Greetings on this last Friday of January and the last day of this work week, “thank God!” you say. I say it’s just another day in the week and the month and the year. Sorry. But Friday has always been my favorite day. And for the last 20 years, it is an especially good Friday and feeling if I’ve managed to issue a TGIF message - that feeling of making the deadline and then being able to relax.
I have really enjoyed hearing from many friends recently in response to something I’ve written in these introductory paragraphs. That is also a good reason “to keep on keepin’ on” as my Dad used to say. It’s so nice to hear from old friends.
Before I dive into this week’s joke bag, which looks pretty good, I must say, I have to share with you a local story. I believe it’s an example of truth being stranger and funnier than fiction. As Dave Barry would say, “You can’t make this stuff up!”
A little background: Many years ago, the State of Vermont convinced our town of Springfield (population about 9,000) to accept a state penitentiary (prison) and in return a significant amount of money was granted that helped fund the construction of a first-class health and rehabilitation facility that has a full gym of exercise equipment and a nice swimming pool. The prison has also employed many local residents.
According to the local newspaper story last week a prisoner from the Springfield prison, a certain Terrick Craft, filed a few lawsuits in court this past October.
The prisoner from Springfield made the marriage-ending mistake of putting his wife’s address onto a steamy love letter he wrote to his mistress. He did not get any sympathy from a judge. Inmate Terrick Craft thought a judge should order his (now ex) wife to keep putting money into his commissary account because he doesn’t think she should have opened the envelope in the first place. But U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford disagreed.
“He has no legal right to sue for monetary gifts which his wife no longer makes … gifts are voluntary … the giver may stop giving whenever he or she chooses,” Crawford wrote as he shot down the second of two federal lawsuits (the first was against the Post Office) that were filed in October by Craft.
In his handwritten civil complaint, Craft referred to himself and his ex-wife, Tracey Craft, in the third person, freely admitting that he was having an affair “on the defendant” and adding that in December of 2014 he was trying to send a letter to his mistress “explaining his feelings and what he wished to do to his mistress sexually”.
A few days later, Craft realized that something had gone horribly wrong when his wife and kids showed up for a jailhouse visit.
“It was obvious from the bags around her eyes and the redness that the defendant had been crying”, Craft explained to the court.
Craft said his wife asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell her and when he pressed her to clarify what she was upset about she responded by pulling out the explicit letter.
In his lawsuit, Craft claims he started off by placing the letter “A” – his girlfriend’s first initial – on the envelope before he made the first slip-up, transposing his wife’s last name “Clark”, before putting his girlfriend’s street address, which is in a neighboring town, and then concluding it with “Springfield, Vermont 05156.”
Nevertheless, despite his addressing error, Craft said he was incensed both that the letter carrier went ahead and delivered the letter to his house and that his wife opened it once it got there.
“It should have been returned by the mail carrier unopened,” Craft wrote, adding that he felt his wife must have known the letter “was not for her, as well as anyone else in the house, being as though nobody’s name starts with an ‘A’. By opening the letter the defendant showed no regard for the plaintiff or addressee’s right to privacy nor the law,” Craft argued.
Craft noted that, before his letter landed in her lap, his wife had been vowing to wait until 2027 if necessary to have him back, and since she’d been putting a hundred dollars into his jail account every two weeks he argued that “if it had not been for the letter …” she would have likely continued to do so. Therefore, he asked the federal court to order her to pay him $10,000 as punishment for having opened the ambiguously addressed envelope.
As proof of his change of fortune, Craft provided the court with the records showing that as of December he had only $5.50 in his commissary account and that during the previous six months his average monthly balance has been less than $15., most of it from a prison job assignment, a big drop from the $200 a months his then-wife had been reliably providing before his marriage was upended.
Judge Crawford rapidly dispensed with all of Craft’s arguments. “The facts support no possible cause of action. This case is entirely frivolous,” Crawford said. “Craft mailed a letter that arrived at his wife’s address addressed to an individual with her last name and without a full first name. His wife opened the envelope. She did not invade his privacy, as she had no way of knowing that she did not have his consent in opening a letter that was mailed to her house, was partially addressed to her, and had not other obvious intended recipient.”
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You might have to be a resident of a small town like Springfield to really appreciate this. One thing I like about living in a small place is that everyone knows everyone and a little mistake on an envelope as to the address can be easily corrected by the postal carrier and delivered to the right place.
