FERN UNDERWOOD

There is no better "recipe for living" than laughter. There have been hints throughout these stories of what seems to be a passing art — the ability to make our own fun and not have to be entertained; to laugh, to throw back our heads and thoroughly enjoy a funny moment, to laugh until we hurt from laughing. I am convinced that laughter and a positive attitude has more to do with mental, emotional and even physical health than all the medication ever concocted.

There used to be people who were pranksters, punsters, or teasers, some who had a whole repertoire of jokes that gave spice to all get-togethers. There were one-liner jokes, long, involved jokes and groaners like the one of a fellow who had a very old dog, so old that he had grown listless. He wouldn’t eat or play, He just laid in one place all day long. His owner took him to his veterinarian to see if he could find out if there was anything other than old age that was wrong with him. The vet examined him in every detail. Finally he said there was one sure way to find out if the dog had any life in him. He went to the back room and got a cat! He carefully held the paws so the cat wouldn’t attack the dog and held the cat in front of the dog’s face. No reaction. He moved the cat up and down, back and forth. No reaction. The vet concluded that the dog was really in bad shape and there was nothing he could do for him. The fellow thanked him and asked what he owed. The vet said, "That will be $35". The man was aghast, “$35? For telling me that?" The doctor answered, "Well, it was only $5 for the diagnosis but $30 for the cat scan."

Admittedly there is a fine line between what is funny and what is embarrassing. My dad told wonderful jokes, and was also a great tease. Our family boarded girls who taught at our country school. One day we had word that a former hired man was going to bring his new bride to meet the family and that night at the supper table this news was being discussed, Dad suggested that each one of us guess what she would be like. The teacher said, "I’ll bet she has a big nose" Nothing more was said until we were all gathered at the supper table when the guests were with us and at one point Dad said to the teacher, “You were right" That put her in the position of trying to explain and I have no recollection of how she dealt with it.

My mother was very witty and had a marvelous sense of humor. In her last years in a nursing home my test of how successful a visit had been was how many times we had laughed. I used to send her jokes and she was utterly perplexed when she tried to pass them along to other residents and they didn’t think they were funny. She, on the other hand, savored the punch line, would often repeat or explain it, as in the case of one of her favorites: A farmer took his produce to market and reported to his friend, "Well, I didn’t get as much as I thought I would but I didn’t hardly think I would."

There is a classic of that same ilk: "I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant"

Clifford, too, had fun. He made everything he did fun. He razzed his opponents in sports and expected to be razzed in return. He didn’t stop short of laughing at himself. He was nearly bald for years and years and had many "bald jokes": I don’t think of myself as bald; I think of other people as hairy. Or, my hair is getting thin but who wants fat hair?

We consider ethnic jokes inappropriate, but no one loved Pollock jokes more than our Polish friend, Rev. Adam. Remember the $64,000 television game? Supposedly several people were brought in off the street and told that if they answered just one question they would win $64,000. The question was, "What is the meaning of Easter?" The first ones failed but the Pollock said, "Easter was when they crucified Jesus and carried him away to a cave and put a great big rock in front of the opening." "That’s right!" said the announcer, "You’ve won $64,000!" And the Pollock said, "Wait. I’m not finished. And if he sees his shadow - - -"

Like other aspects of life jokes have changed. We used to, unfortunately, put people in categories and laugh at their expense. There were not only ethnic jokes but jokes about women: "dumb blonds", wives’ cooking, and women drivers: I’m not saying she’s a bad driver but if the road turns when she does, it’s a coincidence.  A woman motorcyclist was driving merrily along but instead of using the handle—bars she was knitting. A patrolman pulled up alongside and yelled, "Pull over" on which she smiled and called back, "No, socks."

Jokes at women’s expense included the inference that they were mechanically inept. A woman told the hardware store clerk that she wanted a 3/4" pipe plug. The man asked, "Do you want a male plug, a female plug, or both'?" "I just want to stop a leak," the woman replied. "I don’t plan to raise them."

IF YOU GOTTA GO, START EARLY

My friend, a rather old-fashioned lady, is always delicate and elegant, especially in her language. She and her husband were planning a week’s vacation in Florida, so she wrote to a particular campground and asked for a reservation. She wanted to make sure the campground was fully equipped but didn’t know how to ask about toilet facilities. She couldn’t bring herself to write the word "toilet" in her letter. After deliberation she came up with the old-fashioned term "bathroom commode." She started her letter all over again and referred to the bathroom commode merely as b.c. "Does the camp- ground have its own B.C.?" is actually what she wrote.

