My father enjoyed including jokes in his weekly Post Scripts columns and simply liked to pass along to others funny things he had heard, whether in print or in person. Below is a brief selection:
Kenneth Mitchell, who served as Farmers Home Administration supervisor in the area for many years, took delight in springing a good story my dad whenever the opportunity arose. One day he came into the office to tell him that an editor had died following a lengthy illness, and the medical bills were so severe there was nothing left for burial.
A friend, after soliciting funds all afternoon, lacked a dollar of having enough to meet the funeral home expenses. Wearily he approached a citizen on the street and said: “Sir, could you spare a dollar to bury an editor?”
The stranger pulled a $5 bill from his pocket and replied quite cheerily, “Here….bury five of ‘em.”
5 Cents an Inch!
Another favorite story concerned the years when the paper charged by the inch for printing obituaries. This charge, five cents per column inch, was not designed to raise money but provided a diplomatic and dignified device to help control the amount of prose and poetry entwined with the essential and newsworthy facts about the deceased.
One morning a farmer came into the office and placed a carefully written obituary on the counter. “How much for printing this?” the man inquired. Fred, who had left his desk to wait on the man, gave it the once-over and replied: “Well….let’s see…that’s be five cents an inch.
The farmer’s face fell and his eyes widened in disbelief. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “Old Uncle Otto was six-foot-seven.”
Government Paperwork
My father also told the story of the great volume of paperwork the government and some others place on people. And, he explained, the words place on the dotted line are not always as expected.
For example, he said, a merchant came across this line of instruction in a form he was asked to complete for a government agency.
“List all your employees, broken down by sex.”
The businessman wasn’t real sure what he should write in that space; he really didn’t understand the question, so in desperation, he wrote:
“I don’t have any employees broken down by sex, but I do have one who has a drinking problem.”
He noted another example. A woman was filling out an application for employment, and she came to the question “Are you a natural born citizen?” She replied, No, caesarean.”
A doctor was questioning one of his elderly patients one afternoon in order to complete her medical history. He was hardly prepared for the answer he got to the question: “Have you ever been bedridden?”
The lady pondered her answer a moment and then sweetly replied, “No, but once in a buggy.”
There also was the man who applied for work and was asked to complete an application form. On the line where he was asked “Length of present residence,” he had written “Sixty-five feet not including the garage.”
The Secret to Longevity
And then there was this story: A 97-year-old man was asked to what he attributed his longevity. He replied, “I never waste energy resisting temptation.”
An insurance man decided he wanted to do a little income tax accounting on the side and was taking a course to qualify. At one point in an examination he had questioned “Are birth control pills deductible?” The instructor grading his paper had written in this reply, “Only if they don’t work.”