Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting 

Greetings and felicitations.

Hiya. Do you know what I have to do to change the address on my driver’s license?

Move.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his driveway, thoughts occur to me, such as: The woman told me that she was shopping for a new TV because she had only three TVs in her home. When my family got its first TV, that would have meant there was one TV for each channel we were able to sometimes receive. Not much later, I waited in line at the store to buy a handful of items. The line was long, but not endless. There was only one checkout line open. A store employee suggested I use the self-checkout lane. I didn’t want to. The overworked cashier might have appreciated the relief, but I felt as if I were taking someone’s job.

Some things I know

You live in a small town if you buy a used shirt from a thrift store and everyone knows who the shirt’s previous owner was. You live in a small town if coffee is the most important meal of the day. You live in a small town if a snow angel is one who shovels his neighbor’s walk.

You are getting older if your afternoon nap lasts all night. You are getting older if you build a doghouse not because you have a dog, but because you have the time.

Customer comments

My niece, Lynn Osswald of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, told me that she and her husband John had taken their daughter to an event where a hotel stay was necessary. Upon returning home, Lynn discovered a hair dryer in their suitcase. She had not packed one. John had thought the hair dryer provided by the hotel was his wife’s. Lynn made an uncomfortable phone call to the hotel to arrange the return of the hitchhiking hair dryer.

Loren Skelton of New Richland watches a lot of high school basketball. It’s the right thing to do. A former official himself, Loren says that he has never seen a hoops referee sweat.

My great-niece Jessica Hayes of Birchwood, Wisconsin, told me that her husband Scott is an avid deer hunter. This year he got a deer with a bow, one with a gun and another with a truck.

I’m never bored. I find no reason. I told my father that I was bored once. He gave me the unpleasant chore of cleaning the chicken house. I didn’t enjoy that task, but I haven’t said I was bored since. Jessica had a teacher in Mankato who told his students, “You aren’t bored. You are boring.”

The fellow told me that when the ambient temperature hits 30 degrees, he dons shorts. I wonder if he wears short-sleeved shirts with the shorts? Some people refuse to give in to winter, but most of us have lost our right to bare arms by winter.

A travelogue

I’m fortunate that work has allowed me to travel to many places in this big old world. Speaking gigs took me to four states in rapid succession. I had four rental cars of four different makes. Each differed just enough from the others to keep me from becoming too comfortable. I drove in California (population 39,776,830), Texas (28,704,330), Illinois (12,768,320) and Ohio (11,694,664). I think I met half the populations of those states on the road.

Nature notes

Tiny red squirrels drive my wife to distraction. She enjoys the company of gray and fox squirrels, but considers red squirrels the cause of most of the world’s problems. She pounds on the windows and yells at them when they’re on the feeders. I suspect that was the reason we didn’t get a single Christmas card from a red squirrel this year. White-breasted nuthatches flew onto my mother-in-law’s feeders and carried sunflower seeds to a nearby tree where they wedged the seeds into crevices in the bark that eased the process of opening the shells. The nuthatch gets its name from its habit of pecking seeds or nuts jammed into the bark with its sharp bill to “hatch” the edible parts. I watched chickadees. It’s hard not to. Chickadees do things adorably. A pair of downy woodpeckers visited the suet. Our smallest woodpecker is found in every state except Hawaii. The male has the red color and the female wears only black and white feathers. The female searches for food on large limbs and trunks of trees. The male works the more coveted smaller branches.

Meeting adjourned

I hope you have one of those days where everything goes right.