Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.
Common courtesy, where are you? …
Yes sir, it’s not surprising, with all the rages out there: road, air, boat, street, tractor, submarine, gardening, you-name-it, some people are fighting back with courtesy campaigns and conferences. One ad entices us with: “Courtesy costs nothing and profits everybody. Good manners is treating other people in the way we expect to be treated. What can YOU do? Slow down — Listen – Smile.”
So, with such promise, where do these very polite fellows fit?
They’re having dinner together. On the table is a dish with one big piece of fish and one small piece of fish.
The first polite fellows says: “You may choose first.”
“No, you may choose first,” replies the other polite fellow.
This goes on for a while.
Finally the first polite fellow says: “OK, I’ll take first.” He takes the big piece of fish.
The second polite fellow says: “Why did you take the big piece? That’s not polite!”
“Which piece would you have taken?” the first polite fellow asks.
The second polite fellow says “Why, I would have taken the small piece, of course.”
“Well, that’s what you have now. Let’s eat.”
Life not only begins at 40, that’s when it also begins to show.
Eye Opener Bob . . .
Buying beer in Alberta in the 1960s held an extra treat — while sipping you could read a Bob Edwards fact, or direct quote, pasted on the opposite side of the bottle to the brewery label. A tiny irony Edwards would have loved since he wrote about booze often, especially about his own love affair with whiskey, good whiskey of course!
He was an irreverent, blunt, outspoken newspaper editor, and owner, in southern Alberta a century ago. His writing today would land him in court, jail or banishment to his Scottish homeland. We’ve used his stuff before, not because it’s old, but because, despite its age, it remains relevant.
He delighted poking fun at life in general, and nailing politicians in particular. Here’s an example, which fits into the “If the shoe fits wear it,” category.
“Political parties, like many individuals we know, cannot stand prosperity. After a party has been in power for a number of years it becomes stodgy and self-complacent and its members in office, by a continuous absorption of flattery from fawning lightweights at home, get to imagine that they are devilish important, devilish important. Drunken with a sense of power and immunity, the more unscrupulous ones become careless and corrupt. The canker of graft takes hold and spreads, immorality is added to corruption, scandals creep forth, an alert opposition press gets busy and the electors do the rest.”
A voice from our Canadian past sounding like a voice of the present. We live in the hope it’s not a voice of our political future.
Age doesn’t always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone.
It seems to have come alone for these two …
Two supposedly experienced men in a pickup truck drove into a lumberyard. One walked into the office and said, “We need some four-by-twos.”
The clerk asked, ”You mean two-by-fours, don’t you?“
The man said, “I’ll go check,” and went out to the truck, came back and said, “Yeah, I meant two-by-fours.”
“All right. How long do you need them?”
The customer paused again, said, “I’d better go check,” comes back and says, “A long time. We’re gonna build a house.”
You don’t stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing.
A tip of the hat to courtesy, and to John Wanamaker for this thought: “Courtesies cannot be borrowed like snow shovels; you must have some of your own.” I take it he means for us to be polite in borrowing, vigorous in shoveling, hopeful that both are a long way away, and an Oktoberfest, or a Wine Fest will come before the snow.