The campground owner wasn’t old—fashioned at all, and when he got the letter he couldn’t figure out what the woman was talking about. After worrying about it for awhile he showed the letter to several campers who were no help but finally concluded that she must be asking about a local Baptist Church, so the owner replied,

Dear Madam: I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but now I take the pleasure of informing you that a B.C. is located nine miles north of the campground and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late.

"The last time my wife and I went was 6 years ago and it was so crowded we had to stand the whole time we were there. I would like to say that it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly but it surely is no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather.

"It may interest you to know that right now there is a supper planned to raise money to buy more seats. They’re going to hold it in the basement of the B.C. If you decide to come to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time, sit with you and introduce you to all the other folks. Remember, this is a friendly community.

Yours truly,
Camp Cum A. Runnin’,
Camp Director"

Before abuse became a serious topic, there were fun stories like this one: At a golden wedding celebration a guest commented to the husband, "I heard all the women talking about how good you are to your wife." "Well, it’s just been the last 49 years," confessed the husband. "The first year I was ornery. Once I even raised my hand against her, and then for a week I couldn’t look her in the face. Finally, by the end of the week, I could see a little out of one eye."

There were "good news/bad news" jokes like this one: General Custer consulted a fortune teller when he realized that he was to confront the Pawnee Indians and was told there was good news and bad news. The bad news was that he was going to face a larger force than anticipated and his forces would be badly defeated. In some shock he said, "That’s awful! What can possibly be good news?" "Well, you’ll not have to face that long ride back across Nebraska."

When I worked in our business, I discovered an incentive for customers to receive their monthly statements. With each one I enclosed a joke. Glen Poore was our salesman who delivered the statements on his first trip each month and it wasn’t long before customers were asking for them when he came in the door. Of course, I had to be selective. Being a widow sending them to men customers, I didn’t want anything suggestive but I found enough that qualified.

The first one, in Jan. 1976, was; A service station owner from the old country kept his accounts payable in a cigar box, accounts due on a spindle and cash in his register. "I don’t see how you run your business that way," remarked one of his salesmen. "How do you know what your profits are?" "Well," the owner replied, “when I got off the boat, I had nothing but the pants I was wearing. Today one son is a doctor. One daughter is an art teacher. Another son is an accountant. My wife and I have a nice car, a city house and a country home. We have a good business and everything is paid for. So you add all that together, subtract the pants, and there’s your profit."

Another story that is the essence of business, economics and prosperity: In a remote area an old man with a rowboat ferried passengers across a river for 10-cents. When asked, "How many times each day do you do this?" he said, "As many times as I can because the more I go, the more I get; and if I don’t go, I don’t get."

Children’s stories were always safe. A teacher of preschoolers was trying to expose the children to world happenings. At election time she told them that anyone could become president; even one of them might be elected. One little boy had been particularly quiet to the point that the teacher asked him what he was thinking. He replied, "I was just wondering what Congress is going to say when they find out I can’t tie my shoes." (It is a temptation during this 1996 campaign to make a snide remark.)

"I don’t want to scare you," said an 8-year-old to his teacher, "but my dad says if I don’t get better grades, somebody is going to get spanked."

A small boy was having one of "those" days, into one mischief after another. Finally, in desperation, his mother exclaimed, "How in the world do you expect to get into heaven?" The little boy thought a minute and then said, "Well, I’ll just run in and out and in and out and pretty soon someone will say, ’For goodness sake, either come in or stay out!’ Then I’ll go in."

A family in a certain town had two boys who were very mischievous. Their pranks became so common and their reputation so wide spread that when anything happened towns people blamed them, and in most cases they were right. The parents tried everything they could think of and finally thought the pastor might be an effective counselor. They sent the older boy who had never seen the pastor except in his black robe and thought him pretty awesome. The pastor wasn’t accustomed to this role and sought to break the ice with a question. "Where is God?”  The boy had no idea what he was supposed to say and sat there without answering.  The pastor repeated the question and then grew impatient because the boy wasn’t giving any kind of response. Finally he raised his voice, "I asked you, where is God?!"

