Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting
Here’s your gift. Forgive the brown paper bag. I don’t like to spend money on wrapping paper.
It’s the gift I gave you last year.
I don’t like to spend money on gifts either.
Driving by Bruce's drive
I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. Not everyone is meant to be a Minnesotan. Friends and neighbors flee to the welcoming arms of warmer temperatures found in the south. My wife and I stay here and eat lefse. She presented delicious lefse to five grandchildren. She didn’t force them to eat it and they didn’t eat it. Only one had tried lefse before and the other four proved to be cautious eaters. I told them it was potatoes, butter and sugar. They like those things, but purposely forgot to sample the lefse. I didn’t add, “Try it, you might like it.” I’m OK with them not eating the lefse. That means there is more for me.
The liftgate on my car isn’t as tall as I am. I bumped my head on it while putting holiday things into the car. I’d just flunked Situational Awareness 101. It was a glancing blow, but it stung like the dickens. I’m going to wear a safety helmet when I go shopping.
Christmas can be stressful and exhausting. Every day with a loved one is a gift. The year 2023 showed me how lucky I am to have family and friends. Sadly, people important to us die around Christmas. Winston Evenson died at 96. People said he had a “good run.” I wish he’d been able to put on a few more miles. I taught a writing class in which I assigned my students the exercise of concocting mottos for themselves. One, being as knuckleheaded as his instructor, always came up with, “I don’t believe in having a motto.” I shared one of mine, “I try to make the best use of every moment.” I don’t know if Winston had that as a motto, but that’s how he lived his life. Anne Lamott wrote that something was “like trying to put an octopus to bed.” That’s how difficult it is to say goodbye, but platitudes and gratitude help. So does repeating their stories.
A Hartland resident became weary of his cellphone bills this summer. He tossed his phone onto the lawn and ran the mower over it a few times. He can’t be reached for comment.
Blatherskite
There are alleged lucky ways to usher in a New Year. Put my right foot down first when I get out of bed on New Year's Day. Saying “Rabbit, rabbit” before saying anything else on the first day of a month brings good luck for a month. Eating grains, ring-shaped foods like bagels or donuts, tangerines, greens, pork or cornbread on New Year’s Day. I went with my right foot first, said “Rabbit, rabbit” and ate oatmeal. I should be golden.
I’ve learned
When I was telling stories in Oklahoma, a fellow told me the lone star on the flag of Texas is a rating.
In Ohio, an audience member asked me, "What has five toes and isn't your foot?" It was his foot.
Social media has shown us why products need warning labels.
It’s difficult to lose both socks of a pair, but it’s easy to lose one.
Something I’m hoping to learn. The population of Waldorf, Minnesota, is 201. Who is the one?
Nature notes
I’d finished my radio show about nature and at its completion, the station played The Mamas and Papas singing, “I've been for a walk on a winter's day. I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A. California dreamin' on such a winter's day.”
I went for a walk on a winter’s day without the California dreaming. The feeders were semi-busy. Mild winter weather leads to lessened feeder activity. Severe weather brings birds to the feeders just as it brings people to the grocery stores.
If I taught a bird appreciation class, and I have, Joan E. Strassman’s “Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard” would be a good textbook. Joan presents new and old information in pleasing ways. A dark-eyed junco loses 7% of its body weight when at rest overnight. Robins have found that regurgitated insects and earthworms make a great baby formula. Thanks to jays burying acorns to cache, “mighty oaks from little blue jays grow.” Cooper’s hawks, once known as chicken hawks, have created another definition of the term “feeder bird.”
Meeting adjourned
Being kind is the work of a lifetime.