by Roger Allen

Good news
• Employment is up.
• Car buying is up.  So are retail sales.
• This recession (or depression), although deeper and more painful, is similar to many business cycles we have experienced. We’ll be out of this one soon.
• More people have become aware that we must have cleaner air and water. The same is true of global warming: it’s real. Most of the world is trying to deal with the reality because it’s our only planet.
• Only 10 months to go and the election will be over!
True Progress
Dave turns to his friend Kevin and asks for a cigarette.
“I thought you made a New Year’s resolution to quit smoking,” says Kevin.
“I’m in the process of quitting,” says Dave. “Right now I’m in the middle of phase one.”
“Phase one?” says Kevin.
“Yeah,” replies Dave, “I’ve quit buying.”
True Solutions
Three Pastors in the South were having lunch in a diner. One said, “Since summer started, I’ve been having trouble with bats in the church loft. I’ve tried everything—noise, spray, cats—nothing seems to scare them away.”
Another said, “Me, too. Hundreds are living in my belfry and the attic. I’ve even had the place fumigated and they won’t go away.”
The third said, “I baptized all mine and made them members of the church. Haven’t seen one back since.”
True Romance
A husband and wife in their early 60s were celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary in a romantic little restaurant. Suddenly a tiny, beautiful fairy appeared on their table and announced, “For being such an exemplary married couple, I will grant each of you a wish.”
“Ooh, I want to travel around the world with my darling husband,” said the wife. The fairy moved her magic wand, and two tickets for a deluxe cruise on a luxury liner appeared in her hand.
The husband thought for a moment and said, “Well, this is all very romantic. But an opportunity like this occurs once in a lifetime, so, I’m sorry, my love, but my wish is to have a wife thirty years younger than me.”
The wife and the fairy were both deeply disappointed, but a wish is a wish. So once again the fairy moved her magic wand and the husband became 92 years old.
Moral: Men might be ungrateful idiots, but fairies are women.
True life
A business owner tells her friend that she is desperately searching for an accountant. Her friend asks, “Didn’t your company hire an accountant a year or so ago?” The business owner replies, “That’s the accountant I’ve been searching for.”
True last words
God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway. And the good fortune to run into the ones that I do. And the eyesight to tell the difference.