I was where I was supposed to be.

The Loafers’ Club was meeting. We meet for about an hour. We do nothing. We talk about how we could do even less. Then we go home and rest. We have no mission statement or membership dues, yet we quickly solve all the world’s problems. We do that with duct tape.

It’s where we sit out the rush hour. There isn’t one, but we are ready for it. We wait for lightning to hit a stump.

These are fellows who aren’t the kind to say, “I need to run to the store.”

Not all of them were farmers. Some were there as part of the Federal Witness Protection Program and others were hiding from the Columbia House Record and Tape Club.

All were men who make major decisions. Some had terminated naps in order to make the meeting. That’s a major decision, right there. Some had given up hopes of ever getting even, so they just get mad.

We enjoy one another’s company. We know that what sounds insane to one of us is perfectly normal to another. I’m proud to be in their number. They sometimes make me feel normal. We are likable chaps if you like that sort of a chap.

Not one Loafer wore a necktie. Times have changed. I’d just seen a black-and-white photo of the fans at a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field in the 1940s. Nearly every man had donned a suit and tie. True, not many of those pictured may have been farmers, but you never know.

The talk was of the harvest. It had gone well. It was safe and the crop was plentiful. We visited about many aspects of farming. I sat with Eb, Fred Ziffel, Mr. Haney, Hank Kimball, Sam Drucker, Oliver Wendell Douglas and Pa Kettle. We talked of complicated, sophisticated agricultural activities such as planting cows and lassoing John Deere tractors.

One Loafer told the rest of us that the monitor on his combine had hit 301 bushels per acre of corn for just an instant before falling off a cliff. It was a memorable event, like putting 100,000 miles on a car in the 1960s. It was something he’d never thought he’d experience. He was tickled that it had happened. We helped him celebrate by nodding in his general direction.

These are guys who believed that green acres is the place to be. They complained a bit that they never get any credit for good weather. Some had reached the age wherein they used stunt doubles (children) for certain farming tasks.

They had grown up when it wasn’t a bad day when they had stepped in it. It was a typical day.

One admitted to making a mistake when selling his crops. That isn’t an easy thing for a farmer to do.

“I made that same mistake twice last year,” he went on. “You’d think I’d learn.”

“Don’t worry about it,” advised another. “No one is counting. And you made that same mistake four times last year.”

Another Loafer said that he’d stopped at Hartland University, the local emporium specializing in the dispensary of adult beverages. He said that he’d stopped for a pizza, which although likely a falsehood, could have been true since the cafe in town remains closed. He said that as he waited for the pizza, he noticed a young woman at the next barstool. His wife would have been perturbed had she known that he’d talked to the woman, but she wasn’t there.

The man, a grandfather many times over, turned to the woman  and said, “So, tell me, do I come here often?”

I asked the others what was the dumbest animal in the woods. The answer was the humpback whale. I nearly chortled.

The Loafers pretended to not laugh.

They’d had practice. That joke was almost as bad as mine from the day before. “What happens when you throw a yellow rock into a blue lake?”

It splashes.

We told stories that had morphed over time.

William Gibson said, “Time moves in one direction, memory in another.”

We’d meet again. We’d do nothing for about an hour. We’d talk about how we could do even less. Then we’d go home and rest.

I told the Loafers that we are the average of the people we spend the most time with. That gave them something to worry about.

These gatherings drift into great times.

I’m thankful the meetings are merely commas and not periods.

 

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.