Focus

I am surprised that our upcoming election may hinge on the candidates views on marriage. The briefest look at our national and world news shows and incredible variety of problems, troubles and serious issues. We have Syria, North Korea, immigration, climate change and economic distress. The marriage issue affects only a few. The major problems may affect everyone.

Judgement

A busload of politicians was driving down a country road, when suddenly the bus ran off the road and crashed into an old farmer’s barn.

The old farmer got off his tractor and went to investigate. Soon he dug a hole and buried the politicians. A few days later, the local sheriff came out, saw the crashed bus and asked the old farmer where all the politicians had gone.

The old farmer told him he had buried them.

The sheriff asked the old farmer, “Lordy, were they all dead?”

The old farmer said, “Well, some of them said they weren’t, but you know how them crooked politicians lie.”

Nutrition

Two alligators were sitting at the side of the swamp near Washington, DC.  The smaller one turned to the bigger one and said, “I can’t understand how you kin be so much bigger ‘n me. We’re the same age, we was the same size as kids. I just don’t get it.”

“Well,” said the big ‘gator, “what you been eatin’, boy?”

“Politicians, same as you,” replied the small ‘gator.

“Hmm. Well, where do y’all catch ‘em?”

“Down ‘tother side of the swamp near the parkin’ lot by the capitol.”

“Same here. Hmm. How do you catch ‘em?”

“Well, I crawls up under one of them Lexus and wait fer one to unlock the car door. Then I jump out, grab ‘em on the leg, shake the manure out of ‘em, and eat ‘em!”

“Ah!” says the big alligator, “I think I see your problem. You ain’t gettin’ any real nourishment. See, by the time you get done shakin’ the manure out of a politician, there ain’t nothin’ left but the hind quarters and a briefcase.”

The miracle

A woman takes her 16-year-old daughter to the doctor. The doctor says, “Okay, Mrs. Smith, what’s the problem?”

The mother says, “It’s my daughter, Lynda. She keeps getting these cravings, she’s putting on weight, and is sick most mornings.”

The doctor gives Lynda a good examination, then turns to the mother and says, “Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your Lynda is pregnant—about 4 months, would be my guess.”

The mother says, “Pregnant? She can’t be, she has never ever been left alone with a man! Have you, Lynda?”

Lynda says, “No mother! I’ve never even kissed a man!”

The doctor walks over to the window and just stares out. About five minutes pass and finally the mother says, “Is there something wrong out there, doctor?”

The doctor replies, “No, not really, it’s just that the last time anything like this happened, a star appeared in the east and three wise men came over the hill. I’ll be darned if I’m going to miss it this time!”

Truth

The side with the most arrows and the best horses wins the war. Nope, wrong century.

New truth: The side with the most guns wins the war.

Better truth: Being smart about resolving conflict can avoid the gun solution. The gun solution seems to feed on itself and, more often than not, leads to more unnecessary conflict.

Another new truth: The politician with the most money wins the election. We need to remember this when we vote for our representatives in Congress. Every poll shows they’re currently WAY down on Americans’ approval list.

Sad truth: We elected all of them.

Hopeful truth: In a democracy, voters must get informed and stay informed. Leaving the TV on one station all the time? Not enough. We need to expose ourselves to real information, and a variety of it.

Politicians lie to us and they pay others to lie to us. They want to warp our opinions. Let’s prove we aren’t pushovers.

More crooks

Thieves robbed a bank. The chief of police ordered his sergeant to cover all exit points so that none of the robbers could get away.

When the sergeant reported back that all the robbers had escaped, the chief went mad with anger. Pounding on the desk, he yelled, “Didn’t I tell you to cover all the exit points?”

“I did,” defended the sergeant, “but they managed to escape through the entrance.”

And another one

The bank manager was down to two final applicants, one of whom would get the job as cashier.

The first was from a small college in upstate New York. He was a nice young fellow but a bit timid. His interview went okay, but it was nothing special.

Then the bank manager called for the other man: “Jim Johnson!”

