Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

"People have lost the ability to do nothing."

"It seems to come easy for you."

"The great ones make it look effortless."

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: money talks, but debt has an echo.

The natural way

A mosquito bit me.

I didn’t turn into a mosquito. Things like that happen. Apparently, if a vampire bites you, you become a vampire.

I’d like to be bitten by a billionaire.

 I was paddling the Missouri River in Montana when a beaver attacked my canoe. I saw the beaver near the edge of the river and decided to have a closer look. That proved to be a bad idea. The beaver came at me as though I’d said something bad about its momma. I curled into a ball as if I were about to be mugged by a bear. It made paddling difficult. The beaver interpreted my actions correctly as a complete surrender and swam off to pick on someone its own size. The river was uphill the rest of that day. I camped after being attacked by mosquito and beaver. I watched as a rattlesnake slithered past my tent. Dave Barry said that camping is nature’s way of promoting the motel industry.

Hotel hilarity

I checked into a hotel in Indiana. It was a few minutes past 7 in the evening. My schedule allowed me to sleep late in the morning, so I asked for a 7 o’clock wake-up call. "You just missed it," said the smiling hotel clerk.

Not long after that, I was staying in a fine hotel in Kentucky. I wanted to go birding in the morning, so I requested a wake-up call for 5 a.m.

The phone rang in the middle of a dream. I flailed about in the darkness until I located the telephone.

"Good morning, it’s 3 a.m.," said a perky voice.

My brain had not yet become fully engaged, so I hung up the phone.

At 3:30 a.m., the phone rang again. The hotel desk clerk had called back to apologize for the 3 a.m. wake-up call.

Greetings

Russ Wangen of Austin told me that he’d encountered a friend who greeted him with a, "Fine."

Russ asked, "How are you?" in return.

The order didn’t matter.

Volunteers volunteer

Lee Brickson of Albert Lea is with the Salvation Army. She said that volunteers can be difficult. When she was producing an appreciation banquet for Salvation Army volunteers, the volunteers that were being appreciated insisted on offering to help set things up for their own appreciation banquet. Good folks insist on helping those who are trying to help them.

Norwegians

Pastor David Hernes of Albert Lea got me the other day. He told me that there are only two kinds of people in the world. He said, "Those who are Norwegian..."

I was sure he was going to add, "…and those who wish they were."

David didn’t say that. What he said was, "…and those who are glad they aren’t."

He got me.

Account from Alaska

I was in Alaska. I couldn’t see either nowhere or Russia from where I was, but it was remote. I stopped at a way station called Meier's Lake. It was a gas station, café, grocery store, and post office combination. I searched the shelves for foodstuffs. Most everything had gone well past its best-used-by date. Most of the shelved items were old enough to vote. I moved to the lunch counter and found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the menu. The charge for the sandwich was $67.50. The price was high because the cook didn't like making one.

Nature notes

Before leaving the warm waters of the south where they spend the winter, American white pelican adults develop a nuptial tubercle (horny knob) on their bills. The fibrous bumps are believed to serve a twofold purpose. They signal members of the opposite sex that the birds are in the market for a mate and they serve as a target for other adults during fights over territories. Battling pelicans of breeding age aim their bills at these knobs and not other parts of the head that could cause great injury. Once eggs are laid, the knobs fall off. American white pelicans generally reach sexual maturity at three years, so younger birds wouldn’t have the tubercles.

Meeting adjourned

Ruth Smeltzer wrote, “You have not lived a perfect day, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”