Echoes From the Loafers’ Club Meeting

Herb was wearing the ugliest Christmas sweater I’ve ever seen. It was hideous.

Did you say anything to him?

Sure. I told him that I really liked his sweater.

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: It was a nice December day. No mosquitoes. I remember storms where the north winds came from the south and were so windy that stores sold rocks for people to place into their pockets to keep from being blown away. The temperature dropped so quickly that it bent the nail holding the thermometer. Without the cold, we wouldn’t appreciate being warm. Snow was in the forecast. The weatherman used a snow globe to predict the weather. It was as cold as a January gravestone when I heard my wife saying this to a friend on the phone, “Since the cold hit, all my husband does is look through the window. If it gets any colder, I’ll have to let him in.”

Life is humbling

I was sitting with a grandchild.

“Grandpa, are you famous?” asked the little one. Grandchildren are precious — and gullible.

“It depends on who you ask,” I replied, trying to sound as someone famous might. “But I wouldn’t ask your grandmother.

Not long after that, I was in a classroom in the midst of a lovely college setting. I advised one of my students that when he said, “I could care less,” he was incorrect. He wasn’t expressing what he’d intended. What he’d said meant that he had some interest when he didn’t have any and that he should have said, “I couldn’t care less.”

That’s what I told him.

He couldn’t have cared less.

Counter checks and Green Stamps

My father did his Christmas shopping at Einar’s Hardware. If Einar didn’t have it, we weren’t getting it. If my father was short on cash or lacking his checkbook (my mother kept it in her purse), Einar provided counter checks for the convenience of his customers. Counter checks carried no names. There were spaces for the customer to fill in the appropriate information, including the name of the bank, before signing. Banks processed the checks manually in those days.

Some businesses gave Sperry & Hutchinson Green Stamps with a purchase. This was to help build customer loyalty. The more you spent, the more stamps you received. After you filled enough Green Stamp books you could redeem them for a wide range of things from toasters to life insurance policies. One school in Pennsylvania saved enough Green Stamps to buy gorillas for zoos. There were other stamp enterprises, but none more popular than S&H, which began in 1896. A survey done in the 1960s showed that 84 percent of households saved trading stamps of some kind. More trading stamps were printed than were printed by the U.S. Post Office.

Eventually, my mother saved enough stamps to go to the redemption center and trade them in for merchandise. She had perused a catalog and set her targets. She did her Christmas shopping with stamps. My mother’s tongue must have been licked raw from all those stamps. Strange, huh? Whoever heard of licking stamps?

Most stamp companies faded with history, but Green Stamps are still around, sort of. The company offers “Green Points” as rewards for online purchases.

A scene from a marriage

My wife and I were Christmas shopping.

She shopped. I whimpered. I was having trouble with my eyes. I couldn’t see myself shopping.

“You’re not much good in a store. You know that, don’t you?” said my wife.

“I’m not much good in a lot of other places, too,” a good offense is the best defense.

“I wonder why I bother taking you shopping with me?” asked my wife.

I wondered the same thing.

Don’t forget

The human mind can hold only so much. We forget important things in order to make room for useless information such as a junior high school locker combination.

Forgetfulness can be frightening. Each of us has walked into a room and been unable to remember why. My Christmas wish for each and every one of you is that you never forget why you walked into a bathroom.

Nature notes

“Is the black squirrel a separate species?” No, it’s typically the melanistic form of a gray squirrel, but it does occur in fox squirrels, too.

Meeting adjourned

“I don’t think Christmas is necessarily about things. It’s about being good to one another, it’s about the Christian ethic, it’s about kindness.”

—Carrie Fisher