Up stepped a burley young man who seemed quite sure of himself. “He looks like he can take care of any situation,” thought the manager, and decided, there and then, to hire him.

Turning to the first applicant, the manager said he could leave and they would let him know.

Turning to Johnson, he said, “Now, Jim, I like the way you carry yourself. That’s an asset for the job as cashier. However, you must also be precise. I noticed you didn’t fill out the part on the application where we asked about your formal education.”

Jim looked a little confused so the manager said, “Where did you get your financial training?”

“Oh,” replied Jim, “Yale.”

“Excellent,” said the manager. “You’re hired! Now that you’re working for us, what do you prefer to be called?”

Jim replied, “I don’t care. Either Yim or Mr. Yonson.”

We found those blondes

Three blondes took a walk in the country and came upon a line of tracks. “Those must be deer tracks,” said the first one.

“No, stupid,” said the second. “Anyone can tell they’re rabbit tracks.”

The third blonde chimed in, “No, you idiots, those are horse tracks!”

They were still arguing ten minutes later when the train hit them.

Too many?

Although Western societies and China have cut back the average number of children per couple, other parts of the world overflow with babies.

The growth of world population is astounding. In 10,000 B.C. there were about one million of us. By 1900 we were up to one and a half billion. Then, at year 2000, our number was at six billion.

The United States Census Bureau estimates that world population exceeded SEVEN BILLION on Mar. 12, 2012. According to a separate estimate by the

Human beings are using up the world at a tremendous rate. Much of the world is hungry. Global pollution isn’t under control. We are running out of clean water. Disease, starvation, and war create misery but not a net decrease in population.

The news is full of wars, protests, killings and revolutions. If it is part of the human condition that we can’t get along with each other, then this adds to an obvious truth: We humans have used Mother Nature’s gift of reproduction to excess.

Tom was being questioned by the teacher during an arithmetic lesson. “If you had ten dollars,” said the teacher, “and I ask you for a loan of eight dollars, how much would you have left?”

“Ten,” said Tom.

“Ten?” the teacher said. “How do you make it ten?”

“Well,” replied Tom, “you may ask for a loan of eight dollars, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get it.”

This week’s lawyer

A dog ran into a butcher shop and grabbed a roast off the counter. Fortunately, the butcher recognized the dog as belonging to his neighbor. The neighbor happened to be a lawyer.

So the butcher called him and said, “Hey, if your dog stole a roast from my butcher shop, would you be liable for the cost of the meat?” The lawyer replied, “Of course, how much was the roast?”

“$7.98.”

A few days later the butcher received a check in the mail for $7.98. Attached to it was an invoice that read: Legal Consultation Service: $150.

This week’s doctor

Three doctors are in a duck blind and a bird flies overhead. The general practitioner looks up and says, “Looks like a duck, flies like a duck… it’s probably a duck.” He shoots at it but misses.

Another bird flies overhead and the pathologist looks up, then leafs through the pages of his bird field guide. “Hmmm… green wings, yellow bill, quacking sound… it might be a duck.” He raises his gun to shoot, but the bird is long gone.

A third bird flies over. The surgeon raises his gun and shoots almost without looking, brings the bird down, turns to the pathologist and says, “Go see if that was a duck.”

This week’s blond

I’m sorry; I didn’t run into any blonds this week. But I did overhear a girl in a hat say to her friend, “If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?”

Another brilliant idea

Tourism is a big moneymaker. Locally, we draw in a few tourists with the Red Flannel Festival, Start of Summer, Harvest Festival and miscellaneous other special events. Wildly creative promotion could bring us tourists by the truckload.

Since nobody actually wears red flannels anymore, how about a Lingerie Festival? I’m envisioning models for ladies’ underwear, historical displays (such as Queen Victoria’s bloomers) and a contest for better design of men’s boxer shorts. But especially the models.

And why has Rockford never had a Shoe Festival? Just imagine five-inch-heel foot races and shoelace knot-tying workshops. Rockford has been a shoe place for a hundred years, more or less. We need to make shoes fun enough to pull in the tourists. They’d sip their libations from high-heeled slippers in the beer tent…

I’ll stop right there for now because brilliant thinking always tires me out.

