What me?

I saw them, all together, behind the tent, playing with a knife. A clear violation of the rules of a scouting merit badge. Should I turn them in? Me...the boy in charge?

It was a warm sunny day and I was on my to half drown myself during a swimming test for my promotion to first class in the Boy Scouts. I remember walking out onto the dock to the area beyond the beach where the water was over my head. I couldn't swim. I knew that. But I was put in charge of my patrol as the oldest and longest member of my troop to achieve the rank of second class.

As we got on the bus my troop leader barked out my name in his best imitation of Sargent Carter yelling at Gomer Pyle. "Tymon!!!...he yelled...your patrol leader isn't going to camp....measles or something....your in charge."  The words were barely out of his mouth when I felt my knees get weak and head begin to ache. My two weeks at Boy Scout summer camp had now turned from high lite of my young life to a bus ride to Alcatraz...( ok... I know there is no bridge to Alcatraz....give me a break here ) . What???...Me???...in charge???

 Well there I was standing next to three other "swimmers" about to jump to my death in water over my head by who knows how much. ( I could hear it now..."If he just stood up and stopped all that flailing around he wouldn't have drowned"). I had to do it. I had to prove that I was worthy of being in charge and get that damm promotion to First Class.

The water was colder than I thought it would be but my strategy was clear. I would hold my breath for the first lap and swim completely under water until I had to turn and come back. A quick breath and the same thing home to victory over my demons and the promotion. I made it about ten feet before I ran out of oxygen and began flopping around like what I can only imagine looked like dieing seal. A pole stabbed the water near my head. I grabbed for it and was pulled out of the water. I headed back to my tent, defeated. When I got there my friends were still there disregarding the rules of their Totin' Chip merit badge. So I took the knife and threatened to turn them in. Sometimes you have to take charge even if you haven't earned it.

Old Soles

I'm running out...of old shoes that is. The ones that are comfortable and familiar. The ones with memories of where they have been. The ones that I cant buy a replacement for. They are all wearing out. Since my days in the office are over the dress shoes have become a dust covered pile in the closet next to the lonely gaggle of ties nearby. My daily footwear along with many things in my life have changed.
This winter I found a pair of "duck boots" in the back of the closet. I had bought them at Walmart years ago for some reason. They weren't my everyday shoes. They worked well for me as I shoveled my way thru the winter.
Then suddenly as if on cue knowing that they were no longer be needed as spring approached I noticed a crack. My feet were no longer dry. Searching for a replacement I noticed a pair of old work boots that must be 15 years old. They still fit!!!. Well it's time to start work on those outside projects, new roof, new porch, new paint job for the house and with that I must chose a pair of shoes. I usually wear some hiking boots. The ones I have now are nearing there end or headed for a trip to the back of the closet. I have had a replacement pair, new in the box and waiting there for the last six months but they have yet to make it into the daily rotation.
I have a lot of decisions to make. I guess I'll kick back and relax and contemplate my footwear future all the while wearing my favorite slippers, the ones with ( I can hear Kayla's sighing and her eyes rolling as I say this" the duct tape keeping them together.    

Spring forward into mud

The snow is mounting outside as it does on every Sunday night since I can remember.That means that Monday is shoveling day. Unlike most, I look forward to the task at hand. First the house and driveway must be cleared then the hydrants and now to locals who for what ever reason cant shovel themselves. I am I shovel. The air is crisp and quiet. I can feel my breathing and every muscle in my back aches but I don't push it beyond what my screaming muscles can handle.I stop in mid-shovel to enjoy the picture. Everything white and cold, my gloves ,hat scarfs and various layers of clothes insulate me from the real cold. It isn't uncomfortable. The snow is light, almost like frozen white feathers. No heavy slush but it is so cold.

Soon this will all be over. The sun will get higher in the sky as the temperature climbs above single digits. Things will begin the melt. It will be a mixture of rain and snow next time. Heavier to move. The air will be warmer. Everything will be wet not frozen. Messy, muddy, sloppy.....Spring is on the way! The snow will become dirty without its weekly covering. Water will leak into basements as the melting continues. The ground covered for months will reveal itself as a muddy mess of unraked leaves and lost gloves and old coffee cups.

I guess I have to change with the seasons. But I will miss the snow. Then again there is always the hot humid days of summer. I guess I just enjoy extremes.
    