At that point the little boy bolted out of the room and ran home as fast as he could. He dashed up the stairs to his room, got his suitcase, began grabbing things out of drawers and stuffing them into the case. Just then his little brother came to the door.  The older boy stopped packing long enough to say, "You’d better get your things and come with me.  They’ve lost God and they think we’ve got him."

There are "church" jokes:  A United Methodist church became concerned for a family that seemed very needy. They took up a collection and bought the two little girls whole outfits--shoes, socks, and dresses. They were eager to see them the next Sunday, and were quite surprised that they weren’t there. Fearing the family might be ill, they called and the mother assured them they were o.k. "But," she said, When I had them dressed they looked so nice I sent them to the Presbyterian Church."

Two nuns in their habits went to a ball game. Sitting behind them were two men who were rude, crude and ignorant.  One said to the other, loudly enough for the nuns to hear, "Next time we’d better go to a game in Texas - I hear there aren’t many Catholics there."  The other replied, "Or Oklahoma. I hear there are even fewer there". The first one said, "Alaska!   I’ll bet there aren’t many there." To which one of the nuns turned to say, "Or you could go to hell. There are none at all there?"

And golf jokes galore: Four senior citizens were playing golf. One said, 'These hills are sure high!" The next, "The fairways are long!" The third, 'The bunkers are deep." The fourth more cheerfully said, "But we are on the up side of the grass!”

A Senior Pastor of a large congregation loved golf. Usually he was able to restrain himself on Sundays but one spring morning it was a beautiful day! Everything was perfect and the lure of the course became too much for him. He called his Assistant and said that something had come up and he couldn’t be there. His angels were very much aware of what was happening and were in great consternation. They spoke to the Lord about it but God just smiled and said, "It will be all right." So they followed him to the golf course expecting him to have a terrible day, but instead of that he had never played better.  Every drive was perfect; every putt sunk. The climax was when he made a hole-in-one. At that point the angels said to the Lord, "Do you see what is happening?” Again the Lord smiled and said, “Who’s he gonna tell?"

There are, of course, puzzles, Can you read this one?
M R DUCKS
M R NOT
O S M R, C D BD WlNGS?
L I B DARNED
M R DUCKS.
YY U R
YY U B
I C U R
YY 4 ME

Some people are natural pranksters. One businessman who was not slender received this in his mail:

PLAYGIRL MAGAZINE
CENTERFOLD DIVISION
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19133

Dear Mr. __________

Your name has been submitted to us with your nude photo and I regret to inform you that we will be unable to use your body for our centerfold.

On a scale of O to 10 your body was rated 2 by a panel of women ranging in age from 60 to 75 years. We tried to assemble a panel of women ranging from 20 to 35 years but we could not get them to stop laughing long enough to reach a decision.

Should the taste of American women change so drastically that bodies such as yours would be appropriate in our centerfold you will be notified by this office.  In the meantime, do not call us, we will call you.
Sympathetically,

PLAYGIRL MAGAZINE
(signature)
Ms. Amanda Smith
Managing Editor

In the words of a businessman: Little boys scheme and play pranks on friends and relatives. When they grow older and become adults, these same boys pull pranks and refer to them as practical jokes. Every community has several of these individuals — sometimes hiding behind the facade of being serious businessmen and women.

There are some pranksters who like to play jokes on others who can’t take a joke themselves. Jerry Kelly was one of Mickey Thomas’ customers. One spring Jerry ordered a coal and woodburning heating stove. Mickey placed the order with the manufacturer and every two or three days Jerry repeatedly asked about the stove, Even though summer weather was fast approaching.  Jerry’s frequent inquiries continued over a period of weeks.

Finally when the stove came in Mickey immediately called Jerry on the phone and told him it had arrived. Jerry said he had to do various tasks and probably wouldn’t come after it until the next morning. This lack of response irritated Mickey to no end.  That night he took his row boat across Grade Lake to where an old heating stove had been buried in the mud for decades. Mickey hauled it out along with weeds, dead fish and mud and took it back to the other shore. From there he took it up to the store along with several chunks of paving. He carefully took the new stove out of the carton, lined the box with plastic, placed the concrete chunks in the bottom and the old smelly stove on the top. He carefully sealed the carton to make it appear that it had just come from the factory.

By this time it was about midnight. Being very tired, the next morning Mickey overslept. When he came to work he asked his partner, Bernard Linder, if Jerry had picked up the stove and if he had made any comments. Bernard said that he had been in and Bernard said, "I thought it was kind of funny that there was a puddle of water under the box."

