Echoes From the Loafers’ Club Meeting

Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. Our 50th.

Congratulations.

For our 25th, I took my wife to Alaska.

What are you going to do for your 50th?

I’m going back to Alaska to get her.

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: A good listener is one who is still listening after hearing someone say, “When I was your age.” The three-second rule becomes a five-minute rule when we drop someone else’s food. Why can’t we parallel park without turning down the volume on the radio?

The cafe chronicles

The waitress answered our questions before we asked them, “The reason the sugar-free cookies are so good is that they have sugar in them. Just scrape off the part of any food that tastes funny. If you want instant coffee, you’ll have to wait. The special is a little tough. I don’t recommend that anyone with under 25 teeth order it.”

A Loafer was one of those guys when asked, “How are you?” thinks it’s a real question. He’d sat where a chair wasn’t and had trouble sitting anywhere now. He wasn’t one to spread good cheer. “You don’t need a reservation to eat here,” he grumbled, “but you’ll have reservations about eating here again.”

First grade was first class

If Lewis Carroll, author of “Through the Looking-Glass,” had been there, he’d have said, “’The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships—and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.’”

I could have said that, instead, I asked the first grader, “What did you do today?”

“I had fun,” came to reply.

“What was the most fun part of your day?” I said.

“All of it,” was his answer.

I’m here. It seems as if I were just there, but I think I want to be a first grader again.

The news from Hartland

Buck and Penny celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. The couple has always gotten along well, even though he likes money more than she does.

Reverend Dale E. Bread is capable of giving a long prayer or a short prayer. It depends on how long it takes the food to cool enough to be eaten.

Afterwords

A friend regularly became agitated while watching local basketball games. In an attempt to quiet his verbal assaults on the officials, the school authorities made him the official timekeeper. That worked well until one game when he found the officiating so horrendous that he could no longer remain silent. The referee asked, “I thought you were supposed to be the timekeeper.”

He responded, “And I thought you were supposed to be a referee.”

My mother had just had cataract surgery. She was anxious to resume driving. The cataracts had been dimming her eyesight for years. She made light of that fact. As she rode home with the family after the operation, she commented, “When did they start putting those lines on the highway?”

My zipper broke. I didn’t notice it until I was in the middle of a number of appointments. I had no duct tape, safety pin or stapler to repair that bit of my trousers. I tried a paper clip, but it wasn’t much help. When such things happen to you, do you tell people about it or hope they won’t notice? I solved the problem by walking backwards.

A traveling man

On a visit to England, I found the residents extremely nice and polite. They reminded me of a bad joke. “How do you get a Brit to apologize?” You step on his foot.

I caught a taxi to the airport. It was a spiffy car with a pleasant driver. The fare seemed high, but the cabbie went the extra mile.

Nature notes

“What can I do for an injured bird?” If it’s a raptor or a vulture, contact the Raptor Center located at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul at 612-624-4745. For other injured or orphaned birds and mammals, call the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville at 651-486-9453.

Nature on the radio

Please join me as I share some of nature’s stories every Tuesday morning after the 10 p.m. news on KMSU, 89.7 or 91.3 on the FM dial. Look to KTOE.com and Talk of the Town with Pete Steiner to find archived podcasts of the shows on KTOE.

Meeting adjourned

“We rise by lifting others.” — Robert Ingersoll.

Be kind.