Junk

I have a hard time throwing things away. Especially if I have had it for and extended period of time. Now I don't think that I am a hoarder but when I have watched the show I find myself saying "heh, that lamp from the 1964 Worlds Fair could be worth something....and your throwing it out?" The longer that I have something the harder it is for me to get rid of. Ill look at an old ticket stub from a Led Zeppelin concert on Halloween night 1969 and say " why did I keep this" Then I remember that it was my first concert and that there only a couple of hundred of us were there that night to watch would be come one of the greatest bands in rock history. I go threw this process every once and awhile and I know that some things will survive the purge. Usually if I haven't looked at something, a note, a receipt or an old coupon for $15.00 oil change from 1965 at a now defunct garage, I will reluctantly throw it out. Some things become more valuable with time. They are often categorized as antiques but to me that are just junk that I can now sell on ebay for twice what I paid for it.
It can be fun though to go thru the memories as I toss a tee shirt that I wore during my first hike up Mount Washington but has been relegated to a hole filled rag used to wipe the grease off tools in the garage. But everything has its time and purpose and nothing lasts forever so toss it out and fill a landfill some place.   

Predictions

Some people at this time of the year look back and review that past year. They also look forward with resolutions for the new year. I guess that I do the same thing in a way since I'm great a making lists for myself. For instance a list of things that I want to do this year would include ....climb a mountain in New Hampshire again, learn a new language or ride in the "flattest century of the east" again....(as I think about this as I'm writing,  my list contains things that I have already done. Maybe I should add more new adventures to the list.)

Instead I'm going to make some predictions that may not come true this year or in any year in the near future but  these are things that I think will come true soon or later:

1. There will be cars that drive themselves

I can remember being thirteen and worried that I would never get to drive a car because by the time I got my license there would be flying cars and I would have lost my chance to hot rod around the neighborhood. I think that I was watching to many Jetsons episodes.

2. The NFL will become an also ran when it comes to big name national sports.

It has nothing to do with under inflated footballs or domestic violence or athletes getting arrested for who knows what . It will be brought down my the moms of the country who will not allow there young boys to play a sport where they can get hit in the head, knocked silly and with possible injures that could affect the rest of their life. 

3. Everyone will have the option of having a chip not unlike those in cats and dogs surgically installed in them.

A computer chip that will have everything on it from their drivers liscense, credit card, social secruiry number, medical history and the service record of their car at jiffy lube. The chip will be part of a system that
will connect to our eyes to take pictures and record video our hands to writte documents..etc . We wont need watches or phones or computers. We will be able to connect to everyone and everything by just thinking about it...sort of like a second brain with our regular brain taking care of the body's other functions like breathing, walking etc.   

Welcome to the future.



Anybody else have any predictions?

I'm not nice......

I don't kick dogs, push old lady's down stairs or rob money from the Santa outside Walmart when he isn't looking....I said that I wasn't nice I didn't say that I was a bad person.

I don't give out compliments easily

I don't smile a lot in the morning

I don't give a crap sometimes


It isn't all negative


I am sarcastic

I am impatient....(sometimes)

I am a pain in the ass.....(ask Jo)

I am pompous....(ask my Thursday night friends....lol)


When I was the boss at one of my many jobs some of the people that I managed were people that I considered friends. I know that this can be dangerous....mixing friendship with business. I tend to break the rules sometimes. I go by gut, feel or instinct occasionally. Well I had to evaluate people for raises and one of my "friends" didn't get a one. He thought that he should have. I was accused of not being nice.....well nice is not good for business. I will give you the shirt off my back. I will pick you up at 3 in the morning pay your bail and ask no questions on the ride home.....but I may forget your birthday even though I have known you all of my life.....I'm loyal, generous and helpful........but I'm not nice.

I hate waste

I'm rummaging thru the refrigerator for some to eat for lunch. There are several leftovers from one of Joann's delicious dinners. (i'm not just saying that because I want to continue to eat and I know she might read this but it instead it is because it is true, she is a great cook). I'm looking for lunch. My problem is I cant tell which is the oldest leftover. I know that even refrigerated delights prepared with as much love as good ingredients have a shelf life. (am I laying on to thick with this I love my wife's cooking stuff?...well it is good)

I just hate to throw things away. Unless it smells or is some strange color, neither of which is easy for a color blind, always congested man to easily determine. So I try everything before it goes to the worst place possible , the garbage.

That "hill" in Johnston is already Rhode Islands only mountain and I hate to contribute to it s ever growing height. So I save things..everything. From leftovers to old reading glasses that lose a screw. The same glasses that I break constantly and cost $2.00 at Job Lot or a free from a certain family member.

