One time when I was young, I had a job working in one of the top secret umputy ump agencies in the Washington DC area. I had to have a top secret umputy ump clearance to do this top secret umputy ump job. The place was so classified that the guards couldn't get into the building to use the bathroom because they didn't have high enough of a clearance.
Now where I worked at in this top secret umputy ump building was in a top secret umputy ump hole behind a top secret umputy ump room.
Now to get to my top secret umputy ump hole, I had to go through the top secret umputy ump room where I was told not to look, because I might see some top secret umputy ump material that I had no need to know.
Now everybody knows it does not take a top secret umputy ump clearance to clean and dust, so the cleaning personnel only had a secret clearance.
Everybody knows also that a top secret umputy ump agency generates top secret umputy ump papers. This top secret umputy ump agency generated so many top secret umputy ump papers that there was not enough top secret umputy ump safes to store the top secret umputy ump papers in.
Now you couldn't do a top secret umputy ump job when the cleaning people came in, so we took a top secret umputy ump black cloth and threw it over the top secret umputy ump papers, and went and had a top secret umputy ump lunch while the secret janitors were doing their secret work!
One day I was talking to the Justice-of-Peace in the bar and he said to me "Did you see where that guy robbed two banks and only got five years?"
I asked the justice "How does a guy get off that easy?"
The justice said "The judge was having a two-for-one special!"
John, the owner of the bar was what we called an equal opportunity owner. He'd take anybody's money.
They say that having a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, but if the bird is that small, you should have saved your bullet.
My uncle, who owned the local LP gas franchise, used to be mayor. He said he was complaining one day about the damage the bad roads was doing to his trucks, and someone told him he should run for mayor. The, then, mayor, didn't seem to be doing anything.
My uncle was elected and then he had to listen to complaints about roads, sewer, and water. All this and more for a $100 a month. He tried twice to raise taxes to get money for repairs and was voted down. When the owner of the auto salvage yard complained, my uncle snapped at him, if you don't like it, run for mayor!
The salvage dealer ran unopposed, and my uncle said that he, himself, would never complain about the roads again.
When I was in the Air Force, I had an old Volkswagon Beetle. One day I was driving along the road on base and I happened to look to my left and saw a tire rolling down the road next to me. Kind of strange, I thought, then I realized, that was my wheel! I hit the brake pedal, but no brakes!. The tire kept going and so did I, until I went around a corner, and the Volkswagon lost its balance and slid to a stop.
The tire kept going and center punched an oncoming Cadillac right in the center of the grill. A grizzled old chief master sergeant got out of the Cadillac, walked over and asked me "Are you going to throw the other three at me now?"
After the river washed away the cabin, I was busy and never got down there to do any fishing until the county started sending me notices to cut the weeds. So I went down and posted the land:
Natural Habitat
No Hunting
No Fishing
No Trespassing
Without Permission of the Owner
No Hunting
No Fishing
No Trespassing
Without Permission of the Owner
I got no further notices from the county about the weeds!
The barmaid in the bar caused quite a stir one night when she came to work, took off her blouse, and started showing everybody her new "Sports Bra." When she got down to me, I asked her if she was wearing "Sports Panties", also.
When I worked as a security guard in the bank, I stood in the entrance foyer and greeted all the customers when they came in the door.
"Good Morning, sir"
"Hello, Maam".
Said goodby when they left.
"Have a good afternoon, Sir"
"Good day, Maam"
I also helped the elderly and handicapped in and out of the doors and cars, where required. It was just like being a doorman at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, except I didn't get any tips!
When I was in the Air Force, one time I had to go and work at an Army intelligence unit. Most of the time all that was required was that my Air Force unit sent an electrical message to the unit that I was going to, saying that I had the proper clearance, and then I could enter with my identification card.
No.. That was not good enough for the Army. I had to go to their administration section and get a special identification card and special badge made.
The identification card had my fingerprints on it in invisible ink, and the badge had my signature on it in invisible ink, which when put under ultra-violet light would show up.
They made me sign so many papers and contracts for this ID card and badge that I thought I was joining the Army!
The army administration section was in an old World War II quonset hut, and the day that I got the badge and ID card, was a hot and bright august afternoon. All the windows were wide open, and I never even realized that I had on my sunglasses when my picture was being taken. When I went to work at four oclock in the morning I had to wear my sunglasses so I could prove I was me!
