Greetings on this last Friday in August. Time continues to fly by, as far as I’m concerned, despite the fact that we are living during these unusual, pandemic times. I played golf with my friends on Wednesday and I felt the chill of fall in the air. Thursday was cool and rainy. So, Labor Day weekend here in the USA is next weekend and that is usually the time that real summer ends. Schools will open up after that and it will be interesting, to say the least, how that works out. I feel sorry for parents of young children who have to look for safe childcare in order for them to continue to work and/or for parents who have concerns about safe in-class conditions for their schoolchildren.
The big family news to report this week is that my eldest son Jonathan, and his fiancée, Melissa, will be married this Sunday, virtually, via a zoom ceremony. They were planned to be wed on Long Island on March 21st and that was postponed, just a week prior, due to COVID-19. They have decided to move ahead now, and when we can gather in large numbers in the future, to have the Reception/Party at that time.
I had a very interesting dream a few nights ago. It was about my boyhood baseball idol, Al Kaline. He played for the Detroit Tigers from about 1955 to the early 1970s. I believe he died earlier this year. Anyway, in my dream, I happened to run into him at some large hotel lobby. I told him how he had meant so much to me as a boy and that he really was my idol. As a 5-year old living in northern Ohio in 1955, he was a rookie for the Tigers (my Team!) and that year became the youngest player to win the batting title. I LOVED baseball, was already playing it at that age and looked up to my star player. In my dream I told him that and he seemed happy about that. I also told him that I went to a game in 1967 in Fenway Park when the Red Sox were hosting the Tigers. While the Red Sox had become my favorite team when my family moved to New England in 1957 (and they had Ted Williams, Jackie Jensen and Jimmy Piersal) I still admired the batting and fielding skills of Al Kaline. In that game in early 1967 (the year the Red Sox went from last place in the American League to first place) Kaline played right field (as usual) and made an unbelievable play there. With a runner on first base, the Sox hitter drove a ball down the right field foul line that bounced off the wall and it looked like a sure double and a run scored. Instead, Kaline retrieved the ball off the ricochet from the wall and turned and fired a one-bounce strike to the third baseman (about a 320 toss, or rocket) who tagged the runner out. Even though I was a Red Sox fan, I stood up and cheered for the next five minutes, until fans near me told me to sit down. In my dream, I told Al about the memory of that play. Again, he seemed pleased. We shook hands and said goodbye. I woke up with a warm feeling of good memories.
Up until that year, 1967, I had felt sorry for the perennial All-Star Al Kaline, because he never had played on a team that was good enough to play in the World Series (that’s what American’s call the Major League Baseball’s championship series between the best teams in the two professional leagues). He finally got his chance the next year, 1968, when his Tigers played in the Series where he played well and helped his Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals in a great 7-game series that featured great pitching by both teams. Ahhhh, memories of my younger years.
Unbelievable! All of today’s material was contributed by just one person. What is going on with the rest of you? If you don’t send me anything, how can a publish each Friday. I take no responsibility for your laziness. It just might mean that unless Debba keeps sending me stuff to use, there will be no future TGIF messages.
Thanks, Debba!
The Helicopter Lesson
A blonde was taking helicopter lessons.
The instructor said, "I’ll radio you every 1000 feet to see how you’re doing." At 1000 feet, the instructor radioed her and she said she was doing great.
At 2000 feet, he said she was still doing well.
First before she got to 3000 feet, the propeller stopped and she twirled to the ground.
The instructor ran to where she crash landed and pulled her out of the helicopter. "What went wrong?"
The blond said, "At 2500 feet I started to get cold; so, I turned the big fan off."
* * * * * * * *
Fun Stories, Scary Stories and Sad Stories
Three writers, Sam, Pete and Chuck, who were attending a writing convention, booked a room on the 75th floor of a hotel.
When they arrived back at the hotel form the convention, the receptionist told them, "I’m terribly sorry, but the elevator is broken. In the meantime, you will have to take the stairs."
Now, Sam was a writer of fun stories, Pete was a writer of scary stories, and Chuck was a writer of sad stories. The three of them agreed that, to make it less boring, Sam would tell the other two his funniest stories while they climbed from floors 1-25, Pete would tell his scariest stories from floors 26 to 50, and Chuck would tell his saddest stories from floors 51 to 75.
They started to climb the stairs, and Sam started to tell funny stories. By the time they reached the 25th floor, Pete and Chuck were laughing hysterically.
Then Pete started to tell scary stories. By the time they reached the 50th floor, Sam and Chuck were hugging each other in fear.
Then Chuck started to tell sad stories. He stuck his hands in his pockets, thinking. "Ah, I’ll tell my saddest story of all first," he said.
He coughed nervously.
"There once was a man named Chuck who left the hotel room key in the car . . . "
* * * * * * * *
The Alabama Pastor
An Alabama pastor said to his congregation, "Someone in this congregation has spread a rumor that I belong to the Ku Klux Klan. This is a horrible lie. I am embarrassed and do not intend to accept this. Now, I want the party who said this to stand and ask forgiveness from God."
No one moved.
The preacher continued, "Do you have the nerve to face me and admit this is a falsehood? Remember, you will be forgiven and in your heart you will feel glory. Now, stand and confess your transgression."
Again, all were quiet.
Then, slowly, a gorgeous blond stood up with her head bowed and her voice quivered as she spoke, "Reverend, there has been a terrible misunderstanding. I never said you were a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I simply told a couple of my friends that you were a wizard under the sheets."