I save newspapers and twigs in the yard for the wood stove,old tee shirts (remember that blog?), old photos and books, old cars, old friends and old albums,  If I do throw something out it is really out lived its usefulness for not just me but for anybody.

I am getting better. I've started selling and giving away stuff that I don't need. Giving a stranger a less than start of the art video game system that he will use a family Christmas present for his two young daughters makes me feel that not throwing things away can have its good side, everything doesn't have to be saved forever, just not wasted . Time for lunch..  

Check the website ....I'm trying to make a transition from here to there for all future blog posts

steventymon.com

      

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With my boots on

I only have to do this every couple of years. Doctor's visit ?...nah...car inspection?...nah,..paint the house?....nope. I have to buy new shoes...hiking boots to be specific. I don't like to shop for clothes and I usually get help from Kayla or Jo because if left alone in a store that doesn't have tools, electronics or lumber my senses shut down and I become a walking zombie looking for a way out.
So here I am trying on boots in discount store. Now I have learned the hard way that this one thing that i cant scrimp on. It doesn't pay to buy cheap shoes. I have enough ties, t shirts, shorts, jeans etc...to probably last the rest of my life. So it seems the only "shopping" that I have to do is for shoes and underwear. I would continue to use my old boots especially now that they are broken in after a couple years of use but now that we have a new dog I will be out hiking again in the winter woods and I need something to keep my feet from getting wet and freezing my toes. I do have several old pairs of boots in various stages of decay that I use in a sort of rotation depending on how they smell or how wet they are on a particular day. I recently saw a show where a man used duck tape to keep a pair of old comfy boots together...mmmm..that might work if I ever decided that I never wanted to out with my wife in public again
I guess its time to shop. After about an hour of trying on various pairs of boots we head home with my new purchase. It doesn't end there because after a week of trying them on hundreds of times, putting them back in the box then on again, I decide that they aren't the right boots. I return them and start the whole process over again. I know its exhausting...( and just as thrilling and captivating to read about ..right?). So here i am stuck in a vicious cycle of buying trying and returning...and
those old boots look more comfy every minute.  

Notes from a trip to Virginia

Notes from a 1400 mile trip to Virginia with my father in law and Joann


I now know every "Country Western" song every recorded

The people in the south are very friendly helpful and cordial

I get cramps in my leg if I drive more than 3 straight hours

Why cant I pump my own gas in New Jersey??..I have been pumping gas here since I was fifteen

It is fun to watch an older southern gentleman regain his rural drawl as he gets closer to his boyhood home.

Southern people going into Walmart,( most over 200lbs...even kids), move slower than the traffic entering the George Washington Bridge

Dogs run loose in the neighborhoods of the South

And everyone has at least five...and they all try to out bark each other

Beer on the porch at 11am is considered lunch

How does a waitress remember what somebody orders for breakfast when they only visit there home town a couple of times a year.

They eat more for breakfast than I do for all of my meals of the day...combined

Everyone knows everyone and all of their personal business...at least the waitresses do

Bacon, eggs, grits, ham, bacon, sausage, white toast, bacon, coffee ( no lattes), bacon  and chewing tobacco

Real men dont wear shorts in the south

They can smell a old Yankee commie hippie coming a mile away
, especially if he is wearing shorts.

