Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting:

I see you have a couple of trees down in your yard.

It’s sad. They were tall and lovely.

When did we have enough wind to blow them down?

It wasn’t the wind. My brother used the hammock. Maybe now he’ll stay on his diet.

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: What did parents step on before LEGO bricks were invented? Jacks, that’s what. They were sinister implements of torture. Does anyone in a funeral procession ever think that their car isn’t as nice as others? I hope not. Interesting is an interesting word.

The cafe chronicles

I’d driven through one cone zone after another. Roadwork begets roadwork. I groused a bit until I saw a helicopter fly from a Mayo hospital. I’d just attended a Friends of Library book sale where I’d obtained a bag of books for a few dollars to treat myself for completing 12 hours of filming. I was tired. Having to admit he is human is a hard thing for a man to do. I was hungry, too.

The cafe’s owner was thinking of having the ceiling painted. He didn’t want to lose any money by closing the business, so he planned on covering the customers with a tarp.

I ordered the beef dinner special. The waitress high-fived another, saying, “I finally sold that last piece of beef.” The special came with three sides—a carrot and two peas.

It was a cafe that believed in customer service. That’s why it had a dentist come in once a day to remove a diner’s teeth from a steak.

No loafers there

I was in a tall hotel. I’ve always wanted to carry a “The end is near” sign onto a crowded elevator, but my inner adult has stopped me. Everyone was looking at cellphone screens. I looked down at shoes. Everyone wore slip-on shoes. Some might have been loafers. These people weren’t loafers. My theory is that with the ubiquitous cellphones, we don’t look down at our shoes as we once did when we rode elevators. We don’t notice if shoes are untied because we’re mesmerized by tiny, lighted screens. That’s why we wear shoes without laces. They prevent us from tripping over unnoticed and untied shoelaces. I might call them slip-on shoes, but they are safety shoes.

I visited a friend. His shoes were held in place by Velcro.

His new residence was warm and humid enough to grow tomatoes commercially. He wasn’t born and raised locally. He was a social climber who’d moved here from Seattle. He hated having to specify that he was from Washington state and not from D.C.

He welcomed me and told me to keep talking until I thought of something worth saying.

His wife had died. He missed her. They’d been married over 60 years. He was fond of saying that she never wasn’t effervescent.

Waving at strangers

The auditorium was packed. There had been special doings.

Have you noticed that in the midst of many applauding people, there is always one person clapping after everyone else has stopped? That’s usually me. I don’t want to be the first to stop, so I turn it into a clapping marathon.

Someone in the crowded hall waved. I waved back. A person near me walked to the waver. The wave hadn’t been intended for me.

I always never do that.

The trail of a birding grandpa

I saw trumpeter swans at the Straight River Marsh. There were recently hatched members of the family. These youngsters are called cygnets. A sandhill crane flew over the marsh, being hurried along by angry blackbirds.

Eurasian collared-doves enjoyed the town of Meriden. This dove looks like a mourning dove with a black collar and a tail that had been cut short. Not to be ignored, a mourning dove sang, “Hula, hoop, hoop, hoop.”

Dame’s rocket bloomed on roadsides. It resembles phlox, but the flowers have four petals compared to the five of phlox.

I watched a white-eyed vireo at Flandreau State Park as monarch butterflies fluttered about me and an indigo bunting male sang, “Fire, fire. Where, where? Here, here. See it, see it?” The bird my father called a blue canary sings from dawn to dusk. I traipsed around the park and then headed off to watch granddaughters play softball and basketball. That was multitasking for a birding grandpa.

Meeting adjourned

Be kind and be the reason someone smiles.