[Rhodes22-list] jokes

[Michael Meltzer]

September 1960

I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75
cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged
from three months to seven years; their sister was two.
Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they
feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel
driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He
did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he
had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but
no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in
southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing
about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put
on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old
51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went
to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No
luck. The kids stayed crammed into
the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince
whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do
anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was
an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to
a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named
Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from
time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the
graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She
paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that
baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep
on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her
pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed
like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.

That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our
prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I
started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I
woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of
my tip money-fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my
meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency
of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with
air on the way to work and again every morning before I
could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to
the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat.
New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those
beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in
Indiana? I wondered. I made a deal with the owner of the
local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new
tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a
lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the
tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still
wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and knew there would be
no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint
and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid
them in the basement so there would be something for Santa
to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I
was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and
soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in
the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim,
and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging
around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels
in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and
talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to
get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to
go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning I hurried to
the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I
could get the presents from the basement and place them
under the tree. We had cut down a small cedar tree by the
side of the road down by the dump.

It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but t here
appeared to be some dark shadows in the car -- or was that
just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked
different, but it was hard to tell what. When I reached the
car I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my
jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was filled
full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I
quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and
kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I
pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of
little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box,
it was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked
inside some of the other boxes, there was candy and nuts and
bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for
baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was
pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There
was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And
there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose
on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing
with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces
of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were
angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung
out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

++
(Mumf note: this is from Rush Limbaugh and may be a repeat,
but it is worth repeating!)

I think the vast differences in compensation between the
victims of the September 11th casualty, and those who die
serving the country in uniform, are profound.

No one is really talking about it either because you just
don't criticize anything having to do with September 11th.

Well, I just can't let the numbers pass by because it says
something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality
of this country.

If you lost a family member in the September 11th attack,
you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a
minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7
million.

If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier
killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct
death benefit, half of which is taxable. Next, you get
$1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse,
you get $833 a month until you re-marry. And there's a
payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the
child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people that are getting an
average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining
that it's not enough.

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims
from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization
asking for the same deal that the September 11th families
are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of
those bombed in the embassies are now asking for
compensation as well.

You see where this is going, don't you?

Folks, this is part and parcel of over fifty years of
entitlement politics in this country.

It's just really sad.

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion
but the tranquil and steady dedication of a
lifetime." -Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

Every time when a pay raise comes up for the military they
usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green
machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families
have to survive on food stamps and live in low rent housing.

However our own U.S. Congress just voted themselves a raise,
and many of you don't know that they only have to be in
Congress one time to receive a pension that is more than
$15,000 per month and most are now equal to being
millionaires plus.

They also do not receive Social Security on retirement
because they didn't have to pay into the system.

If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get
out as an E-7 you may receive a pension of $1,000 per month,
and the very people who placed you in harms way receive a
pension of $15,000 per month.

I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon
and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and
lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now
fighting.

"When do we finally do something about this ??"

++
The funeral line was long,
There's an awful lot of cars,
Folks came out of the restaurants,
They came out of the bars.

The workers at the construction sites
all let their hammers drop,
Someone asked "what is all this for?"
and they said "aw just a cop."

Some chuckled at the passing cars,
some shed a silent tear,
Some people said "It's Stupid,
All these dumb policemen here."

"How come they ain't out fighting crime?
Or in a doughnut shop?
Sure is alot of Trouble,
for someone who's just a cop."

They blocked the intersections,
They blocked the Interstate,
People Yelled and Cursed,
"Damn your making me late!"

"This is really ridiculous,
they're making us all stop,
It seems they're sure wasting time,
On someone who's just a cop."

Into the cemetery now,
The slow Procession comes,
The Woeful taps are played,
There's Loud salutes from guns.

The graveyard workers shake their heads,
"This service is a flop
There's lots of good words wasted,
On someone who's just a cop."

Yeah, just a cop to most folks,
He did his duty everyday,
Trying to protect us ,
Until his life was taken away.

And when he got to heaven,
St. Peter put him at the top,
An Angel asked "who was that?"
And he said "Aw, just a cop"

The officer stood and faced his God,
which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as Brightly as his Brass.

"Step forward now Officer,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To my church have you been true?"

The Officer squared his shoulders and said,
"No, Lord I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry the badge,
Can't always be a saint."

"I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was rough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
because the streets are tough."

"But I never took a penny
that wasn't mine to keep,
Though I worked alot of overtime
when the bills got to steep."

"And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept an unmanly tear."

"I know I don't deserve a place
among the people here,
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fear."

"If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
but if you don't... I'll understand."

There was silence all around the throne,
Where the saints often trod.
As the Officer waited quietly,
for the judgment of his God.

"Step forward now, Officer,
You've borne your burdens well.
Come walk a beat on Heavens streets.
You've done your time in Hell."

~Author Unknown~

- all from Carol Bagshaw

--
Shake out your clothes before putting them on and check your
bed sheets.

It was a quiet morning at 5:00 am on May 6th, 2002 and I was
lying in the bed with my fiancée. I felt a slight tickle on
my upper thigh of my left leg under the covers and proceeded
to brush it away. As my hand struck the blanket I felt a
slight stinging sensation on my leg. I lifted the covers to
see the outline of a small, brown quarter size spider on my
bed.  My fiancée woke up startled and asked me "What is it?"
I said, "It looks like a spider. Hold on". I ran to the
bathroom, grabbed some tissue and quickly grabbed the spider
and threw it in the toilet. My fiancée came into the
bathroom to look at the spider and all we said at that
moment was "Wow, that is a big spider".

I flushed the toilet with a feeling of personal victory.

Almost within the hour the bite area swelled to a quarter
size area. That afternoon I went to the doctor and he asked
me if it was a brown recluse. I have never seen a Brown
Recluse before but both my fiancée and me agreed that it
quite possibly was after hearing the description of one but
I had always thought those spiders were in southern
Illinois. The doctor gave me some antibiotics and circled
the area with a marker and sent me on my way.

Later that evening a white infected area formed in the bite
site. I am told this is called the "bulls eye" and is a
definite tell tale sign of a brown recluse bite.  The area
around the bite site turned blue, dark red and had gone
outside of the circled area.

My fiancée took me to the Emergency room where they rushed
me to surgery. I spent eight days with an open cut at the
bite area to drain the spiders toxins from it and almost 24
hours a day on IV antibiotics and pain medication. In the
end I had a 5 inch in diameter area of dead tissue, a result
from the toxins, cut out of my upper leg.  My next step in 8
days is skin grafting, which I am told is skin taken from
another part of my body and place on the cut away area. But
that area will never look the same.  Never would I have
thought this type of spider was right here in Pekin or
central Illinois. It seems most people know little about
this spider.  If I had waited a day longer I might have lost
my leg to this spider.

Now view the Attachments.

- from Rob Brucato