Nobody walks in the south...the sidewalks ( if there were any) roll up after 8pm

They smile and wave a lot in the south

It was a great trip...you always go the extra mile for your family

Stitches

I was rounding first base after having hit the ball into what was considered left field of our made up baseball diamond. The "ballpark" was in the middle of the asphalt playground of my grammar school. If you got the ball into left field it might roll for ever considering the flat grass less surface that we played on. So I was thinking at least a double and if it kept rolling past the fat kid in the outfield I might have a shot at an inside the park home run. I was fast then,... real fast.
As i rounded second on my way to a home run I saw my best friend who had been playing near second base holding the ball. How was that possible? To late...we collided because I could run better than I could stop. The next thing that I remember is everyone standing over me including my friend who I had just run into and they all had the same look on their faces. It was a look horror the kind that 10 year old boys have when they see a friend in trouble but are saying ( some out loud)..."WOW...that looks bad!". Ten year old boys are not subtle ....cruel, honest...but not subtle.
I was about to get up and protest some kind of interference that prevented me from getting to next base when I noticed this warm red liquid running down my arm. My head hurt...there was red everywhere...I sat down and before I new it I was being ushered to a local doctors office who lived in the neighborhood. Suddenly my mom was was there as I lay on a table blinded by overhead lights. The room was cold and white. With the doctors face inches from stinking of some kind of baloney sandwich that he probably had for lunch.." Look , he shouted..you can see the bone" as he parted the skin above my eye. I could see the look in my mothers eyes and it was a look that suggested she didn't share the doctors morbid fascination with my wound. "Stitches, probably four", he bellowed. "But he has never had stitches!", my mother mourned, knowing that my was angelic face would never be the same again.
"Cool", I thought. A scar...yeah!! Nothing like a scar on your face to show how tough you are.
Well some fifty plus years later and probably another 60 or 70 stitches on that same face I am not any tougher just scarred. I often said that if I was a prize fighter I would have lost every fight in the first round with the first punch. The punch would have knocked me down and the blood that would come spurting out of the cut on my face would be enough for my corner to through in the towel every time.
I have these stitches most from playing sports, specifically basketball with friends. At least once a season ,sometimes several times, I would catch an elbow and the blood would flow. The emergency room new my name and kiddingly said that they were naming one of the rooms after me.
At work they would just shake there head and wonder when I would give up this foolish game.
Well I finally did but, not because of the carnage inflicted on my face but instead because we all just got old. Instead of running on a basketball court we watched it on TV over a beer no more huffing and puffing of arthritic bones up and down some smelly gym.
I still get stitches mostly now from nails, hedge clippers, chainsaws, falling out of trees or off stonewalls...basic combat yard work. But most of them now aren't on my face...I said most not all...after all I do have a tradition to maintain.

I'm not angry....

I'm listening to the radio as I drive to Providence. I usually listen to music or some podcast that I have but for some reason I was tuned to AM radio and everybody was mad at something. Abortion, who is going to be the mayor, the President, the weather, pot holes,etc.

Nothing seemed to get me going or make me as mad as the people...but the weaving cars in front me, cell phones in hand, not using a blinker, tailgating....arrrghhh !!! ..wait I guess I do get angry. But I don't usually get angry about what makes a lot of people blood boil. I've found if it is something that I cant control I can have an opinion but I don't get to excited about it. Maybe I was just having a better day than some of the people on the radio or wasn't as frustrated as some seem to be..( which I think is the real problem...they feel helpless in the their ability to control things they don't like or agree with...how is that for analyzing everyone but me?...lol). Oh well..lets see what else can we get angry about...The Giants offensive line, Ebola, taxes,every politician, Mondays....what else have you got?  

Change

As we get older I think we look forward to change about as much as we look forward to a trip to the dentist. (Sorry Jo)  I usually like to shake things up once in a while. Try something different like learning sign language or just driving a new route to work. Most of the time however I am like everyone else, a creature of habit.
When you change something you can't just do it once, especially if you want it to stick. The hard part is making sure that change is permanent. Whew.... that aint easy.
If it is something that is important to you or a change from something you done a certain way for a long time it becomes even harder.
But I have found to try a new experience, for me, isn't as hard as thinking a certain way about something.
I can change how I eat and what I eat, for instance, easier than I can change my mind. I only eat a few times a day but my mind never stops. I am always willing to try anything even if it means changing something very important to me..... even...the way I think.   

I worry....a lot

I have a problem lettings things go....I worry....
I'm 9 or 10 who knows...We (my sisters me and mom and dad) and we are driving some place in Maine...on vacation...everything  is great...lol. There is an eclipse happening on a beautiful summer day. Some how I have the knowledge right or wrong that if you look directly at that sun during the eclipse you will go blind. My sisters are climbing around the back of our Chevy 64 station wagon...no seat belts... we lived dangerously...I see the eclipse but the parents...loving and caring as they are have no concern or so i think . I freak out ...they are going to go blind if they look at the eclipse... I make a make a scene which is quickly dismissed.They are fine ane we all survived...
I still worry but only about things that I can control...gas in the car ...paying bills...etc...but I still worry...oh well 

I try...I really do...

