Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting:

I argued with my father all night about getting a nose ring. He’s too old to understand.

What happened?

I finally gave in and let him get one.

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: Animal Crackers teach us that all meat tastes the same.

In the neighborhood

His name was Prndl. He was named after an automatic transmission.

Prndl talked loud so he could hear what he had to say.

Prndl had a bit of a heart problem. He asked his doctor if it would be okay if he drank a little brandy.

The doctor allowed that a couple of fingers wouldn’t hurt Prndl any.

Prndl told me that he had polished off three bottles of brandy and none of it had yet gone to his fingers.

Small-town life

I was in Pemberton one morning when I encountered a man walking along, carrying a toilet seat. Anything out of the ordinary is a cause for excitement in a small town. Carrying a toilet seat is a good way to start the day. It’s all easy from there.

A peregrination 

A man was wearing a T-shirt. It wasn’t a plain T-shirt. Few are today. It carried lettering that read, “This is my going-out T-shirt.”

I should have a T-shirt like that because I went out to work in Germany, Austria, and Hungary.

I tell travelers of I-35 that I live just beyond Hope, a small town in Minnesota. I had hoped to see a bird called a hoopoe while working in Europe. I was able to get good looks at the hoopoe (the bird’s scientific name is Upupa epops), an amazing avian creature. I still live just beyond Hope, but I’m not hoopoeless.

The dime store

When my family visited the dime store, I made tracks to the pet department. I looked at the birds, fish, and hamsters.

My father said it was a zoo. I’d never been to a zoo, so it was a zoo to me.

When I venture into similar stores today, I still make a beeline to the pet department.

Staring at tiny fish like neon tetras, mollies, and guppies helps get the taste of grownup out of my mouth.

Cars I have known

I was driving the crease of the map.

I am very fond of my car. It’s the cat’s meow and the dog’s bowwow.

I thought about the cars I’ve known. My life is littered with discarded auto bodies.

I had many cars that stayed out of fix too often.

I once owned a Rolls Canhardly. Rolls down one hill and can hardly get up the next.

There were days when I had to go somewhere because I had a new tire. I didn’t want the tire to go to waste. The tires on my old jalopies were never a matched set, but they were a sympathetic lot. If one tire went flat, the others did, too.

One old Junker gave me plenty of exercise from pushing it. Rain caused me some problems even though I had good windshield wipers. The car didn’t have a windshield.

Customer comments

Stan Fitz of Rockford, Iowa, offered this as a table grace, “I’m just as thankful as I am hungry. Amen.”

Annie Glasgow of St. Paul wrote, “Good sound reasons and reasons that sound good are not always the same thing.”

Nature notes

“When do cicadas start singing?” The dog-day cicada typically calls from early July into September, the hottest part of summer, known as the dog days. This cicada has a high-pitched, whining song that can last a minute and resembles the sound of a distant saw. The male usually sings around midday and again in late afternoon. There are several other species of cicadas found in lesser numbers in the state, but we don’t have periodic cicadas in Minnesota. They are found in parts of Iowa. These are the cicadas that are famous (or infamous) for emerging in huge swarms. Periodic cicadas live 13 or 17 years (depending on the species) underground. Some people call the cicadas “locusts,” but they aren’t. Locusts are a kind of grasshopper.

Meeting adjourned

“Make kindness your modus operandi and change your world.” — Annie Lennox