The Rescue

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Twain_photo_portrait,_Feb_7,_1871,_cropped_Repair.jpg

“Boys, I had great presence of mind once. It was at a fire. An old man leaned out of a four-story building, calling for help. Everybody in the crowd below looked up, but nobody did anything. The ladders weren’t long enough. Nobody had any presence of mind–nobody but me. I came to the rescue. I yelled for a rope. When it came I threw the old man the end of it. He caught it, and I told him to tie it around his waist. He did so, and I pulled him down.”

— Mark Twain, in Albert Bigelow Paine, The Boy’s Life of Mark Twain, 1916

First Aid

In 1950, Simon & Schuster published a new children’s book, Dr. Dan the Bandage Man. Publisher Richard Simon decided to include a few bandages with each copy as a publicity gimmick. He wired a friend at Johnson & Johnson:

PLEASE SHIP TWO MILLION BAND-AIDS IMMEDIATELY.

The friend wired back:

BAND-AIDS ON THE WAY. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?

Rimshot

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1215011

A husband and wife are killed in an accident and find themselves in heaven. It’s an immaculate golf course with a beautiful clubhouse and handsomely landscaped greens, and they have it to themselves. They gape at it for a while, and then he asks her if she’d like to play a round.

As they’re teeing up for the first hole, she says, “What’s wrong?”

He says, “We could have been here years ago if it weren’t for your stupid oat bran.”

Rimshot

A guy goes into a bank and says he wants to borrow $200 for six months. The loan officer asks him what collateral he has, and he says, “I have a Rolls Royce. Here are the keys — you can keep it until the loan is paid off.”

Six months later the guy comes back and pays off the $200 loan, plus $10 interest. The loan officer says, “Here are the keys. If you don’t mind my asking, why would a man who owns a Rolls Royce need to borrow $200?”

The guy says, “I had to go overseas for six months. Where else could I store a Rolls Royce for $10?”

Chapter and Verse

As he was visiting his parishioners one Saturday afternoon, a new pastor stopped at one house and found that no one answered the door. It was clear that someone was home, but he knocked repeatedly and no one appeared. Finally he pulled out his card, wrote “Revelation 3:20” on the back, and left it in the door.

That Sunday he found the card in the collection basket. Below his message someone had written “Genesis 3:10.”

Revelation 3:20 reads, “Behold I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”

Genesis 3:10 reads, “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked.”

Officer Material

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Horatio_Derby.jpg

When he was a cadet at West Point, California humorist George Derby had attended a class on military strategy.

“A thousand men are besieging a fortress that contains these quantities of equipment and provisions,” said the instructor, pointing to a chart. “It is a military axiom that at the end of 45 days the fort will surrender. If you were in command of this fortress, what would you do?”

Derby raised his hand and said, “I would march out, let the enemy in, and at the end of 45 days I would change places with him.”

Rimshot

This guy takes a gorilla out golfing. At the first tee the gorilla says, “So what am I supposed to do?” The guy says, “You see that green area about 400 yards from here? You’re supposed to hit the ball onto that.” So the gorilla takes a club and whacks the ball and it soars up into the sky and drops down neatly on the green. The guy tees off and makes about 150 yards, so he hits an iron shot and then another iron shot and finally they arrive at the green. The gorilla says, “What do I do now?” The guy says, “Now you hit it into that cup.” The gorilla says, “Why didn’t you tell me that back there?”

Shipshape

The captain of a freighter was notoriously strict. On one occasion the new first mate, whom he had just hired, became a bit too boisterous after hours, and the captain wrote in the ship’s log, “The first mate was drunk last night.”

The mate was an able, conscientious seaman, and he pleaded with the captain to strike this from the record. He had never been drunk before, he did his job faithfully, and he was off duty when the offense had happened. He begged for leniency, pointing out that such a record would cloud his whole future.

“I can’t help it,” the captain said. “You were drunk last night, and I can’t change the fact. The record must stand.”

Wounded, the mate returned to his duties, and he stood the watch that night without complaint. In the morning he wrote in the log, “The captain was sober last night.”

Got That?

If you remember how much easier it is to remember what you would rather forget than remember, than remember what you would rather remember than forget, then you can’t forget how much easier it is to forget what you would rather remember than forget, than forget what you would rather forget than remember.

Elmira Gazette, quoted in New York Times, Feb. 13, 1891