I try. I really do. But it don't come easy...at least not to me. First I put on some music that I enjoy...usually something by the Allman Brothers, Clapton or the blues by Stevie Ray or Buddy Guy. It inspires me to try again. So I pick the guitar that Jo gave me for my 40th birthday. I put it in my lap and ....sigh....I cant play a note. My fingers know where to go but they are so short and stubby that they cant reach. My hands aren't as nimble as they were before a certain accident many years ago and age hasn't help them either. Excuses,excuses..."just play" I think to myself. Now it is becoming a job... ..damm those fingers why don't they move. I watch some instruction videos and I cant even figure what fret they want me to be on let alone stretch my fingers into the position... more frustration. When I do get "warmed up" what does come from the guitar doesn't sound like music. Dammmm...I put down my old ax (that is slang for a guitar...all of us musicians know that...lol,)  and put on my ipod and play as loud as possible the opening guitar licks from the song Sweet Jane by Lou Reed, with Dick Wagner on guitar....now that is what a guitar should sound like and I'm back to loving music again.

a little giving

I was sitting in my car waiting for a coffee and a bagel. I was on my to work but I wasn't late so I didn't feel as hurried as most of the people around me. As I waited at the window I noticed the person behind me seemed to be a bit frazzled, searching her car frantically for any loose change to pay for her latest blast of caffeine. I don't know why I did what I did next but when my order came I said that I would like to pay for the person behind me. The woman looked at me confused but obliged and I was on my way. I got a quick beep from the person that I had just bought a coffee for who I'm sure was confused as to who I was and my motive for buying her breakfast.
Well this soon became a habit for me and although I didn't do it every day. I would usually get the same server at the donut place enough times that they would anticipate my moves. "Paying it back again?" she would ask with a smile.
I think of this now as I watch this bucket challenge thing on the web. People will do amazing things for strangers if the feeling is right. I don't like feeling guilted into charity like having an ad come up for some charity while your stuck in your seat at the movies and the usher shoves a can in front of your face that you shove a dollar bill into so that you don't look like and a scrooge to some idiot stranger sitting next who don't care about and is using "your" arm rest.
When I use to go the bars in my youth you would often buy drinks for the "house" I remember one particular VFW that would give out small plastic cups to signify the drinks that you had coming to you as you sat at your stool. Before you could get your wallet out to by your first beer there would be hundreds of these cups in front of you signify drinks bought for you by perfect strangers. It was sort of an unwritten obligation..you bought drinks for men you didn't know and they did the same.
I have done it a few times since then and you might have thought I paid for somebodies mortgage rather than a two dollar beer based on the reception that I got. I guess times have changed. We are charitable using the web, thru the mail, at the movies and other worthy events when prompted, which is fine...but it feels good to do it every once in a while for absolutely no reason. 

Were you sitting here?

I don't take the bus often but I remember on this day it was my only way to work in Providence. I missed the early bus so I was forced to take a later one. I took my seat near the driver and since this was pre Ipad I had nothing to do but watch the people as they came aboard at the various stops. After a few stops I noticed that we weren't going on to the highway but instead proceeding to Providence via direct but red light filled route. We were also stopping quite a bit and as each person boarded the bus I began to notice that I was getting some unusual stares. Well we made our next stop less than half way into our journey yet we had been on the road more than twice the time that it would take me to drive the same distance. We pulled into an assisted living facility and began our wait for the passengers to board. Was this a chartered bus trip that I had stumbled upon or some kind of private tour? .The passengers slowly boarded the bus and I began to hear rumblings as each person passed me then suddenly there she was. "That is MY seat" she shouted. I moved to a seat at the back of the bus unwilling to confront the situation that contained and angry mob of senior citizens.
I thought of this incident recently when Joann and I were walking thru town and decided to sit on one of the benches at the town dock. I noticed the look of a couple of ladies near us knitting and talking. It was the same look that I had gotten in the bus a few years ago. I quickly suggested that we move to another nearby bench and with in minutes several ladies, knitting in hand settled into our vacant bench. It was "their bench " public as it is but non the less a place that I would bet they use regularly to meet and discuss knitting and events of the day with friends.
I guess it is one of those unspoken rules that you don't violate. Like going into a local VFW post and taking "Norms" seat at the end of the bar even if the World War II vet had not been in for a beer in years. It was still his stool.
There are certain rules of life that make things go more smoothly. They arent written down, nor should they be but if we would listen to them once in a while life would be a bit easier for all of us. 