The olden days, part I

Henry was playing pretend-fight. This was back in the days before indoor plumbing. During his game, the boy knocked over the outhouse. Sure that he’d get a whupping, he ran into the woods.

It was after dark when Henry sneaked back and, sure enough, his father was waiting. “Son, did you knock over the outhouse?”

“No, Pappy.”

“Well, let me tell you a story,” said the father. “Once, not that long ago, George Washington received a shiny new axe from his father. Excited, he tried it out. Too late he realized he had cut down his mother’s favorite cherry tree.”

Henry’s father paused. “Just like you, he ran into the woods.” Henry felt his face turn red as his dad went on:

“When George came back, his pappy asked, ‘Did you cut down the cherry tree?’ George looked his father in the eye and said, ‘I cannot tell a lie. Yes, I did it.’ George’s father said, ‘Since you were honest with me, I won’t punish you.’”

Henry gulped. His father again asked, “Son, did you knock down the outhouse?”

“Pappy,” said Henry, “I cannot lie. Yes, it was me that did it.”

Then Henry’s father spanked him red, white, and blue. “Pappy,” whimpered Henry, “I told the truth! Why did you whup me?”

“Because,” came the answer, “George Washington’s father wasn’t in the tree when he chopped it down!”

The olden days, part II

Father Bill, the venerable old priest, visited the parish school now and then. He walked into the fourth grade class, where the children were studying the states, and asked how many states they could name. One by one they came up with about 40 names. Father Bill smiled and told them that in his day students knew the names of all of them.

Richie raised his hand and said, “Yes, Father, but in those days there were only thirteen.”

A deep thought

Do you realize that in about 40 years we’ll have millions of old ladies running around with tattoos?

And one more

Living in a nudist colony must take all the fun out of Halloween.

North Korea, Syria and Iran represent a few more wars our country could stay out of.

If you’re in favor of war, skip down to the jokes.

My own low approval of war comes from a long life that goes back so far that for most people it’s only “history.” My military service was spent in Korea in 1946-1948, the handful of years between World War II and the full-blown Korean War.

None of America’s wars occurred on our soil in living memory. For that we should be thankful. But maybe it has made us, as a nation, more accepting of our going to war.

On the bright side, although America has many religions and sects, we seem to get along. That is a real blessing. Other countries have internal religious wars in which America should think long and hard before getting involved. Maybe we’re all agreed on that.

What I’m trying to say about war can be summed up in two words: Be skeptical.

Religious viewpoint

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her six- and seven-year- olds.

After explaining the commandment to “honor” their fathers and mothers, she asked, “Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?”

Without missing a beat, one boy, the eldest child in his family, answered, “Thou shalt not kill.”

Perfect viewpoint

At a local coffee bar, a young woman was expounding to her friends on her idea of the perfect mate: “It’s very important that the man I marry be musical with a decent singing voice. I consider a sense of humor to be essential, as well as knowing how to tell jokes. In other words, the man I marry has to be a shining light among company. But he also must be the kind who will stay home with me at night.”

A male listener at a nearby table overheard and spoke up: “Lady, what you really want is a television set!”

A blonde went to her doctor and showed him that both her ears were red and painful. The doctor asked her what had happened. “I was ironing a shirt and the phone rang,” she told him, “but, instead of picking up the phone, I accidentally grabbed the iron and stuck it up to my ear.”

“Oh, dear!” said the doctor in sympathy. ”But what happened to your other ear?”

“The jerk called back!”

Artistic viewpoint

After his divorce, Joe asked his best friend, Hank, to fix him up with a blind date. Hank obliged. The next day Joe phoned Hank and shouted angrily, “What kind of guy do you think I am? That girl you fixed me up with was cross-eyed. She was almost bald. Her nose was long and crooked. She had hair growing on her face. She was flat-chested and her ankles were as thick as her thighs.”

“Well,” answered Hank, “either you like Picasso, or you don’t like Picasso.”

