On the Lighter Side: The funny side of life

On a dark rainy night, a customer walked into a convenience store and told the manager he heard a couple playing checkers in a pickup truck outside.

The manager asked the customer how did he know they were playing checkers? The customers replied that he heard the woman say, “Another move like that and I will crown you!”

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Did you hear about the chess-master who wanted to spend a relaxing evening at home: He had to take the knight off!

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In another period of time, every circus featured sideshows. A sideshow was a small show incidental, but connected, to a larger or more important performance.

In one sideshow was the tattooed lady from Borneo. She was a very large woman who even had tattoos under her feet.

The next sideshow featured the Native American rubber-man who could twist himself like a pretzel.

The two fell in love, but the circus management had to break it up because by doing a lot of slow dancing, he was erasing all of her tattoos.

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Did you hear about the guy who was billed as the world’s tallest man in a traveling circus?

Sadly, he lost his job. When he became concerned about his cholesterol, he gave up butter and started using Crisco.

Unfortunately, he didn’t realize it was shortening.

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When I was in high school, one boy was about 6-feet-2, very tall for that period of time. Can you guess what his nickname became? “High pockets.”

CHANGING TIMES

Smoking is now prohibited almost everywhere. In a previous era, cigarettes were heavily advertised on television, radio and newspapers.

Smoking was so popular you could buy a smoking jacket, which was a short coat worn instead of a regular suit coat, as a lounging jacket.

Railroads had smoking cars in which travelers were permitted to smoke. In most hotel lobbies, you could buy pipes and cigars from a smoking stand.

I had a district manager who would not hire anyone who smoked a pipe. He said they spend all their time either lighting it or cleaning it.

As a teenager, a car full of boys would all smoke cigars with the windows up, to kill the mosquitoes. The side effects were heavy.

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I recently had another birthday as a golden-ager.  But that’s OK: Bo Diddley said 80 was “just a number.”

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Recently when I was making out an application and came to the little square marked “age,” I did not hesitate. I simply wrote “atomic.”