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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

Are you coming to our place for Thanksgiving?

I’m not sure.

Well, let me know as soon as you can. I want to know how thankful I should be.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. Some friends have headed south to a place where they hope the snow will be unable to find them.

I talked to people who were returning to their home in Hawaii. I made a weak wisecrack and received a low ha in return.

I try not to be dumber than necessary and rarely get low in the mind, but for a vertically enhanced individual, I have my shortcomings. I don’t like chocolate, coffee or watching NFL games, but I’ve put my foot down and stopped acting like a flamingo.

Heard here and there

I was trying to be better than I was yesterday. It was a good day to have a good day, so I stopped at the local gas station to buy a pizza. It was there that I bumped into Tim Sibilrud, a former schoolmate. He told me he was leaving to go to his home in Florida. I said he shouldn’t go to Florida because they have too much bad weather. Tim replied, “Al, you’ve lived in Minnesota too long,” and, goodbye, cold world, he left for the Sunshine State.

Virgil Thofson, as retired as a farmer ever becomes (once a farmer, always a farmer), received a write-in vote for president of the United States. Virgil said he would have paid off the national debt if he had been elected. I asked him if he’d have had to take out a personal loan to do it. We’ll circle back around to that.

I visited a fellow in his assisted living residence, interrupting his horse opera (an old Clint Eastwood cowboy movie on TV). He gave me a Werther’s. Maybe it was because it was his 68th birthday. I gave him the Werther’s back as his birthday present.

“Just ten more years and I’ll be old enough to be president of this country,” he said with a smile.

Bad jokes department

“Why are chickens so lovable?” Just buc bucause.

There is a coin shortage in this country. We lack common cents.

Casper the Friendly Ghost had a to-boo list.

“How do you cut a sea in half?” With a seesaw.

A golf ball is still a golf ball no matter where you putt it.

I’ve learned

I was visited by a man who came from the future. He came from next Thursday, so he was unable to give me much useful information.

A TV is a bright, shiny object.

Less than 1% of all X users post 80% of the misinformation. Shame on them.

When I had my first colonoscopy years ago, my wife hoped it’d locate my head.

Maybe a Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Yeti and Abominable Snowman are invisible.

I’m a member of the Clean Plate Club because there are hippos who are hungry, hungry.

An ice cream cone is the ultimate in biodegradable food containers.

Why was I eating a dill pickle with mustard in a hot dog bun over the sink? It was because I’m not a good cook.

I don’t like looking in the shopping carts of others. It’s too much like snooping in someone’s medicine cabinet.

Nature notes

In John James Audubon’s day, the northern cardinal was considered a southern bird and rarely seen as far north as Philadelphia. It’s the northern cardinal because it’s the most northerly representative of its genus, Cardinalis. The first Minnesota record was in Minneapolis in the fall of 1875. Many of the first arrivals were lone males seen in southern Minnesota. Redbirds appeared in Sherburne County (1887), Kandiyohi County (1894), Fillmore County (1898) and Martin County (1913). The state’s first confirmed nesting was a nest with eggs found in Steele County in 1925. Nesting was later documented in Hennepin County in 1927 and Goodhue County in 1930.

The Virginia opossum is the only marsupial in North America and has an average litter size between six and 20 babies (called joeys) that weigh less than a penny at birth. The joeys are carried and nursed in a pouch after birth like kangaroos and koalas. Newborn opossums remain attached to their mother’s nipples for 60 to 70 days before leaving the pouch, but continue to cling to their mother’s fur. Reaching mouse-size, they ride on their mother’s back. They’re approximately four months old when they become independent.

Meeting adjourned

“One kind word can warm three winter months.”—Japanese Proverb.