Thursday, November 04, 2004

The Goldmans

Harvey and Gladys Goldman are getting ready for bed.

Gladys is standing in front of her full-length mirror, taking a long, hard look at herself.

"You know, Harvey," she comments, "I stare into this mirror and I see an ancient creature.
My face is all wrinkled, my boobs sag so much that they dangle to my waist, my arms and legs are as flabby as popped balloons, and...my butt looks like a sad, deflated version of the Hindenburg!"

She turns to face her husband and says, "Dear, please tell me just one positive thing about my body so I can feel better about myself."

Harvey studies Gladys critically for a moment and then says in a soft, thoughtful voice,
"Well...there's nothing wrong with your eyesight."

Services for Harvey Goldman will be held Saturday morning at 10:30 at Beth Israel Synagogue. Female friends of the family are invited.

The Doctor's Visit

I went into my proctologist's office for my first rectal exam.

His new nurse, Elaine, took me to an examining room and told me to get undressed and have a seat
until the doctor could see me.
She said that he would only be a few minutes.

After putting on the gown that she gave me I sat down.

While waiting I observed that there were three items
on a stand next to the exam table:
a Tube of K-Y jelly;
a rubber glove;
and a beer.

When the doctor finally came in I said,
"Look Doc, I'm a little confused. This is my first exam. I know what the
K-Y is for, and I know what the glove is for, but can you tell me what the BEER is for?"

At that Doctor Paul became noticeably outraged and stormed over to the door.
He flung the door open and yelled to his nurse.......

"Darn it, ELAINE..........
I said a 'BUTT LIGHT'!!!!!"

How many of these do you remember?

Candy cigarettes
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
Newsreels before the movie
P.F. Fliers
Telephone numbers with a word prefix....(Raymond 4-601).
Party lines
Peashooters
Howdy Dowdy
45 RPM records
Green Stamps
Hi-Fi's
Metal ice cube trays with levers
Mimeograph paper
Beanie and Cecil
Roller-skate keys
Cork pop guns
Drive ins
Studebakers
Washtub wringers
The Fuller Brush Man
Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
Tinkertoys
Erector Sets
The Fort Apache Play Set
Lincoln Logs
15 cent McDonald hamburgers
5 cent packs of baseball cards -
with that awful pink slab of bubble gum
Penny candy
35 cent a gallon gasoline
Jiffy Pop popcorn

Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
A foot of snow was a dream come true?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

IF YOU'RE TOO YOUNG
TO REMEMBER THESE THINGS,
YOU HAVE MY SYMPATHIES.....
YOU MISSED OUT ON
A GREAT TIME IN HISTORY!

It's Getting Chilly

There was a chill in the air.

A man came walking up to the house when he noticed his grandfather sitting on the porch, in the rocking chair, with nothing on from the waist down.

"Grandpa what are you doing?" he exclaimed.

The old man looked off in the distance without answering.

"Grandpa, what are you doing sitting out here with nothing on below your waist?" he asked again.

The old man slowly looked at him and said,
"Well, last week I sat out here with no shirt on,
and I got a stiff neck. This is your grandma's idea."

The Important Things

When things in your life seem almost too much to
handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar...and the 2 cups of coffee...

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured
it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "
I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things: family, your children, your health, your friends,and your favorite passions...things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your lifewould still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your
job, your house, and your car.

The sand is everything else-the small stuff.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will
never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal."

Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Gambling Granny

An elderly woman walked into the Bank of Canada one morning with a purse full of money. She wanted to open a savings account and insisted on talking to the president of the Bank because, she said, she had a lot of money.

After many lengthy discussions (after all, the client is always right) an employee took the elderly woman to the president's office.

The president of the Bank asked her how much she wanted to deposit. She placed her purse on his desk and replied, "$165,000".

The president was curious and asked her how she had been able to save so much money. The elderly woman replied that she made bets. The president was surprised and asked, "What kind of bets?"

