Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

“How did you get stung on the nose?”

“I smelled a flowber.”

“There is no ‘b” in ‘flower.’”

“There was in that one.”

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: if everything is coming your way, you are in the wrong lane.

I’ve learned

1. It’s easy to line up two fence posts. Three posts are not so easy.

2. The more one knows, the greater he or she is aware of his or her level of ignorance.

3. High school reunions are proof that not everyone from your past just seemed bigger.

My neighbor

My neighbor Jon But We All Call Him John has three children. He said that he and his wife had three children so that one could keep the other two separated.

Notes from the metropolis

Hartland’s population had been 288. When the city came to its census, its numbers had boomed to 302. That’s a growth of 14 people in just 10 years. No one is sure who those 14 people are. 

Table topics

The woman told me she was a vegetarian. She made sure that I understood that she was not a vegan. I understood. I commented that it must be difficult maintaining a vegetarian diet. She answered, “Not really. I eat only cheese pizza.” I understood. Some mornings I have toast with peanut butter and raisin bran cereal for breakfast. Other mornings I have raisin bran cereal and toast with peanut butter for breakfast. It depends upon my mood.

There's no sense worrying, nothing's going to turn out all right

I was in an airport far from home. I saw a woman coming towards me. She greeted me and I said “hello” in return. She smiled and said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”

I didn’t and when she asked that question, she destroyed any chance of me remembering her. It presented a combination of a faded memory and the power of suggestion that is nearly impossible to overcome. I became a clueless clown. In a perfect world, I would remember everything except the things I could afford to forget.

She told me who she was and as soon as she did, I remembered everything that I knew about her.

“How is your husband Ron?” I asked, proud to remember his name without any prompting and hoping to perform a little damage control.

She replied, “We’re divorced.” 

Rough roads

There is a road near me. There are a number of roads not far from me. Some are good and some are bad. The good ones are not always good and the bad ones are not always bad. Weather, traffic, the economy, and cell phones are hard on roads. I made up the part about cell phones being hard on roads, but I wouldn’t think texting makes the roads any better. I’m writing about a particular road. It was a paved road. Now the hard surface has been removed and the road has become a gravel road with an uneven surface. It went from being a road with numerous potholes and cracks filled with tar strips that made tires cry out in pain to a road that is consistently rough and rocky. I know that there is no money to fix it and the washboard does slow speeds. There are always rough roads. Katharine Hepburn said, “Life is hard. After all, it kills you.” Sometimes, we think that we are entitled to smooth roads. We are not. They are nice, but life is going to throw rough roads at us. There are times when all we can do is to live with the jolts, shudders, and bounces of a bad road. A car’s shock absorbers help absorb the bumps. A sense of humor does the same.

Nature notes

In early fall, wild animals move about searching for places to spend the winter. Take a count of the roadkill you see on the roads. The number will amaze you. Deer, raccoon, opossum, foxes, squirrels, and skunks cap our roads. I think skunks might have a sense of invulnerability because of their powerful spray and don’t pay much attention to cars. Automobiles are to skunks what Kryptonite is to Superman and they will be until a car manufacturer produces a model named the Smeller that has a nose for a hood ornament and will be able to detect skunks.   

Folklore says that the first trackable snowfall will occur six weeks after the appearance of the snowbird (junco).

Meeting adjourned

There is no gratitude for a kind act not done.