* * * * * * * *
The Potential Hero Biker
Earlier this year, a group of HELL'S ANGELS from South Carolina were riding east on 378 when they saw a girl about to jump off the Pee Dee River Bridge. So they stopped.
George, their leader, a big burly man of 53, gets off his Harley, walks through a group of gawkers, past the State Trooper who was trying to talk her down off the railing, and says
"Hey Baby . . whatcha doin' up there on that railin'?
She says tearfully, "I'm going to commit suicide!
While he didn't want to appear "sensitive," George also didn't want to miss this "be-a-legend" opportunity either so he asked, "Well, before you jump, Babe . . . why don't you give ol' George here your best last kiss?"
So, with no hesitation at all, she leaned back over the railing and did just that! And it was a long, deep, lingering kiss followed immediately by another even better one.
After they breathlessly finished, George gets a big thumbs-up approval from his biker-buddies, the onlookers, and even the State Trooper, and then says, "Wow! That was the best kiss I have ever had! That's a real talent you're wasting there, Sugar Shorts. You could be famous if you rode with me. Why are you committing suicide?"
"My parents don't like me dressing up like a girl."
It's still unclear whether she jumped or was pushed.
* * * * * * * *
What’s That, Professor?
A middle-aged male professor receives a knock on the door of his office on campus.
After fumbling about for a few moments, he opens the door to find an old man who greets him with a big smile and says, "May I come in? I worked in this very room thirty years ago when I was a professor at this college."
"Sure!" replied the professor. "Be my guest!"
The old man examined the room, fondly remembering everything. He said, "The same old room, the same old wooden table, the ventilator and the same old window that opens to the garden. And the same old desk."
When examining it, he noticed there was a young girl hiding under the desk. The young man got alarmed and stammered, "Don’t mistake me. She’s my daughter. She dropped her earring and is searching for it."
"And the same old story . . . " sighed the old man.
* * * * * * * *
Some Classic Hits - remastered
Some artists of the 50s are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate baby boomers. Here are a few:
Herman’s Hermits - Mrs. Brown you’ve got a lovely walker
The Bee Gees - How can you mend a broken hip
Bobby Darin - Splish Splash I was having a flash
Ringo Starr - I’ll get by with a little help from depends
The Commodores - Once, twice, three times to the bathroom
Marvin Gaye - Heard it from the Grape Nuts
Leo Sayer - You make me feel like napping
Willie Nelson - On the commode again
Procol Harem - A whiter shade of hair
Johnny Nash - I can’t see clearly now
Helen Reddy - I am woman hear me snore
Abba - Denture Queen
* * * * * * * *
What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?
I'm going to answer this from a slightly different perspective. It's not so much that I can't believe I had to explain it, but that I can't believe that she believed it! (Names have been withheld to save them from embarrassment!)
Around ten years ago, I was in a relationship with a woman whose daughter, in her mid-twenties, lived fairly close to us. It was decided that the grandkids would spend Christmas Eve with us, to allow her daughter to get everything ready, and then we'd bring them over on Christmas Day and have dinner there.
Christmas Eve, I'm delegated to entertain the grandkids so I introduce them to the NORAD Santa site, and we have fun watching the live feed on the site before I finally convinced them to go to bed, having had to resort to “Santa only visits if you're really asleep”.
So, Christmas Day and we drive over to the daughters. The first words from the grandkids are all about how they spent the evening watching Santa make his deliveries and are received by a very perplexed look on the daughter’s face. I brought my copy of “A Nightmare Before Christmas” over, so we put that in the dvd player to entertain the grandkids while I ask if the daughter needs help with anything. The three of us end up in the kitchen with the grandkids in the living room singing a very out of tune version of “What's This”.
As I'm helping prepare the vegetables, the daughter asks me how we managed to watch Santa, and I explained (after first having to explain what NORAD was ) that the American military had to monitor anything that might impact on the USA, and since Santa operated on a strict timetable every year, they had decided years ago to make the video feed public.
Cue the daughter turning to her mother and asking if Santa is “really real”. Her mother, with no hesitation, states that of course he is! Where did she think all the presents came from when she was growing up? I then asked where she thought all the presents under the tree came from?
She looked quite shocked at that and insisted that she'd bought them all!
Her mother, bless her heart, promptly jumps in with “What do you mean you bought them? Didn't you ring the number?”
“What number???”
“When you had your first child, the nurses gave you a phone number to call, you're meant to call it in October and let Santa know what presents your kids want, so he can check his list and then get the Elves to get them for him”
“No, they didn't give me the number”
“They must have; but you know what you're like with numbers, you probably lost it!”
“So how do I get it again?”
“I don't know, I didn't lose mine!”
At this point, I had to go outside for a couple of minutes to compose myself, but we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon facing questions every time we were away from the grandkids as to how she could get the number; eventually, her mother told her she'd have to see if she could find her number and she'd call Santa and ask to have a new number sent out.
That, basically, was how I explained to a twenty-six year old woman that Santa was real . . . and I found out later that she'd spent most of Boxing Day calling the local maternity units and asking if she could be issued a new number!
* * * * * * * *
We look forward to the virtual wedding on Sunday. We’ll be attending with a bottle of champagne ready to celebrate.
Everyone else: wishing you a wonderful weekend. Take care, stay safe and be healthy!
Until the next time that I have enough material to use – or Debba doesn’t send me anything . . .
TGI-Jeff