The elderly woman replied, "Well, I bet you $25,000 that your testicles are square." The president started to laugh and told the woman that it was impossible to win a bet like that. The woman never batted an eye. She just looked at the president and said, "Would you like to take my bet?" "Certainly", replied the president. "I bet you $25,000 that my testicles are not square." "Done", the elderly woman answered. "But given the amount of money involved, if you don't mind I would like to come back at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning with my lawyer as a witness." "No problem", said the president of the Bank confidently.

That night, the president became very nervous about the bet and spent a long time in front of the mirror examining his testicles, turning them this way and that, checking them over again and again until he was positive that no one could consider his testicles as square and reassuring himself that there was no way he could lose the bet.

The next morning at exactly 10 o'clock the elderly woman arrived at the president's office with her lawyer and acknowledged the $25,000 bet made the day before that the president's testicles were square. The president confirmed that the bet was the same as the one made the day before.

Then the elderly woman asked him to drop his pants etc. so that she and her lawyer could see clearly. The president was happy to oblige. The elderly woman came closer so she could see better and asked the president if she could touch them. "Of course", said the president. "Given the amount of money involved, you should be 100% sure." The elderly woman did so with a little smile.

Suddenly the president noticed that the lawyer was banging his head against the wall. He asked the elderly woman why he was doing that and she replied, "Oh, it's probably because I bet him $100,000 that around 10 o'clock in the morning I would be holding the balls of the President of the Bank of Canada!"

A True Story

by Malcolm Forbes

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.

"We want to see the president," the man said softly.
"He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped.
"We'll wait," the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him.

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The president wasn't touched.... He was shocked.
"Madam," he said, gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly. "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now.

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded.

The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.

The Honest Seamstress

One day, when a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a river, her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "My dear child, why are you crying?" The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family.

The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with pearls.
"Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked.
The seamstress replied, "No."
The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a silver thimble ringed with sapphires.
"Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked.
Again, the seamstress replied, "No."
The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble.
"Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked.
The seamstress replied, "Yes."

The Lord was pleased with the woman's honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.

Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank, and her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water.
When she was cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her,
"Why are you crying?"
"Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!"
The Lord went down into the water and came up with Mel Gibson.
"Is this your husband?" the Lord asked.
"Yes," cried the seamstress.
The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"

The seamstress replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to Mel Gibson, you would have come up with Tom Cruise. Then if I said 'no' to him, you would have come up with my husband. Had I then said 'yes' you would have given me all three.
Lord, I'm not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so THAT'S why I said 'yes' to Mel Gibson.

The moral of this story is: "Whenever a woman lies, it is for a good and honorable reason, and in the best interest of others."

That's our story, and we're sticking to it.

1904

Maybe this will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
The year is 1904 ... one hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the US statistics for 1904:
The average life expectancy in the US was 47 years.
Only 14% of the homes in the US had a bathtub.
Only 8%of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.00
There were only 8,000 cars in the US, and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in the US was 22 cents an hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year.
A veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year.
A mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.
Ninety % of all US physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
The five leading causes of death in the US were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two of 10 US adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 % of all Americans had graduated high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health." (Shocking!)
Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire US.

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years ... it staggers the mind.

Cruise Control

She had thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise
control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain.
But the highway patrolman told her that if the cruise control is
on and your car begins to hydroplane- when your tires loose contact with the pavement your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed and you take off like an airplane.
She told the patrolman that was exactly what had occurred.
We all know you have little or no control over a car when it begins to hydroplane.
You are at the mercy of the Good Lord.
The highway patrol estimated her car was actually traveling
through the air at 10 to 15 miles per hour faster than the speed set on the cruise control.
The patrolman said this warning should be listed, on the drivers seat sun-visor - NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE PAVEMENT IS WET OR ICY, along with the airbag warning.

We tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive a safe
speed-but we don't tell them to use the control only when the pavement is dry.
The only person the accident victim found, who knew this (besides the patrolman), was a man who had had a similar accident, totaled his car and sustained severe injuries.
If you send this to 15 people and only one of them doesn't know about this, then it was all worth it.
You might have saved a life.