In town there were two bars, Tony's and Butch's. Now Butch's bar was open and closed, and always seemed dead. Not many people went there. That's because nobody liked Butch. Butch had been dead for thirty years.
Everybody went to Tony's. There were darts, pool, shuffleboard and there was always a party of some type going on. That's because everybody liked Tony. Tony had been dead for forty years!
When I was working security at the hotel, the manager was a very avid hunter and he had two pedigreed laborador retrievers that he was very proud of. He brought them to work one afternoon, just figuring on being there for a few minutes, and got caught up in a lengthy business conference. He had put the dogs outside and underneath his pick-up with food and water in the parking lot. But it was ninety two degrees that day, and customers started complaining that it was inhumane to the dogs to leave them out like that.
The manager went to his pick-up and put the dogs inside, with the motor on, and airconditioner running.
The manager went back to his conference, and my boss decided that even with the dogs in the pick-up, it should not be left unattended with the motor running. He sent me to keep and eye on it.
My car did not have airconditioning and I was pretty well used to the heat, but it still did get to me, that, there I sat in the ninety degree heat watching the dogs in the pick-up, while the dogs sat in the airconditioned pick-up watching me!
One time when I made a purchase, I got what was immediately obvious, an old penny. The coin was in good shape, but my eyes were not good enough to make out the small print of the date.
I carried it around for a while, and then I was at home one day and here were my wife's reading glasses laying on the table. I pulled out the penny and used the glasses to read the date. It was a real nineteen forty five copper penny!
Now I realized that it wasn't a million dollar find, but I figured being over fifty years old it was probably worth some money, thinking a hundred, maybe five hundred, and wishing for a thousand. And then there was always that rare mintage that could be worth ten thousand dollars.
I hid it away, thinking I'd just hold on to it till I needed some money bad.
The day finally came, and I went down to the public library, to look up the value. It took a half hour to find the right book section, and then another ten minutes to find the right book. Another five minutes scrolling down the book to the right line, and a fifty year old nineteen forty five copper penny was worth:
FIVE CENTS!
I spent it the next time I needed a penny, and I hope the person that got it gets more use out of it than I did.
My wife and I went to the city to visit. While we were there we went to the modern art museum. I told my wife that the kids drew better pictures than that when they were in grade school.
During the September rains, it stormed so much, my youngest daughter asked me to put a lightning rod on the house, so she could catch the lightning, and sell it to the electricity company.
As part of my training for flight duties in the Air Force, I had to go through aircraft ejection seat training. There were thirty personnel in my class.
The instructors told us that the slide mechanism for the trainer was old and highly worn, and as such every person that used it, would go a little bit higher and would come down a little bit faster.
They started off by shooting off the lighter people, and ended up with the heavier people.
I was about half way through the class. The slide for the ejection seat was six foot high, and the first people going through were only rising three foot. But as the slide mechanism warmed up, true to word, people began going higher and higher and coming down harder.
The last person was an old major from the Hospital Corps who was pretty heavy. He made it the full six foot and came down with a bang!. When the noise stopped we heard "Oh! My aching hemorrhoids!"
Every year at the fair, they had a bucking bronco contest for the brave of heart who thought they were born cowboys. Those who tried, got a VCR tape of their ride, and their picture taken with the fair queen. Additionally those who made it the whole eight seconds got a ten dollar gift certificate.
Joe down at the shop decided that he was going to do it. He had been reading books and studying VCR tapes, and decided that he was man enough that he could handle any bucking bronco. Joe bought himself a stetson hat, cowboy boots and spurs, and chaps and got all duded up to ride this horse. Everybody from the bar and work went to the fair the night Joe was scheduled to ride.
We watched Joe climb into the chute, climb on the horse, and when the gate opened, the bronco went one way, and Joe the other.
Everybody ran over to watch him get his picture taken and to congratulate him on his ride. He and everybody was happy.
The next morning down at the shop Joe told us "I didn't ride that bronco. I got into the chute and climbed up on that horse. Then it started humping, jumping, and moving. When that gate opened, I decided that was not where I wanted to be! I jumped as high and as far from that crazy horse as I could get!"
When I was working as security guard at the bank there was one slow day when the customers were coming in, parking crosswise in front of the bank and taking up three parking spots.
Since it was a slow day, I never said anything, but when the bank closed I told the tellers about it, and told them it must have been a Missouri day, because someone definitely needed to show those people how to park.
