Door Jam

A man went to apply for a job.

Interviewer: “You have no experience in this field – and yet you’re asking
for a rather high salary.”

Applicant: “Yes, work is so much harder when you don’t know what you’re
doing.”

The employer then said, “We have an opening for people like you.”

“Oh, great,” the man said, “What is it?”

“It’s called the door.”

“Nothing is impossible”? Try slamming a revolving door.

A monster who likes to ring doorbells is a knock less monster.

For a while, Houdini used a lot of trap doors in his act, but he was just going through a stage.

The school had a door made of iron. That was why it was called the school of hard knocks.

When I commented on a friend’s psychedelic door he said, Don’t Knock It.

If you run through a screen door you’ll strain yourself.

 

Soldier’s Favorite Day of the year: March Forth

The young boy was spending a Sunday afternoon with his grandpa. Looking at pictures of his grandpa in his military uniform, the boy asked, “Grandpa, did you ever kill anyone in the war?”

“No champ, I never did.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“You’re telling me,” began grandpa, “I was the cook!”

 

EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE I LEARNED FROM A JIGSAW PUZZLE
By Jacquie Sewell (with apologies to Robert Fulghum)

1. Don’t force a fit – if something is meant to be, it will come together naturally.

2. When things aren’t going so well, take a break. Everything will look different when you return.

3. Be sure to look at the big picture. Getting hung up on the little pieces only leads to frustration.

4. Perseverance pays off. Every important puzzle went together bit by bit, piece by piece.

5. When one spot stops working, move to another. But be sure to come back later (see #4).

6. The creator of the puzzle gave you the picture as a guidebook. Refer to the Creator’s guidebook often.

7. Variety is the spice of life. It’s the different colors and patterns that make the puzzle interesting.

8. Working together with friends and family makes any task fun.

9. Establish the border first. Boundaries give a sense of security and order.

10. Don’t be afraid to try different combinations. Some matches are surprising.

11. Take time often to celebrate your successes (even little ones).

12. Anything worth doing takes time and effort. A great puzzle can’t be rushed.

13. When you finally reach the last piece, don’t be sad. Rejoice in the masterpiece you’ve made and enjoy a well-deserved rest.
Copyright 2001 Jacquie Sewell. Permission is granted to send this to others, but not for commercial purposes.

 

When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she’d dye

Golfers never die, they just lose their drive.

Vehicle mechanics? They re-tire every day.

Beekeepers never retire, they just buzz off.

Musicians never retire, they just decompose.

Old librarians never die, they just check out, become overdue, and lose their circulation.

Old crossword puzzlers never die, they just go across and — hopefully — up.

Old milkmaids never die, they just kick the bucket and lose their whey.

Old plumbers never die, they just get out of sink and go down the drain.

Old teachers never die, they just grade away and lose their principals, their faculties, and their class.

Old housemaids never die, they just return to dust.

 

Elementary Swing Test

It was the first day of school, and the first grade teacher decided to see how much her students knew about math.

“Dewey, can you tell me what is 3 and 2?”

Dewey said, “That’s when you should watch very, very carefully before you swing at the next pitch.”

 

The Old Fisherman

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face- lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus ’til morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face…I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…”

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him.

When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind. ” I told him he was welcome to come again.

And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!” Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness’ would have been easier to bear.

I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint. Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend changed my mind. “I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” All this happened long ago and now, in God’s garden, how tall and lovely this soul stands. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”(1 Samuel 16:7b)

by – Mary Bartels Bray