Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting:

I’m tired. It’s hard getting up at five.

Big deal. I get up before five every day. It’s easy.

I was talking about five in the morning.

Oh.

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: everybody is just like you because they think you are just like them.

I’ve learned

Credit should go to those who are willing to take the blame.

We don’t own smartphones. They own us.

If you can’t stand the heat, turn down the thermostat.

Cafe chronicles

I make my wish every spring. I call it my Goldilocks wish. Back when Goldilocks was going through her breaking and entering phase, she found the Three Bear’s porridge was either too cold, too hot, or just right. The porridge is like our springs. I wish the spring weather would be just right. It seldom is, but I keep hoping.

At the table of infinite knowledge, one of the seated men whined about his clinic visits. He said that he’d asked the doctor if there was anything that might make him feel better. The doctor replied, “Maybe a telethon.”

The friendly waitress highlighted the specials. One was the famed potato salad recipe that everybody had wanted, but the previous owner of the eatery refused to share. When asked, she’d always reply, “You can have that recipe over my dead body.” So when she died, she had the potato salad recipe engraved on her tombstone.

A school visit

I had just listened to a young man tell of getting in trouble in school for crowdsourcing a test. In my day, that was called copying from someone else’s paper.

I felt his pain. My test papers were always tearable.

The student’s confession reminded me of a poem by Shel Silverstein that goes like this, “Jim copied the answer from Nancy. Sue copied the answer from Jim. Tim copied the answer from Sue and then Anne copied the answer from him. And Fran copied Anne and Jan copied Fran

The answer kept passing along. And no one got caught, but the problem was Nancy had it wrong.”

Old friends in new places

I spoke at some things in Luverne. In the audience was Kerry Boese. Kerry was an intern pastor at Cross of Glory Lutheran Church years ago and was my softball teammate. He now pastors at Hadley Lutheran, Kenneth Lutheran, and Zion Lutheran (Adrian). It was great to see an old and cherished friend. Kerry sent me a note saying that seeing me again was a breath of old but fresh air.

You’re not getting older, you’re getting colder

He accompanied me on a trip I led to Alaska. He was proud of his ancestry, pleased to say, “If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much.”

I teased him about his inability to remember Alaska’s state flower. It’s the forget-me-not.

He told me he planned on doing all of his future traveling south of his home. He explained it by saying that as he got older, he got colder.

Did you know?

One in three of the nation’s counties have more deaths than births.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, based on physical and emotional health, lists the top 10 happiest states as 1. North Dakota 2. South Dakota 3. Nebraska 4. Minnesota 5. Montana 6. Vermont 7. Colorado 8. Hawaii 9. Washington 10. Iowa.

Sternutation is a sneeze or the act of sneezing.

Nature notes

“Do hummingbirds migrate in flocks?” They do not. They migrate individually.

“Which field guide to the birds is the best?” They are all good. Browse the field guides available at a library or bookstore. This should help you get a sense of which one would work best for you. I prefer field guides with drawings rather than photographs. Artists use their expertise to help users key in on important field marks. Lighting conditions and differences in the positions of birds could mask important features or emphasize unimportant ones in photos, although the photos are getting better all the time.

Meeting adjourned

Author Jeffrey Marx in “Season of Life: A Football Star, a Boy, a Journey to Manhood,” wrote about Gilman High School in Maryland and its highly successful football team. The coaches there have a few unusual rules. No Gilman football player should let another Gilman boy, whether he’s a teammate or not, eat lunch by himself. The players are required to base their thoughts and actions on one simple question, “What can I do for others?”