Jocoe’s Journal                                                                               5/18/08

 

 

 

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return.  It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

            Arthur C. Clarke

 

 

A teacher was finishing up a lesson on the joys of discovery and the importance of curiosity. "Where would we be today," she asked, "if no one had ever been curious?"

 

One child quietly spoke up from the back of the room. "In the Garden of Eden?"

 

 

The Father's Name

 

To prepare for my daughter's first communion, I called the church in the town where we used to live to get a copy of her baptismal certificate.  We only lived there for a short while, so I didn't know the clergy very well.  When the secretary asked me the name of the father, I told her I couldn't remember.

 

After a brief silence, she said, "Ma'am, I'm talking about the name of the baby's father."

 

 

Rare Meat

 

My boyfriend and I were lunching at a sidewalk cafe in Huntington Beach.  Our waitress looked like a real surfer girl.  She was athletic with a great tan and blond hair.  Mulling over the menu, my guy asked her if the roast beef was rare.

 

The waitress gave us a long, blank look and then replied,  "Well, no.  We have it like just about everyday."

 

 

The minister of a city church enjoyed a drink now and then, but his passion was for peach brandy.  One of his congregants would make him a bottle each Christmas.

 

One year, when the minister went to visit his friend, hoping for his usual Christmas present, he was not disappointed, but his friend told him that he had to thank him for the peach brandy from the pulpit the next Sunday.

 

In his haste to get the bottle, the minister hurriedly agreed and left.  So the next Sunday the minister suddenly remembered that he had to make a public announcement that he was being supplied alcohol from a member of the church.

 

That morning, his friend sat in the church with a grin on his face, waiting to see the minister's embarrassment.

 

The minister climbed into the pulpit and said, "Before we begin, I have an announcement. I would very much like to thank my friend, Joe, for his kind gift of peaches ... and for the spirit in which they were given !"

 

 

Sales Demonstration

 

The salesman was demonstrating unbreakable combs in the department store.

 

He was impressing the people who stopped by to look by putting the comb through all sorts of torture and stress.  Finally to impress even the skeptics in the crowd, he bent the comb completely in half, and it snapped with a loud crack.

 

Without missing a beat, he bravely held up both halves of the 'unbreakable' comb for everyone to see and said, "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what an unbreakable comb looks like on the inside..."

 

 

Passport Photo

 

Unfortunately, getting a new passport required a new photo.  As I handed my ten-year-old passport and the new picture to the clerk, I sighed. "I like the original better," I told her.

 

"Trust me," she said. "Ten years from now, you'll like this one."

 

 

In School

 

A friend of mine has three boys, the youngest of whom, Gregory, had just started school.

 

A teacher commented to Gregory that she couldn't believe he was already in first grade and asked what his mother did all day now that all the three boys were in school.

 

"Cartwheels," Gregory answered.

 

 

A Difficult Question

 

There was a student who wanted to be admitted to the University.

 

He was smart enough to get through the written test, a GED, and was to appear for the personal interview.  Later, as the interview progressed, the interviewer found this boy to be bright since he could answer all the questions correctly.  The interviewer got impatient and decided to corner the boy.

 

"Tell me your choice," said he to the boy, "What's your choice?  I shall either ask you ten easy questions or ONE real difficult.  Think well before you make up your mind."

 

The boy thought for a while and said, "My choice is ONE real difficult question."

 

"Well, good luck to you, you have made your own choice!" said the man on the opposite side.  Tell me: What comes first, Day or Night?"

 

The boy was jolted first but he waited for a while and said:  "It's the DAY, sir."

 

Thinking to himself ("At last, I got you!"), the interviewer smiled and said, "How???"

 

"Sorry sir, you promised me that you would ask me ONLY ONE difficult question!"

 

The student was admitted to the University.

 

 

TRIVIA

 

·         The world's population grows by some 100 million each year.

·         Some 950 million people in the world are malnourished.

·         The average male adult is 5'9'' tall and weighs 155 pounds.

·         The average female adult is 5'3'' tall and weighs 125 pounds.

·         There are 106 boys born for every 100 girls.

·         Como se' huh?  There are more than 2,700 languages in the world.  In addition, there are more than 7,000 dialects.  A dialect is a regional variety of a language that has a different pronunciation, vocabulary, or meaning.

·         B-A-S-Q-U-E  The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is spoken in northwestern Spain and southwestern France.  It is not related to any other language in the world.  It has an extremely complicated word structure and vocabulary.

·         Click-Click-Clack  More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.  Many languages in Africa include a "click" sound that is pronounced at the same time as other sounds.

·         U.S. Vice-President William R. King was sworn into office in Cuba, becoming the only executive officer to take the oath on foreign soil.

·         King had gone to Cuba to recuperate from tuberculosis and severe alcoholism, but it didn't work.  He died in 1853 after being vice president for just 25 days.

·         A jellyfish is 95% water.

·         The onion is named after a Latin word meaning large pearl.

·         In France, people eat approximately 500,000,000 snails per year.

·         Salt, our oldest preservative, was extremely rare in the past.  So rare, in fact, that it was often used as pay.

·         Ice Cream is Chinese Food!  When the famous explorer Marco Polo returned to his homeland of Italy, from China in 1295, he brought back a recipe (among other things).  The recipe, was a Chinese recipe for a desert called "Milk Ice."  However, Europeans substituted cream for the milk, and voila..."Ice Cream."

·         Baker's Dozen Bakers used to be fined if their loaves were under weight, so they used to add an extra loaf to every dozen, just in case -- hence, the expression "baker's dozen"

·         Sometimes Frozen Fruits And Vegetables re More Nutritious Than Fresh!  The longer that fruits or vegetables sit around waiting to be sold or eaten, the more nutrients they lose.  But fruits and vegetables grown for freezing are usually frozen right after they're picked.  Therefore, they have less time to lose their nutrients.

 

 

 

For more information, please contact:

 

Tom Telfer, B.A. Rotary Club of London West, PP PHF
District 6330 London, Ontario, Canada
Charter member of ROTI & Rotary Editors & Publishers
Editor of Jocoe’s Journal
ttelfer@rogers.com