Watch out for weather

Weather is always on our mind. Cold winters, hot summers, storms. The really bad ones are rare, but we have had tornadoes, windstorms, floods and ice storms.

On the national level we are recovering from the recession and changes due to the global economy.

The moral; We live in a moderate climate, and compared to some parts of the world, we live pretty well. Enjoy life. It’s all we have.

Speedy

A tourist was being led through the swamps of Florida. “Is it true,” he asked, “that an alligator won’t attack you if you carry a flashlight?”

“That depends,” replied the guide, “on how fast you carry the flashlight.”

Cozy

An old woman says to her friend: “You know, last night I was shivering all over from cold.”

Her friend: “Do you remember if your teeth chattered?”

The old woman: “I don’t think so. We haven’t slept together for ages.

Access

There were two buddies—one with a Doberman Pinscher and the other with a Chihuahua. The guy with the Doberman Pinscher says to his friend, “Let’s go and get something to eat.”

The guy with the Chihuahua says, “We can’t go in there. We’ve got dogs with us.”   The buddy with the Doberman Pinscher says, “Just follow my lead.” They walk over to the restaurant, the guy with the Doberman Pinscher puts on a pair of dark glasses, and he starts to walk in.

The bouncer at the door says, “Sorry, mac, no pets allowed.”

The man with the Doberman Pinscher says, “You don’t understand. This is my seeing-eye dog.”

The bouncer says, “A Doberman Pinscher?” He says, “Yes, they’re using them now.”

The man at the door says, “Come on in.”

The buddy with the Chihuahua figures, “What the heck,” so he puts on a pair of dark glasses and starts to walk in.

Once again the bouncer says, “Sorry, pal, no pets allowed.”

The guy with the Chihuahua says, “You don’t understand. This is my seeing-eye dog.” The bouncer at the door says, “A Chihuahua?”

The man with the Chihuahua says, “A Chihuahua??? They gave me a Chihuahua?!”

Primary

John received a free ticket to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, John’s seat was in the last row in the corner of the stadium. He notices an empty seat 10 rows up from the 50-yard line. He decides to make his way to the empty seat. As he sits down he asks the man next to him if anyone is sitting there. The man told him no, it was empty. John is very excited to have a seat like this at a Super Bowl and asks why in the world no one is using it? The man replied that it was his wife’s seat but she passed away. He said this was the first Super Bowl that they have not attended together since they were married. John said that it was really sad and asked if he couldn’t find someone, a relative or a close friend to take the seat?

“No” replied the man. “They’re at her funeral!”

Annual Humor Banquet

As you all know, or should, the Squire’s annual Humor Banquet has come and gone. You weren’t there. Shame on you.

The Squire always holds its humor banquet at noon the Saturday before April Fools Day. Location: the sidewalk of The Corner Bar at Main and Courtland in Rockford. The rules: bring jokes to share and buy your own hotdog.

Okay, so I wasn’t at this year’s banquet, either, but I have a good excuse (don’t know about YOU).

Loaded with jokes, I stepped into the garage at 11:00. My car’s flat tire made me grab the bike. However, before even getting to the corner, I hit the neighborhood porcupine. The porcupine gave me a dirty look and waddled off, leaving me with two flat bike tires.

So: back to the house, on foot, wheeling the bike; called the flat tire fixer guys.

I was standing in the driveway next to their truck when a passing skate-boarder clipped me in the ankle. I suffered only a damaged sock but the skateboarder lost his balance and landed smack on that same accident-prone porcupine.

While I cussed out the porcupine and chased him up his tree, the flat tire guys called an ambulance for the skateboarder, who was unreasonably frantic about some quills sticking out of his backside.

While waiting for the ambulance, the skateboarder called his lawyer. The lawyer arrived while I was still in the tree pursuing the porcupine. I saw him taking notes about the tree and the porcupine being on my property. The ambulance arrived and took away the skateboarder.

Still determined to make it to the Humor Banquet on time, I headed off in a sprint down the street toward The Corner Bar. When I stepped on the left-behind skateboard, I knew it was a lost cause.

