Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I got married on Christmas Eve.

Why then?

We wanted to have a married Christmas.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I don’t remember it, but I must have gotten a D- in geography. That explains why I went to Alaska instead of Hawaii in November.

I’m an adventurous soul who enjoys museums more than theme parks, especially those theme parks whose theme is waiting in line. I haven’t enjoyed theme parks since the year I spent three days in a challenging corn maze and made a memorable visit to a grizzly bear petting zoo.

I visited the Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska. The Piraha are indigenous people of Brazil who have a near lack of numeracy. Their language expresses relative quantities such as some and more, but not precise numbers. There were more hammers at the Hammer Museum.

The idiom “flying off the handle” likely derived from hammer heads flying off handles. David Maydole crafted a curved hammer head with an extended socket in 1840 that allowing the handle to be more tightly and securely wedged into place. There is a 19-foot tall Maydole hammer outside the Hammer Museum housing a herd of hammers, including a 36-pound claw hammer. There are medical, war, prospector, airline ice-breaking, bank check-canceling, foot massage, flint knapping, double claw and autopsy hammers enough to make the world one big nail. Oh, and MC Hammer. I aspire to be a greeter there one day if the job wouldn’t give me a pounding headache.

Mayo maladies and merry melodies

I was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester on the day before December.

That made it the Christmas season by many definitions.

I sat in a waiting area where endless human experiences unfold daily. Lives were at sixes and sevens (a condition of confusion or disarray). There are endless layers of complexity to every life.

Red and green colors walked by as Christmas music played. A woman seated near me ended a phone call and began weeping. We cry at bad news and we cry at good news. I hoped her tears were caused by good news. I reckon a happy life is one with more laughs than sobs. To paraphrase Emily Dickinson, “Life is a bee. It has a song — It has a sting — Ah, too, it has a wing.”

Being ill changes people in odd ways. Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” A woman from Nebraska said she’d given up watching the “Price is Right” to do jigsaw puzzles. It’s a way she deals with cancer.

“Away in the Manger” played softly before a shrill alarm sounded numerous times. Each alarm was loud and prolonged. After an alarming amount of racket, a voice on the PA system said it was a test of the facility’s fire alarms. That announcement might have been more effective had it been before the fire alarm sounded. That’s the way life is. Things happen without warnings or explanations.

The lovely rendition of “Away in the Manger” resumed.

I thought of the words Charles Schulz gave to Charlie Brown and Snoopy, “What if today, we were just grateful for everything.”

I was and I am grateful for everything and then some. I used my magical powers to walk out the door onto life’s next great adventure.

Nature notes

There is the “Farmers’ Almanac” in Lewiston, Maine, and the “Old Farmer’s Almanac” in Dublin, New Hampshire. The two publications are useful and entertaining, and make great gifts. They are reminders to enjoy the weather.

The 2019 “Farmers’ Almanac“ predicts a colder-than-normal winter from the Continental Divide east through the Appalachians. The “Farmers’ Almanac,” which bases its long-range forecasts on a mathematical and astronomical formula developed in 1818, also predicts above-normal precipitation for the Midwest, with the majority falling in January and February. The teeth-chattering cold is to arrive mid-February.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts northern Alaska will see the highest temperature change, with an average temperature of 8°F above normal. Many regions, including the Upper Midwest, are predicted to see a 4° to 6°F increase in temperature. The Old Farmer’s Almanac uses a unique, age-old formula with a methodology stemming from a secret formula devised by Robert B. Thomas in 1792. Thomas believed sunspots, magnetic storms on the sun’s surface, influenced weather. His formula is locked in a black box in the Dublin office.

Meeting adjourned

“Wise sayings often fall on barren ground; but a kind word is never thrown away.” — Sir Arthur Helps