’re dispatched.

Operators were standing by

I’d tried to explain a rotary dial telephone to a youngster.

His face went into screensaver mode.

That’s two hours that I’ll never get back. I didn’t even mention how people once held a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and snarled at their family, “Shhhh! It’s long distance.”

Long distance was a miracle that only maps could explain. It brought voices of loved ones from faraway places.

Long distances aren’t as far away as they once were. The voices, still welcomed, are more easily heard. I no longer have a rotary phone in my office that used to be on the other side of the house. It was moved to its current location due to office politics.

My office isn’t that messy. Maybe it’s because I don’t do enough work, but I think it’s because I’m well organized.

Even though it’d be difficult to send a text with it, my office could use a rotary phone.

The Duke of Speedometer

I was driving a rental car, a Chevy Somethingorother, on a two-lane road in Ohio. It was a beautiful day and the traffic was behaving. I felt as rich as Croesus. The radio was tuned to one of those solid gold to make me feel old stations. Some old songs never grow old. “Duke of Earl” by Gene Chandler was playing. It’s a nifty number. The chorus goes like this, “Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl. Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl. Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl. Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl.” It’s catchy and it brought back memories. My teenage set of wheels had been an old Ford (Fix Or Repair Daily) in which nothing much worked. The speedometer didn’t work, but the radio did. It was an AM version that allowed me to occasionally listen to “Duke of Earl.” If each time Gene Chandler sang “Duke,” my Ford (Found On Road Dead) passed a broken line marking the middle of the road, I knew that I was doing 55 mph. That’s good to know if you have a broken speedometer and access to the “All ‘Duke of Earl’ Channel.”

Those thrilling days of yesteryear

The weather wasn’t conducive to travel, but I had a date with an exotic beauty from far away. An exotic beauty from far away was any girl who lived 10 miles from me. This one lived in the Twin Cities. Ten miles multiplied many times.

“How long do you think it’ll take me to get to Minneapolis?” I asked.

My father replied, “In this weather, I’d say at least three hours.”

“I’ll bet I could get there faster than that.”

“I’ll bet you can’t,” said the jury at my trial. “You can’t use the car.”

Meeting adjourned

Mark Christenson of Minneapolis wrote, “Mitch Miller mentioned the word, ‘Kind’ in his closing song. It went like this: ‘Be kind to your web-footed friends. For a duck may be somebody’s mother. Be kind to your friends in the swamp. Where the weather is always damp. You may think that this is the end. Well, it is!’”

That was the theme song for my radio show for years.