My next-door neighbor, Ken Platt, bandaged my injured hand while I tried to ignore the mean-spirited snorts and chortles of the porcupine up there in the tree.

It was disappointing to miss my most fun event the year. I attach a few jokes I tried to bring with me to the banquet:

Historical note

A busload of tourists arrives at Runnymede. They gather around the guide, who says, “This is the spot where the barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta.”

“When did that happen?” asks a fellow at the front of the crowd.

The man looks at his watch and says, “Darn! Just missed it by a half hour!”

Kitchen note

Two confirmed bachelors sat talking. Their conversation drifted from sports to cooking.

“I got a cookbook once,” said the first, “but I could never do anything with it.”

“Too much fancy cooking in it, huh?” asked the second.

“You said it. Every one of the recipes began the same way: Take a clean dish and….”

Procrastinator’s note

I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

Watchful eyes

You may have noticed the little blue “police” cars on the streets of Rockford. Behind the wheels are some unpaid good guys, members of Rockford’s Volunteer Services Unit Chief David Jones came up with the useful (and cheap) idea six or seven years ago. The volunteers (about 16 of them) police handicapped parking spaces, check on vacant homes and on the disabled, and monitor the White Pine Trail. They also staff the Visitors Center much of the week.

Volunteers usually work one day a week. Although unarmed themselves, they keep an eye on things throughout the city and are in radio contact with headquarters if they see something that needs attention.

Sgt. Dave Robinson, who has been with the Rockford Police Department since 2000, is in charge of the unit. In 2011 Dave received the West Michigan Crime Prevention Practitioner of the Year Award.

Our sister city, Cedar Springs, does not have an official Neighborhood Watch. However, Chief of Police Roger Parent says the department encourages residents to notify the police 24/7 if they see anything that might be suspicious. Chief Parent emphasizes that the C.S. police are never too busy to handle these calls.

More watchful eyes

The radar installed in a police helicopter caught a speeding motorist.

Down below, a police officer pulled him over and began to issue a traffic ticket.

“How did you know I was speeding?” asked the frustrated driver.

The officer pointed somberly toward the sky.

“You mean,” said the motorist, “that even He is out to get me?”

Police department

From a State Policeman:

I once received a call from a woman who asked how to baste a turkey. After a stunned moment I, being the go-to cook in my family, described the procedure.

Then I thought to ask: “But why would you call the State Police to find out how to baste a turkey?”

There was only a slight hesitation before the lady replied, “Well, you knew, didn’t you?”

Paramedics department

As he came out his front door onto the porch, a man passed out in a dead faint. Someone called 911.

When the paramedics arrived, they helped him regain consciousness and then asked if he knew what caused him to faint.

“It was enough to make anybody faint,” said the man. “My son asked me for the keys to the garage and, instead of taking off in the car, he came out with the lawn mower!”

Art department

Tom goes to his first show at an art gallery and is looking at the paintings. One huge canvas has black with yellow blobs of paint splattered all over it. The next painting is a murky gray color with drips of purple paint streaked across it.

Tom walks over to the artist and says, “I don’t understand your paintings.”

“I paint what I feel inside me,” explains the artist.

Tom says, “Have you ever tried Alka-Seltzer?”

Good jokes

People sometimes ask, “Where do you get all those jokes? You don’t make them up, do you?”

Sometimes I tell the truth and admit that I don’t make them up. BUT, I always say, there’s an art to choosing good jokes.

Here’s where I reveal the secret: certain topics are funnier than average. Among them are religion, old age, blondes, little kids, and cowboys.

Religion

The new priest is nervous about hearing confessions, so he asks an older priest to sit in on his sessions. After the new priest hears a couple confessions, the old priest asks him to step out of the confessional to get a few suggestions.

“Cross your arms over your chest and rub your chin with one hand,” says the old priest.