Even though he wrote the street address of his ‘mistress”, and should have put the name of the nearby town, he put Springfield as the town and the letter carrier must have known the correct address of his wife in town and delivered it (as a favor) to his wife’s house. It’s funny that in his first suit he tried to sue the post office for delivering this letter to his wife’s house.
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Snuggle Surprise
“An elderly woman in Miami woke up to quite a surprise when she found an exotic animal caressing her face. Late Monday night, the woman was startled when she woke up staring at a kinkajou, which looks like a cross between a raccoon and monkey. The woman, who has not been named in reports, screamed in panic and the animal scurried away into the attic, according to a Cathy Moghari, a family friend who helped rescue the animal…After doing an Internet search for kinkajous, Moghari played some kingajous sounds with the speaker held up to the ceiling, the animal emerged. Moghari then used cherries to help lure the hungry and frightened animal into a cage. Tuesday morning, the animal arrived at South Dade Avian and Exotic Animal Medical Center where veterinarian Don Harris was able to check over the health of the anxious creature…Her owner, Ray Fernandez, contacted the vet and was reunited with his furry friend, named Banana, Wednesday morning.”
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The 2016 presidential primary race is really starting to heat up now. Except in New Hampshire and Iowa where it is freezing outside! But all the candidates are there, traveling back and forth between these two states in order to do well in the Iowa Caucuses on 1 Febraury and in the NH primary the following week. The outcomes of these first two states is very important. Or is it?
I received the following from old WFP colleague and friend Tom Lecato, who lives a few hundred miles north of Miami, where it seems that my old favorite, Dave Barry, has come out of retirement and has joined a million other media people from all over the world in Iowa this week. Without any permission from Dave or the Miami Herald, I share with you his very insightful column sent in from Des Moines, Iowa.
Dave Barry: It’s the Iowa Pork Congress!
Why do we care about the Iowa caucuses?
To answer that question, let’s look back exactly four years, to a time when a man named Rick Santorum was a semi-obscure former senator from Pennsylvania who was given little chance to become president. Then, out of the blue, he won the Iowa Republican caucus, and today he. …
OK, to be honest, I don’t know what Rick is doing today. For all I know he’s an Amway representative. Let’s pick another example: Exactly eight years ago, Mike Huckabee was. …
OK, never mind. No need to get all technical about why we care about the Iowa caucuses. We just DO. And that is why the eyeballs of the world will be focused on the voters of Iowa Monday night as they go into their caucus places and, after thoroughly discussing the candidates and the issues with their fellow Iowans, sacrifice a live owl.
No, they don’t do that, probably. We don’t actually know what they do in there. All we know is that eventually, somehow, they will, as a state, give their blessing to a pair of presidential hopefuls who will both, based on past caucus outcomes, have a solid chance of not being elected president.
Some critics say it’s unfair for Iowa to play such a big role in our political process; they charge that Iowa is not demographically representative of the rest of the nation. This charge is based on some unfortunate myths about the state; so let’s clear those up right now:
MYTH: Iowa lacks diversity.
FACT: According to the 2010 Census, only 143 percent of Iowa’s nearly 8,000 residents are white, down from 156 percent in 2000.
MYTH: Iowa is an agricultural state whose economy is based almost entirely on raising pigs and corn.
FACT: The biggest industry in Iowa is actually, believe it or not, manufacturing. Iowans manufacture a wide variety of products, ranging all the way from bacon to sausage to numerous other forms of pork. On the more “high tech” side, they also manufacture ethanol, which is a kind of fuel that is made from corn, then mixed with gasoline to create jobs. Iowans are currently working on an experimental manufacturing process that, if successful, will turn the ethanol back into corn, thus creating even MORE jobs.
MYTH: Iowa is a rural state lacking in sophistication.
FACT: Iowa has a number of cities boasting world-class urban amenities such as Starbucks and fully paved roads. The largest city is Des Moines, which has tall buildings and expressways. It reminds me very much of my city, Miami, except that it’s 50 degrees colder here and the drivers do not deliberately try to kill you.
Des Moines — its name is French for “These Moines” — is rightly proud that it has shed its image as a dull, sleepy, squaresville burg; it is now a “happening” place throbbing with activity and nightlife. Even as I type these words the Iowa Pork Congress is going on here at the Iowa Events Center, with a “Manure Applicator Training Session” scheduled Thursday. If you can’t be there in person, you can follow the action on the official Pork Congress podcast service, which is called, and I am not making this up, SwineCast.
