The Bet

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States, was popularly known as “Silent Cal.” One time at a party, a woman walked up to him and said, “My husband bet me I couldn’t get three words out of you.”

Coolidge replied, “You lose.”

Names Overboard

Boating magazine runs a contest for clever boat names. The following names Reeled in the honors:

Brace Yourself (Owned by an Orthodontist)

Sir Osis of the River

Aqua Seltzer

Out to Launch

A lawyer’s boat called ~ Watertight Alibi

Meals on Reels

The Merri Yot

and, from a landscape contractor, Yard Buoy

GILLIGAN

A guy gets shipwrecked. When he wakes up, he’s on a beach. The sand is dark red. He can’t believe it. The sky is dark red. He walks around a bit and sees there is dark red grass, dark red birds and dark red fruit on the dark red trees. He’s shocked when he finds that his skin is starting to turn dark red too.

“Oh no!!” he says. “I think I’ve been marooned!!”

Get The Picture

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time.

“I have good news and bad news,” the owner replied. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings.”

“That’s wonderful,” the artist exclaimed. “What’s the bad news?”

“The guy was your doctor.”

Q: Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?  A: Because it wanted to reach the bottom.

Slug-Fest

There was this snail who wanted to be a Formula One racing driver. He went along to the track and asked if he could drive. The racing team manager said, ‘Yes, but you can’t have a number on your car, you can only have an ‘S’ because you are a snail.’

The Snail was OK about this is so he entered the race. The race started and the snail’s car was at the back…but suddenly he sped to the front, over-taking all the cars and won!!

As the spectators saw the Snail speed past them, they yelled ‘WOW! LOOK AT THAT S-CAR GO!!’

Mis-Conduct

The Symphony Orchestra was playing a concert in the park. They were in the middle of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. The basses, in the back of the orchestra, decided they had a few minutes to spare before being asked to play anything, so they ran across the street to the pub for some ale. It was a windy day, so they found some string to wrap around their music stands to secure their music while they were gone. Once at the tavern, they could hear the music and keep up with the progress of the piece.

After a few rounds, they decided that they had to hurry because the last movement of the ninth symphony was under way. They stumbled back onto the bandstand and were fumbling with the string, trying to get it loose, but not having much success. The conductor saw what was happening and instantly sized up the situation: it was the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied and the basses were loaded.

The Name of The Game

Once upon a time, handsome prince Edward had an even more handsome Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Minton. Edward took Minton to the fields hunting every day. Minton loved to hunt, he especially loved to hunt the transitory male game birds, he was painstakingly trained to spot these transitory male game birds, they had white feathers and a rounded head, Minton could spot one from 200 yards and could smell the trail of a transitory male game bird 10 hours old and 400 yard from the bird.

One day while Edward and Minton were out hunting Edward saw a huge flock of these shuttle cocks, there must have been a hundred of them, ordering Minton into flurry of wings, one of the birds panicked and flew right into Minton’s open mouth before Minton could think he swallowed the Shuttle Cock, and that’s when it happened, Edward spoke the words that will forever Name the Game, BAD MINTON!

“10 Things a Mom Doesn’t Want to Hear”  

1. Mommy, what happens when you swallow a quarter?

2. Mommy your lipstick works better than crayons.

3. Mommy, does Kool-Aid leave a stain???

4. I saved you money mommy, I cut my own hair…

5. But DAD says that word all the time.

6. Mommy, what’s it cost to fix a window???

7. Has anyone seen my snake???

8. I painted your shoes pretty, huh Mommy?

9. The dog doesn’t like dressing up in your clothes.

10. Mommy, what happens when you flush your goldfish down the toilet?

Ode to Black and White TV!

You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
Pull a chair up to the TV set,
“Good night, David; Good night, Chet”.Dependin’ on the channel you tuned
You got Rob and Laura – or Ward and June.
It felt so good, felt so right.
Life looked better in black and white.I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys
Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys
Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train
Superman, Jimmy & Lois Lane.

Father Knows Best, Patty Duke
Rin Tin Tin and Lassie too,
Donna Reed on Thursday night–
Life looked better in black and white.

I wanna go back to black and white.
Everything always turned out right.
Simple people, simple lives
Good guys always won the fights.

Now nothin is the way it seems
In living color on the TV screen.
Too many murders, too much fight,
I wanna go back to black and white.

In God they trusted, in bed they slept.
A promise made was a promise kept.
They never cussed or broke their vows.
They’d never make the network now.

The Whisper Test

Mary Ann Bird, was born with multiple birth defects: deaf in one ear, a cleft palate, a disfigured face, a crooked nose and lopsided feet. As a child, she dreaded other children staring at her and asking the embarrassing question: “What happened to your lip?” ”I cut it on a piece of glass,” she would lie.

Each year the children had their hearing tested at school. The classroom teacher would call each child to the front desk and have the child cover first one ear, and then the other. The teacher would then whisper some simple phrase to the child, such as, “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” This was the whisper test. If the child could repeat the phrase, then their hearing was apparently fine and they passed the test. To avoid humiliation, Mary Ann always cheated on the test, casually cupping her hand over her one good ear so that she could hear what the teacher said.

One year, Mary Ann’s classroom teacher was Miss Leonard, one of the most loved and popular teachers in the school. She exuded gentleness and loved the children deeply. When the time came for Mary Ann’s hearing test, Mary Ann cupped her hand over her good ear as she had done so many times before and strained to hear what Miss Leonard would whisper. “I waited for those words,” Mary Ann wrote, “that God must have put into her mouth; those seven words that changed my life.” Miss Leonard did not say, “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” She whispered, “I wish you were my little girl.” And those seven positive, powerful words became a watershed moment in Mary Ann Bird’s life.

Nothing really changed for Mary Ann Bird. She remained disfigured and deaf in one ear and the object of her classmates’ painful ridicule. But everything changed for Mary Ann Bird. She began to see that her classmates’ judgments were neither the only words about her nor the final words. She started to understand herself as loved and lovable and dared to envision a future not constrained by her circumstances but a future that could transcend them. Indeed, following in the footsteps of the teacher who set her free, Mary Ann Bird herself became an acclaimed teacher known for her compassion and kindness.