Awake

I'm walking thru Dave's Market trying to find the wife who left me in the yogurt aisle searching for something Greek,strawberry and something else. I stare at hundreds of selections. As I move down the aisle I notice a carriage blocking not only my way. Now I could go around it but I would either have to have heavy duty drone ( I want one...not to spy on anybody but I have seen some of the best video shot with those things) , or I could make a Connie Hawkins leap ( old school basketball....and I mean oldddd schoool) over the woman who is completely oblivious to to fact that I need to get by and get my yogurt.
Now I'm not talking about people who drift from lane to lane while driving and using their phones...no that is another blog for another day. I'm speaking about people who seem to be semi-awake as they drift thru life not knowing or caring about others around them. Young and old ...this isn't something that effects a particular group of people.
I'm walking with my wife next to me on the sidewalk in town. Approaching me is another couple and it becomes a game of chicken as to who will give in and go single file, step aside and let the others pass or as i see so many times they will just keep walking as if we are invisible and force us into the gutter.
Some people are only affected temporarily and say excuse me when the wake up...that is fine and understandable but others think the rules of public behavior don't pertain to them. Ok I'm rambling...besides if i don't get to my yogurt soon I;m gonna scream...now where is it??....oh sorry...I didn't see you behind me trying to get your skim milk....I guess it can happen to everyone...  

Sweat

I'm sweating. I'm sweating out a summer cold that I have had for almost two weeks, but that is another story....ok I wont tell that story. I'm doing yard work and its hot. Summer, humid, sweat dripping in my eyes, sweat down my back...its July, that day you wished for during that winter morning sitting in your car shaking as you turn the key to start your car and it groans telling you that you should have gotten that battery when it was on sale at Walmart and now the only thing warm that you have that is warm is your breath circling around the inside of your car before it freezes on the inside of your windshield.
I like sweat because it means I'm warm which to me is better than being cold....(sometimes life is simple if you just ...let it be).
I'm painting now. I cant see because the sweat is dripping down my forehead onto my old man glasses, which I need otherwise the paint would be all over the windows instead of on the house where it belongs.
I remember when I would video tape weddings...(by the way I was one of if not the first to do that way back in the early 80's....and yes it was video tape.) ....and it was a hot summer day in an nonairconditioned church. I would usually worry about things like my battery dieing just when the bride says.."I do"..but on this day it was Africa hot and my viewfinder was fogging up so I couldn't even tell if the bride was in focus let alone whether I was recording at all because the battery I had rented had given out twenty minutes ago. Oh well I could always yell out..."take two" in my best Martin Scorsese voice. That is not a good day or place to sweat...everything has its place...including today's word ....Sweat.

Random Ramblings

Just a few thoughts cause I got nothing particular to write about.

I love our town beach on a summer night

I hate wasting a sunny summer day inside....even for a minute.

Summer colds suck

"Summer breeze make me feel fine...blowing thru the jasmine in my mind".....{that one is for you Jo}

That is the last time in today's blog that I will use the word summer

It has been years...and I mean years since I bought a wallet

Or new underwear

Give me scissors, tweezers and a dentist pick and I can fix a lawnmower.

Who drives thirty miles to buy my $15 ten year old computer monitor?

I was arrested once....long story...those who know me have heard it a million times

There should be a law that says if you have a convertible you have to have it down on a sunny {the word that I just promised not to use again} day.

My memory isn't gone it has just being help by a pile of paper notes.

I love stationary

I miss having a dog around the house but we do need some time.

I'm afraid that I'm using up all of my future blog ideas in one day.

Laugh

I laughed so hard the my eyes were watering and there was stuff coming out of my nose.. The woman in a nearby chair looked at my like I was insane. Joann asked if I was alright. It was a perfect early summer afternoon and Joann had decided to take few hours for ourselves. We headed to the town beach, which is free now that steveisover60. Jo suggested that I take a book instead of my trusty iPad. ...why not.. I took a book written by Billy Crystal given to me by my sister for my birthday. Well the first few paragraphs sent me into this laughing fit. My sides ached as I read on, laughing uncontrollably.

Laughing is good. I have to laugh more. Watch more Stooges, Groucho, Rodney, Rickles and the unedited version of Blazing Saddles....other wise if it is edited for tv.. forget it. I like laughing with and at my friends. I like laughing at myself especially when I do something really dumb.  It is time to make some time to be silly. It is good for the soul.

Now a few random jokes to get you on your way :

Chicken # 1 to Chicken # 2.... How did I get to the other side?

Chicken # 2......Your on the other side ,stupid.

If I told you once I've told you a million times ...dont exaggerate.

Escalators don't break down...they just turn into stairs

What did the police officer say to the midget complaining that someone picked his pocket?

I cant believe that someone would stoop so low.

Why do men get married? So that they don't have to hold in their stomachs any more.

What did the fish say when he swam into a wall? ....Dam!

 I told my my dentist my teeth are getting yellow. He told me to wear a brown necktie. (Rodney D.)

If I didn't make you laugh then find something that does...see you next week.