Echoes From the Loafers’ Club Meeting

When we began going steady in high school, she wore my class ring around her neck.

Big ring?

Small neck.

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: Never go to a dentist who has a lost and found bucket filled with teeth. The easiest job in the garden is to make two weeds grow where one grew before. The best place to store something is in the first place you’d look for it.

The driver was number one

I once worked in a machine shop. I was fortune’s fool. There were many things there that could have done me great bodily harm. Part of my job was to count my fingers at the end of each workday.

I thought of that as I drove in the heavy rain. The windshield wipers on another car looked angry as they whipped across the glass. I was attempting to skedaddle. The traffic was moving as slowly as a Walmart greeter with lumbago. One driver honked at a pedestrian. The pedestrian flipped him off. The walker was obviously a man who worked with his hands.

Speaking of writing

One of the many nice things about presenting at author’s conferences is hanging out with writer friends.

Kenny Salwey, the legendary Last River Rat from Alma, Wisconsin, told me that the only good time to take a nap is when you should be doing something else.

William Durbin lives on Lake Vermilion at the edge of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. His research paints an authentic historical picture in books telling stories of homesteaders, fur traders and lumberjacks. Bill worked part-time at a car dealership when he was in school. He drank the coffee there until he saw Shorty, the head mechanic, using an oily screwdriver to stir the grounds in the coffeemaker. It might have been a Phillips screwdriver.

A student got me with this. “Why did the duck cross the road?”

I guessed it was to show the opossum that it could be done, but that wasn’t the answer, which was to get to the idiot’s house. “Knock, knock,” continued the young man.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“The duck.”

Bath safety

I grew up near a village called Bath. Bath is north of anything south of it and south of everything north of it. The town actually moved closer to our farm thanks to strong north winds. Bath is so small that when everyone caught a cold, no one in Bath did. That’s because the population of Bath is zero. Gregg Menefee was the last resident. He was the mayor and everything else. He’d been the dogcatcher until he finally caught the dog. One day, Gregg read in the newspaper that most accidents occur in the home. He moved someplace safer.

Safety has always played a part in my life. In gym class we climbed a thick rope up to steel beams. Our teacher was so concerned about our safety, he put a 1-inch thick red mat below the rope. It was red so it wouldn’t show the blood and it could be used to roll a body in. It’s a miracle anybody makes it to adulthood. We tore around. We should have been too tired to grow up. We had choking hazards in marbles, jacks were miniature road spikes and lawn darts were kid-sized harpoons. When we jumped on the bed, my mother told us to take turns. When I skinned my knee, she assured me that the skin would grow back and at least I hadn’t torn my pants. We played with ladders. We were guinea pigs in our own science project, but we made it. That tickles me sideways.

Mother’s Day redux

It was Mother’s Day. My wife and I attended an AAU basketball tournament in Bloomington. We watched my granddaughter Joey play for one team and my son Brian coach one in another age group. Before the final game of the tournament, my son and granddaughter presented my wife with a lovely purple orchid in front of umpteen players and fans. It made me tear up. I’m a grandfather. I shed tears easily. When I was a small boy, I cried when I had to go to bed. Now I cry when I have to get out of bed. Joey’s team won the game. I teared up again.

Nature notes

Studies show that monarch butterflies have mortality rates of over 90 percent during the egg and larval stages.

Meeting adjourned

“Anyone who takes the time to be kind is beautiful.” — Richelle E. Goodrich