Echoes From the Loafers’ Club Meeting

Do you know what the best thing about Christmas is?

No, it’s impossible to pick out one thing.

That’s the best thing about Christmas.

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: When you reach a certain age, you don’t fall. You have a fall. Life is like a box of Jelly Belly candy. Sometimes you get one of the nasty flavors like earwax, stinky socks, barf or skunk spray.

The cafe chronicles

I stopped to eat. I was too late for lunch and too early for dinner. I was hungry, so I ordered dunch or linner. I joined in the recycled conversations. I reminded another that he shouldn’t hold the bottomless cup of coffee over his lap. Those seated around the table were good men, but not the kind to readily admit good fortune. Yet, we were all more than willing to admit our good luck at being where we were, with who we were with and being able to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Hope is a fine southern Minnesota town

She flew from one lane to another and passed us as if we were backing up. A State Farm sticker was proudly displayed in the rear window of her minivan. I’ll bet State Farm wouldn’t have approved of her driving.

I was riding in a swell bus en route to watch the Minnesota Gophers women’s basketball team play. There were two buses headed northward in our mini-convoy. I was enjoying the experience of kicking the back of someone’s seat until part of our bus fell off. The sound almost woke the driver. I might have expected it. We were just beyond Hope.

Thoughts while ringing

Winter hadn’t officially started yet as I rang the bells for the Salvation Army, but December had been so nice it was as if winter’s back had been broken before it even got here. A friend said that winter must have been over as the ice was out on all the local lakes. No matter, we can’t tell the weather what to do. Supermarkets can be challenging for men. We’re good at entering a store needing to get just one thing and leaving with a couple of big bags filled with items. We come back later because we’d forgotten to get the one thing that we were supposed to get. Most every self-checkout lane involves a cashier. I remember not many years ago, if someone had brought his own shopping bag to a grocery store, he’d have been declared a nut.

Christmases past run like newsreels in my mind

I remember helping Mother make sugar cookies. The way I helped was by eating the dough.

I’d written “Merry Xmas” in frosting on a large cookie. My mother saw it and was a wee bit miffed. Perhaps she felt that writing Xmas was disrespectful. I don’t know if she thought the X presented a resemblance to the cross or if it was taking Christ out of Christmas. I assured her that Xmas wasn’t disrespectful. It was ancient. Chi is the first letter in the Greek word for Christ and is represented by a symbol similar to an X.

I used that as an argument.

My mother reminded me that I wasn’t Greek.

I should have told her that I was trying to save on frosting.

Before the cookies had all been baked, it began to snow. The wind blew. It bordered on blizzard conditions. I went to bed, wondering why blizzards couldn’t concentrate their efforts on school days and leave Christmas alone.

The storm wore on. The wind woke me in the middle of the night. I saw my mother sitting in the dark, looking out the window. She was watching the weather, hoping the storm would cease and my older siblings and their families would be able to make it home for Christmas.

The snowplow went by in the wee hours. Father cleared the snow from the drive. Family made it home. The sugar cookies were eaten.

This was all possible because the storm had stopped.

I don’t think it would have quit if it hadn’t been for Mom.