As I promised last week, ….
As I promised last week, this column will highlight an historic day. Not today, not tomorrow or the next day, but a special day like last Friday, May 22.
It is written up in the history books many times going back in the period known as B.C. I won’t go back that far, but will mention May 22, 1843. On that day 700 to 1,000 migrants left Independence, Missouri for Oregon.
In 1849, Abraham Lincoln was awarded a patent for a device to lift a boat over shoels and obstructions.The only president to have been given a patent.
On May 22, 1863, General U. S. Grant began the seige of Vicksburg.
Dr. Washington Sheffied invented the toohpaste tube on May 22, 1892. Do you think he squeezed it in the middle or the end?
May 22, 1926, Chiang Kai-shek replaced communism in Gnonunding, China.
An earthquake killed 40,900 in Tsinghina, China on May 22,1927
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Then on the day of days, May 22, 1930, Babe Ruth was hitting home runs eight, nine and ten on the way to 60 for the season.
A little more closer to home, my mother was in the hospital in Cumberland giving birth to a baby boy who would come home with them to live with his four brothers and a sister. They named him Robert Edwin and it must have made the parents very happy as they never had any more children. My sister liked to call me the baby in the family, even when I was well past 50.
I like to think I outlived everyone in the family. I remember we had a big party for my grandmother when she was 75. She was having medical problems plus all the stress of coming here in 1884 and starting out on the family homestead. She fooled them all and died at age 88. We did have another party on her 85th.
All I can say, as I told someone, I ain’t ever been this old before.
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For sure I can say I’ve looked forward to this day for a long, long time. Seems I heard or read this joke but decided I can’t really tell it until I get to that age. Seems there was this old gentleman who had just turned 90. The local newspaper wanted to do a story on him and sent a reporter over. The reporter said, “They tell me you are 90 years old and don’t have an enemy in the world.
To which the old gentlemen replied, “Yup, I’ve out lived all the old S. O. B.s”
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I always think good humor is what keeps us going. You might say I grew up with it. As a youngster I was always eating breakfast in the morning when the radio program “Almanac of the Air” came on on WCCO radio from Minneapolis/St. Paul. There weren’t many radio stations back then and it came in loud and clear.
The station had a man by the name of Clelllan Card and everyone knew him. He’d open the show by saying, “Birdie with the yellow bill hopped upon my window sill and said, “What’s the matter with your baby? Buggy?” Or some short joke along that line. It is the only one I can remember, but he was famous for them.
He started at the station as an announcer but got tired of just turning records and reading the titles. So he added a little humor and before you knew it Northrup-King hired him to do their morning show. He was so popular he would get up to 5,000 fan mail letters a week and always had an audience while he did the program.
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Here’s an example of the humor back in the late 30s and early 40s.
A wonderful bird is the pelican!
His mouth can hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak Enough food for a week – I’m darned if I know how the helican.
This is one of my favorites. I know it by heart -I eat my peas with honey, I’ve done it all my life, They do taste kind of funny, But it sure keeps them on the knife.
Here are some more They laughed when they saw me put iodine on my pay check.
They didn’t know I’d taken an awful cut in my salary.
A gum chewing girl And a cud chewing cow, So much alike: Yet, there’s a difference somehow” Ah yes, I have it now, it’s the thoughtful look on the face of the cow.
County Agent: And just what kind of a hired man do you want?
Farmer: Well, I’ve got to have one with big feet until I can get around to fixing the holes in the hayrack.
City cousin: (sniffing the country air) What’s that I smell.
Country cousin: That’s fertilizer.
City cousin: For land’s sake!
Country cousin” Yes, Ma’am.
Why are you socks on wrong side out?
My feet were hot, so I turned the hose on them.