The new priest tries it. The old priest nods. “Now try murmuring things like, ‘I see… yes…  go on… I understand…’ and ‘How did you feel about that?’ ”

The new priest says those things, trying them out. “Sounds good,” says the old priest. “Now, don’t you think that’s a little better than saying, ‘Whoa…! What happened next?’ ”

Old age

The football game was a yawner so a bored student starts talking to the senior citizen sitting next to him. It’s impossible for the older generation to understand the world, he informs the senior. “You grew up in a different time. Today we have television, jumbo jets, and space exploration. We have advanced weather forecasting, electric cars, computers with lightning speed processing, and cell phones that take pictures.”

“You’re right,” says the old guy. “We didn’t have those things when we were young, so we invented them, you little twit!”

Blonde joke

1) A blonde goes into work one morning, crying. “What’s the matter?” asks her boss.

“Early this morning,” replies the blonde, “I got a phone call saying that my mother had passed away.”

The boss feels sorry for her. “Why don’t you just go home for the day?” he says.

The blonde shakes her head. “No, I’d be better off here. I need to keep my mind occupied.”

The boss agrees, but tells her, “If you need anything, just let me know.”

A few hours pass and the boss decides to check on the blonde. He looks out through his office door and sees her sobbing hysterically. He rushes to her side and asks, “Are you going to be okay?”

“I can’t believe this!” cries the blonde. “I just got a call from my sister and she told me that her mom died, too!”

Another blonde joke

Two blondes go deep into the frozen woods searching for a Christmas tree. After hours of subzero temperatures and a few close calls with hungry wolves, one blonde turns to the other and says, “I’m chopping down the next tree I see. I don’t care whether it’s decorated or not!”

Little kids and cowboys

I’m sorry that we’re very low on jokes featuring little kids and cowboys. I wish you joke providers would quit slacking off.

Go green!

St. Patrick’s Day: It’s not the kind of holiday that gives us the day off work, but Americans seem to love it. Even those with no trace of Irish in their veins like it. Maybe it’s just the green beer.

St. Patrick is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland, stamping out the pagan practices of the natives. St. Patrick may be the one who first imported Christianity to Ireland or it may have been some other early priest, but Patrick is the one who caught on with the locals. This happened in the fifth century, so we’re not talking fleeting popularity.

The green flood

In the 19th century, America received a flood of Irish nationals fleeing poverty and the potato famine. Those immigrants are the forebears of a huge number of present-day Americans who tend to be proud of their ancestry. But during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Irish-Americans were regarded as lowlifes: pretty stupid and probably drunk. This led to a lot of Irish jokes.

Pretty stupid

1) Paddy was shaving when he knocked the mirror off the shelf and it fell to the floor where it cracked across the middle. Paddy gazed down in horror. “Bejabbers, I’ve cut me throat,” he gasped.

2) Paddy and Mick were nailing up the side of a wooden house. Mick noticed that Paddy was examining the nails and throwing away every other one.

“What’s wrong with the nails?” he asked.

“Sure and the heads are at the wrong end,” answered Paddy.

“You idiot,” said Mick. “Can’t you see they’re for the other side of the house?”

Probably drunk

1) Why did God invent whiskey? So the Irish would never rule the world.

2) An Irishman walks into a pub. “Give me three pints of Guinness, please.”

So the bartender brings him three pints and the man proceeds to alternately sip one, then the other, then the third, until they’re gone. He then orders three more.

The bartender says, “Sir, you probably like them cold. You don’t have to order three at a time. I can keep an eye on it, and when you get low I’ll bring you a fresh cold one.”

“You don’t understand,” said the customer. “I have two brothers, one in Australia and one back in the old country. We made a vow to each other that every Saturday night we’d still drink together. So right now, my brothers have three Guinness, too, and we’re drinking together.

The bartender thought that was a wonderful tradition.

Every week the man came in and ordered three beers. Then one week he came in and ordered only two. He drank them and then ordered two more.

The bartender said to him, “I know what your tradition is, and I’d just like to say that I’m sorry that one of your brothers died.”

The man said, “Oh, me brothers are fine, but I just quit drinking.”

Irish names

I’m one, are you? Happy St. Patrick’s Day! You can find a partial list of Irish last names at this website: http://www.st-patricks-day.com/irish-family-names.html