Shortly after that Jerry drove up to the back of the store, threw the old stove against the building and drove away. Mickey said, "I got on the telephone immediately and asked his wife Eva to tell me about the stove." Eva said, "It was so heavy Jerry had me help him carry it up the steps to the milk house. When he opened the box was the first time Jerry didn’t have anything to say. Finally he said, ’Those damned manufacturers!’ I told him I don’t think it was the damned manufacturers. I think it was Mickey." Mickey immediately gave the information to Kelly’s neighbors and it became public knowledge throughout the neighborhood much to Jerry’s displeasure.

Jack Jeffreys was a fun-loving mayor. This appeared in the Osceola Sentinel as a letter to the editor: "Dear Sir: I observed in this edition of the Osceola Sentinel that Jack Jeffrey’s picture appeared three times. I feel that this is dangerous to the mental health of the community. Signed, Mickey Thomas" The following edition of the paper contained another letter to the editor, "Dear Sir: M-M-M—M-Mickey may be right. Signed, Jack Jeffreys."

Stack Samuelson and Bob Toland were noted pranksters. In the 1970’s during the gasoline crunch Iowa Southern Utilities bought a Ford Escort company car for which Bob was to record the mileage and report. Stack knew about this and added gasoline from time to time. Bob and the company were ecstatic! This car was getting 50-60 miles to the gallon! After so long a time Stack began syphoning out gas which was utterly perplexing, and he finally had to confess what he had done.

Stack and Jean used to buy eggs from a country supplier and he had just bought the week’s supply when it was time to go to Rotary Club. Bob saw them on the seat of his car, smuggled them in to the cook and asked her to hard boil them, then took them back. The joke didn’t end as Bob intended, for when Stack came out of the meeting he became concerned that he had left the eggs in the heat so when he took them home he told Jean she had better hard boil them — those eggs were double hard boiled.

Don Butterfield became the brunt of several jokes, being quite capable of them himself. One year a trophy that was displayed on his office shelf was taken. Then his own trophy was presented to him, accompanied by flowery words of appreciation for his years of M.C.ing the Annual Chamber of Commerce dinner.

Some of the two perpetrators humor was lost on Don when he had built an 8’ high fence around his back yard. Surmising that he had not gotten a building permit the two friends obtained a piece of city stationery and drafted a letter from the city council informing him that he had failed to obtain a permit required by Section XII, Ordinance 364, paragraph 5c. Since he was in violation thereof, he was to appear before the zoning board and be subject to a $150 fine. When Bob and Stack called Don to invite him to have coffee the day after he would have received the letter, they found him in a dangerous mood. He was on his way to see the city attorney to vent his rage. Stack and Bob decided it was not the best time to confess. The next day when they invited him, Don had been to the attorney who had been unable to find such an ordinance and he intended to find another attorney. At that point they admitted what they had done but it was not the end of the story. Don vowed vengeance, which has been fulfilled.

My sister-in-law and I accomplished a prank many years ago when she was teaching school at Ruthven, Iowa. I visited her the day after they had a school carnival. For prizes they had given brightly colored cardboard megaphones and paper leis. One of each was lying on the davenport. I picked up the lei and, in idly handling it as we talked, it came apart. Still fooling with it thoughtlessly I stuck one end of it in the small opening of the megaphone and twined it around - possibly stuck it on my head, and ideas evolved. The what—ifs led to our sticking on it a price tag Dorothy took from something she had bought at Penny’s, taking the concoction to Spencer and sneaking it into the store. No clerks were in the hat department so we removed one of the hats from a display peg and put this "hat" in its place. Then we became very interested in an item on a counter near there.

It wasn’t long before a couple of lady shoppers came in to look at hats. Almost immediately they saw ours. It was, after all, very colorful and quite unique. They made some comments about it that we couldn’t hear, and one of the ladies tried it on, turned to the other and again we didn’t hear what she said but needless to say she looked ridiculous. By this time Dorothy and I were nearly in hysterics and had to leave the store. She went back a week or two later and told one of the clerks that she had been in awhile back, had seen this strange hat and wondered about it. The clerk knew exactly what she was talking about. It had been quite a conversation topic among the store personnel and remained a mystery. In such ways we invented fun that perhaps is no longer possible.

Return to main page for Recipes for Living 1996 by Fern Underwood

Last Revised May 11, 2012