Go for the gold

August 24, 2017

A multimillionaire nearing the end of his life was distraught because he had worked so hard for his wealth and he wanted to be able to take it with him when he died. He prayed and asked God if he could do so.

“Sorry,” God said. “Rules are rules.”

But the man begged and pleaded, and eventually God relented.

“All right, you win,” God said. “I’ll make an exception just this once. You can bring one suitcase.”

Overjoyed, the man took his largest suitcase, filled it with bars of pure gold, and set it beside his bed.

Not long afterward, the man died and arrived at the gates of heaven. St. Peter took one look at the suitcase and said, “You can’t bring that in here.”

The man explained that he had special permission from God. St. Peter was skeptical, but went to check the story out. After a while he returned.

“You’re right,” Peter said. “God says you’re allowed one suitcase. But I’ll have to check its contents before letting it through.”

St. Peter opened the suitcase to inspect the worldly goods that the man had found too precious to leave behind, and said in astonishment, “You brought pavement?”

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News from the world of medicine

August 17, 2017

As a public service for readers hoping to avoid heart disease, here is the most up-to-date information available on diet and heart health:

 1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. 

 2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. 

 3. The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. 

 4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. 

 5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. 

In other words, eat and drink whatever you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

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Bored of education — traffic court edition

August 10, 2017

In the traffic court of a large city, a woman was brought before a rather tired-looking judge to answer for a ticket she’d received for running a red light. She informed the judge that she was a schoolteacher and requested an immediate dismissal of her case so she could get to school on time. 

The judge brightened up immediately. “I’ve waited for years to have a schoolteacher in this court,” he said. “Now sit down at that table, and write ‘I drove through a red light’ five hundred times.”

 

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Summertime classic: Keeping cool

July 18, 2017

The temperature in Detroit was 98 degrees and rising on July 8, 1946, when the Goldberg brothers — Lowell, Norman, Hiram, and Maxwell — walked into Henry Ford’s office and sweet-talked his secretary into telling him that four gentlemen were there with the most exciting innovation in the auto industry since the electric starter.

Ford was curious and invited them into his office. They asked him to come out to the parking lot where their car was parked.

They asked him to get into the car, where the temperature was at least 120 degrees. Then they turned on the air conditioner and cooled the car off.

Ford was very excited and invited them back to the office, where he offered them $3,000,000 for the patent.

The brothers replied that they would settle for $2,000,000, but they wanted to have a label that said “The Goldberg Air Conditioner” on the dashboard of each car in which it was installed.

Now old man Ford was proud of the Ford name, and there was no way he was going to put the Goldbergs’ name on his cars. They haggled back and forth for a while, and the Goldbergs finally agreed that Ford could use just their first names on the label.

That is why, to this day, the control on every Ford air conditioner says Lo, Norm, Hi, and Max.

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Summertime classic: Letter from summer camp

July 11, 2017

Dear Mom and Dad,

We’re having a great time here at Lake Typhoid! Scoutmaster Webb is making us all write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and got worried. We are okay. Only 1 of our tents and 2 sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Chad when it happened. Please call Chad’s parents and tell them he’s okay. He can’t write to them because of the cast.

We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn’t been for all the lightning. Scoutmaster Webb got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn’t hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up? The wet wood still didn’t burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back.

We’ll be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Webb gets the car fixed. It wasn’t his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked okay when we left. Scoutmaster Webb said with a car that old you have to expect things to break down. That’s probably why he can’t get insurance on it. We think it’s a neat car. He doesn’t care if we get it dirty, and if it’s hot, he lets us ride on the tailgate. Don’t worry, he’s a good driver. He’s even teaching Terry how to drive. But he only lets him drive on the mountain roads where there isn’t any traffic. All we ever see up there are logging trucks.

This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming in the lake. I didn’t go because I can’t swim, and Chad was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so Scoutmaster Webb let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. Scoutmaster Webb isn’t crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn’t even get mad that we didn’t wear life jackets.

Guess what? We all passed our first aid merit badges! When Dave jumped in the lake and cut his arm on the rocks, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Wade and I threw up, but Scoutmaster Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said they got sick that way with food they ate in prison.

I have to go now. We’re going into town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don’t worry about anything. We are fine.

Love,

Billy

P.S. How long has it been since I had a tetanus shot?

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Letter from a farm kid

June 26, 2017

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. I hope you are too.

Tell Walt and Elmer that the U.S. Army beats working for old man Doggett by a mile. They oughta join up quick before all of the places are taken.

I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but I am getting so I like to sleep late. All you got to do before breakfast is straighten up your bunk and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay … practically nothing.

We go on “route marches,” which the sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different. A route march is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city boys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bull’s-eye is near as big as a chipmunk’s head, and it don’t move, and it ain’t shooting back at you. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

We have something they call hand-to-hand combat training, where I get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be careful cause they break easy. It ain’t like fighting with that old bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this, except for that Buck Jordan from over in Moonshine Gulch. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I’m only 5’6″ and 140 pounds and he’s 6’8″ and near 280 pounds dry.

Tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join up before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in!

Your loving daughter,

Alice

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Going down swinging

April 25, 2017

PRILEP, Macedonia (AP) – Outside a small village near the border between Greece and Macedonia, a solitary nun keeps watch over a silent convent. She is the last caretaker of the site of significant historical developments spanning more than twenty centuries. When Sister Maria Cyrilla of the Order of the Perpetual Watch dies, the convent of St. Elias will be closed by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Macedonia.

However, that isn’t likely to happen soon, as Sister Maria, 53, enjoys excellent health. By her own estimate, she walks ten miles daily about the grounds of the convent, which once served as a base for the army of Attila the Hun. In ancient times, a Greek temple to Eros, the god of love, occupied the hilltop site.

Historians say that Attila took over the old temple in A.D. 439 and used it as a base for his marauding army. The Huns are believed to have first collected, and then destroyed, a large gathering of Greek legal writs at the site. It is thought that Attila wanted to study the Greek legal system and had the writs and other documents brought to the temple.

Scholars differ on why Attila had the valuable documents destroyed — either because he was barely literate and couldn’t read them, or because they described a democratic government that did not square with his preference for autocracy.

When the Orthodox Church took over the site in the 15th century and the convent was built, church leaders ordered the pagan statue of Eros destroyed, so another ancient Greek treasure was lost.

Today, there is only Sister Maria, watching over the silent convent on the site of the old Hun base, and when she goes, the convent will cease to be.

So that’s how it ends — with no Huns, no writs, no Eros, and nun left on base.

 

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