Of course the real action here, speaking of manure, is presidential politics. Right now most of the excitement is on the Republican side, which, after months of name-calling and petty squabbling, is finally focusing on the most important issue facing the nation, if not the world, today: Megyn Kelly. Donald Trump is in a feud with her, as evidenced by this actual tweet he posted on Wednesday: “I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”
(You have to admit that’s a classy move, refusing to call her a bimbo.)
Because Kelly is a moderator for the next debate, Trump says he’s going to boycott it, which means the viewership will drop from a projected 15 million to nine. I don’t mean nine million; I mean a total of nine people, because let’s be honest, we’re not tuning into these debates to watch John Kasich tell us about his comprehensive plan to balance the budget.
Anyway, I’ll be here for the next few days, reporting to you and following the news wherever it takes me. Unless it tries to take me outdoors.
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Nine Important Facts To Remember As We Grow Older
#9 Death is the number 1 killer in the world.
#8 Life is sexually transmitted.
#7 Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
#6 Men have 2 motivations: hunger and hanky panky, and they can't tell them apart. If you see a gleam in his eyes, make him a sandwich.
#5 Give a person a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks, months, maybe even years.
#4 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospital, dying of nothing.
#3 All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
#2 In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.
#1 Life is like a jar of jalapeno peppers. What you do today might burn your butt tomorrow.
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Men's helpline….
"Hello, You have reached the 'Men's Help Line.' My name is Ken. How can I help you?"
"Hi Ken, I really need your advice on a serious problem. I have suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me. You know, just the usual signs; The phone rings and when I answer, the caller hangs up.
Plus, she goes out with 'the girls' a lot. I usually try to stay awake to look out for her when she comes home, but I always fall asleep. Anyway, I woke up and she was not home. So I hid in the garage behind my boat and waited for her.
When she came home, she got out of someone's car, buttoning her blouse, then she took her panties out of her purse and slipped them on. It was at that moment, while crouched behind the boat, that I noticed a hairline crack in the outboard motor mounting bracket. Is that something I can weld, or do I need to replace the whole bracket?"
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NORWEGIAN VIRGIN WEDDING
Olaf Swenson, out in his pasture in northern Minnesota, took a lightning-quick kick from a cow...right in his crotch; writhing in agony, he fell to the ground.
As soon as he could manage, he took himself to the doctor. He said: "How bad is it Doc? I'm going on my honeymoon next veek and my fiance, Lena, is still a virgin -- in every vay.
The doctor told him, "Olaf, I'll have to put your willy in a splint to let it heal, and keep it straight. It should be okay next week, but leave it on dere as long as you can. He took four tongue depressors and formed a neat little 4-sided splint, and taped it all together...quite an impressive work of art.
Olaf mentioned none of this to Lena, married her, and they went on their honeymoon to Duluth. That night in the Motel 6, Lena ripped open her blouse to reveal her beautiful, untouched breasts. She said: "Olaf...you're the first vun! No vun has EVER seen deez."
Olaf immediately dropped his pants and replied: "Look at dis Lena ... still in DA CRATE!"
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It’s time for the weekly TGIF Golden Classic
SUMMARY OF LIFE
GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:
1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
4) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
5) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandma's lap.
GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:
1) Raising teenagers is like nailing jello to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.
3) Families are like fudge... mostly sweet, with a few nuts
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.
GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD:
1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.
THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:
1) You believe in Santa Claus.
2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3) You are Santa Claus.
4) You look like Santa Claus.
SUCCESS: How true this one is.
At age 4 success is . . . ... Not piddling in your pants.
At age 12 success is ... . . Having friends.
At age 17 success is ..... . Having a driver's license.
At age 35 success is . ... . Having money.
At age 50 success is . .. .. Having money.
At age 70 success is . ... . Having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is ... ... Having friends.
At age 80 success is . .. .. Not piddling in your pants.
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My Pam would have been 65 this past Wednesday. Joya posted a really nice message on Face Book about her Mom and how we all miss her. It generated so many comments of fond memories of her, which was really incredible. I’m not a huge fan of FB, but in this instance, it was very nice to see/read all the comments from people all over the world whose lives she touched over the years.
Until the next time, enjoy your weekend and relax and recharge your batteries and all that!
TGI-Jeff
