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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

I had a colonoscopy last week.

Did they discover anything?

They found one of my high school football coach’s shoes.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. The weather was so nice for this time of the year that I felt as if we were swiping it from somewhere else. I stopped at a convenience store because it was convenient. I headed to the convenient section offering convenience foods. Bread or wrap? It sounds like money or clothing. I grew up eating with wonder—Wonder Bread. Because of that, it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around a wrap. I’m working on it. When I was eating Wonder Bread, it took a brave or foolish man to eat gas station food. That’s changed. Should I get a sandwich or a wrap? I was trying to keep it all together. Is a hot dog a sandwich? Of course, it is. Merriam-Webster came down decisively on the side that a hot dog is a sandwich because its definition of a sandwich is “two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between.” Joey Chestnut ate 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes. He’s no one-trick pony. He devoured 121 Twinkies in 6 minutes. The bread-enclosed convenience food known as the sandwich is attributed to John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. The wrap is attributed to John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Wrap. I purchased a wrap and drove to a nearby park. I sat at a picnic table and ate a wrap on a sunny February day, as I watched the squirrels scamper and frolic. It was a good day.

I’ve listened to the scarecrow sing, “If I only had a brain” in “The Wizard of Oz.” When I was a boy, I wondered how anyone could talk if they didn’t have a brain. Thanks to social media, I no longer wonder that.

We all make mistakes when we speak. I heard a basketball announcer describe a pass as being like a needle through a thread.

The last couple of growing seasons haven’t been wetter than the underside of a duck. I’m thinking of telling myself that we need an extra moist rain.

I gave my wife candy and coffee for Valentine’s Day. It was impossible to match what I got her for Groundhog Day–a woodchuck.

I’ve learned

Wind chimes are a sound investment.

If a toy on a store’s shelf carries a “Try me” label, I’m pushing that button.

If you don’t think people care about your health, get the hiccups. People will rush to your aid and offer cures.

People don’t seem to have fun while watching an NFL game.

We eat the heels of a loaf of bread as a punishment for not buying enough bread.

I wanted to be a Gregorian monk, but I never got the chants.

That when pigs fly, the price of bacon will skyrocket.

Nothing makes sleep more critical than a snooze alarm.

Every box of cereal has a backstory.

Long division is any division done without the use of a calculator.

The usual is unusual.

Bad jokes department

I asked my friend when his birthday was, and he said, “March 1st.” So I walked around the room like a soldier and asked him again.

I started seeing into the future next Thursday.

I lost my job at the steel mill because I smelt bad.

I tried to buy an Operation game, but there was an 18-month wait.

Nature notes

Some bluebirds return as early as February, but most arrive in early March.

They nest from late March to early August.

Current events include woodpeckers finding timber with good timbre. They drum on resonant wood, tattooing communication to other members of their species. Goldfinches turn yellow on their faces, barred owls become more vocal, red osier dogwood becomes the red veins of spring and weeping willows glow.

Both the male and female bald eagles have brood patches and take turns

incubating eggs, but the female, being larger, takes the extended incubation periods overnight and during cold weather and storms. Incubation begins after the first egg is laid, meaning in a nest with more than one egg, there will be the oldest eaglet and the youngest. The eggs are rolled regularly to make sure the lighter yolk doesn’t rise, touch and stick to the shell and kill a developing chick.

Meeting adjourned

You can’t help someone climb a hill without getting closer to the top yourself. Be kind to the kind and the unkind.