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Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I think I’ve found the problem with your car. It’s the frammydoos.

What’s a frammydoos?

I don’t know, and that’s the problem.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. The weather was unusually unusual. I could see the sun shining brightly, but I couldn’t feel it. It was well below zero as I tiptoed through the temperature. Friedrich Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” I’d add “makes us colder.”

I do a show on KMSU radio, and KMSU’s Karen Wright often plays a birdie song on my behalf. I listened to the Trashmen’s song “Surfin’ Bird.” A sample of its lyrics are: “A-well-a everybody’s heard about the bird. B-b-b-bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word. A-well-a bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word. A-well-a bird, bird, bird, well the bird is the word.”

It made me smile. Wasn’t music wonderful in the days when the words of songs had meaning? “Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-ooma-mow-mow. Papa-ooma-mow-mow.”

You said it.

I’ve learned

Dancing to the song “YMCA” is more challenging when using the Chinese alphabet.

As I looked at a marmoset in a zoo, it proved impossible for me not to sing, “Marmoset there’d be days like this. There’ll be days like this, marmoset.”

My wife and I used to attend a traditional Norwegian smorgasbord at the Nora Unitarian Universalist Church perched on a hill in rural Hanska, Minnesota. Foods on the menu included herring, tongue (my wife didn’t eat tongue or anything else that could taste her back), meatballs, sot suppe, romme grot, rice pudding, flatbread, rosettes, krumkake, sandbakkels, ham, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, carrots, cookies and lefse. Lefse is the Swiss Army knife of foods. It’s bread, it’s dessert, it’s a napkin. I hope eating lefse makes me a better person. Or at least keeps me from getting much worse.

I once worked at the New Richland Step Company because I wanted to cement my place in history,

Reading about the fires in California makes our cold weather advisories seem like paradise.

Bad jokes department

What did the nestling bird say about an orange in the nest? “Look at the orange mama laid.”

What is grey and writes long and gloomy poetry? T.S. Elephant.

My neighbor Crandall collects axes from other countries. He has an axe from Norway, Germany and France. He loves foreign axe scents.

Why was the basketball player who wore too much cologne kicked out of a game? He committed a fragrant foul.

Nature notes

I saw a coyote in my yard before Christmas. It was no surprise. I’d ordered something from Acme. Coyotes aren’t as dangerous as potato salad. I like potato salad, but according to the CDC, about 3,000 people a year die from complications related to foodborne illness. Thankfully, not all are from ingesting potato salad. Coyote attacks on humans during the years 1970 to 2015 resulted in two human deaths. Dogs kill an average of 30–50 people per year in the US. Deer-car collisions cause 175 to 200 fatalities. There were 19,252 homicides in this country in 2023.

Diane Wilson of Owatonna asked why swallows all face the same direction when perched on utility wires. That’s so they can share cute cat videos on their phones. There are two other reasons. When birds flock, they generally fly in the same direction. It would make sense that they face the same way before taking off. Birds are built to face into the wind. It’s easier to take off and land while facing the wind because it reduces wind resistance and limits ruffled feathers. That makes it easier to watch the cat videos.

“Do animals that turn white in winter still turn white when there is no snow?” Yes, weasels and snowshoe hares become white with or without snow.

“Why do ostriches stick their heads into the sand?” Because they can’t find safety helmets that fit. It’s a popular myth that ostriches stick their heads in the sand. This myth has led to a common metaphor for someone avoiding their problems. The belief began with observations of ostriches nesting and being stalked by predators. Ostriches bury their eggs in the sand and use their beaks to turn them, which makes it look like they’re sticking their heads in the sand. Ostriches lower their heads to blend in with their surroundings and make themselves less of a target when they encounter danger. This behavior made people think the enormous birds’ heads were buried in the sand.

Meeting adjourned

Do as many small, good things as you can. Be kind.