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Whenever there was a confrontation, yelling could be heard deep into the night. Clifford would shout, "When I die, I'll dig my way up and out of the grave and come back and haunt you for the rest of your life ol' woman!!" Neighbours feared him. Old Clifford liked the fact that he was feared. He died at the ripe old age of 98. After the burial, Daisy May's neighbours, concerned for her safety, asked, "Aren't you afraid that he may indeed be able to dig his way out of the grave and haunt you for the rest of your life?" She replied, "LET HIM DIG. I HAD HIM BURIED UPSIDE DOWN... AND I KNOW HE WON'T ASK FOR DIRECTIONS."

Stolen from the internet… A sweet grandmother telephoned St. Joseph's Hospital. She timidly asked, "Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a patient is doing?" The operator said, "I'll be glad to help, dear. What's the name and room number of the patient?" The grandmother in her weak, tremulous voice said, Norma Findlay, Room 302." The operator replied, "Let me put you on hold while I check with the nurse's station for that room." After a few minutes, the operator returned to the phone and said, "I have good news. Her nurse just told me that Norma is doing well. Her blood pressure is fine; her blood work just came back normal and her Physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged tomorrow." The grandmother said, "Thank you. That's wonderful. I was so worried. God bless you for the good News." The operator replied, "You're more than welcome. Is Norma your daughter?" The grandmother said, "No, I'm Norma Findlay in Room 302. No one tells me anything."

.... nope, no worries at all .......... it's not my boat .....

If you've never been to Arcadia, you wouldn't understand!

....... they didn't come much wurst than that .....

THE FUEL PUMP AND THE LOTTERY TICKET Dawn was streaking the eastern sky when Linn backed his Jeep into his usual spot. He was not surprised the kitchen light was on, nor that the smell of bacon and eggs, of fresh brewed coffee, of freshly toasted bread, greeted him as he came through the door. It did not surprise him in the least little bit that his pale eyed Mama was dressed for the day and waiting for him just inside the door, her arms crossed, her head lowered a little, and he walked through the radiating waves of her skeptical expression and embraced her, chuckling: he laid his head over on top of her head and laughed quietly, drew back, looked at his Mama and declared, "Mama, I shot a Jeep last night!" Willamina raised an eyebrow, gave him a skeptical look, but he saw the hint of a smile at the corners of her eyes. Linn had long ago given up on figuring how his Mama knew when he'd be home. He did his best to keep regular hours; last night was very much the exception, he hadn't come home all night, and his Mama knew -- she always knew! -- when he was on his way home, and mornings like this were the rule and not the exception: bacon and eggs were hot and ready to throw on the table. They sat, they added some Extract of Bovine to their coffee, they picked up their forks. "Well?" Willamina asked, giving her son a knowing expression. Linn set down his fork, threw his hands wide: "Well, yas sees, it's like this," he said in a nasal voice, not far short of laughing again. "We were out with Mitch's Jeep -- you remember the one, that old Army job they had to replace the gas tank on?" "The one where the plastic lining stripped loose and floated around until it got sucked over the outlet and shut off the gas like a switch. I remember." "His fuel pump went out." "Really," she replied,her voice carefully neutral. "Poor guy, he's the best war-era Jeep mechanic I've ever met," Linn said thoughtfully, shoveling in fried eggs between phrases, with all the enthusiasm of starving youth. "He's not so much on these new ones unless it's strictly a mechanical problem." Willamina nibbled a strip of crunchy bacon, her demeanor deceptively casual. "How did you get home?" Linn laughed. "You wouldn't believe the Hillbilly Engineering we cobbled up to get home!" he laughed, picking up a slice of buttered toast. "Try me." Linn looked at his Mama: her expression was skeptical, his was amused. "His sister used to be a nurse and she had some empty glass IV bottles." Willamina raised an eyebrow. "We murdered the cap loose and dumped it half full of gas, we crimped the cap back on as best we could --" "Uh-oh," Willamina muttered. "Uh-oh is right. He had some epoxy something in his toolbox and it set up fast enough we got a seal around the cap, then he said he didn't have a drill to put a hole in the hood." "And ...?" "I told him to figure where he needed the hole and I made one." "You made a hole." "In his Jeep's hood, right over the carburetor." "And you used ...?" Linn laughed again, took a noisy slurp of coffee. "He's got a 44-caliber hole in his hood now. He ran IV tubing down into the carburetor. I stood up on the passenger side and leaned out over the windshield and regulated the pinch cock for throttle and we made it home -- we couldn't make much speed, but we made it!" Sheriff Willamina Keller was good at gauging expressions and body language; she had the added advantage of Mother's Intuition: she had the added gift of an excellent sense of smell, and she'd detected a particular floral scent when her laughing son embraced her just inside the front door. "And the girls ...?" Linn laughed again, shook his head. "Mama, I blew it. The fuel pump went out as soon as we got to where we were going -- his girl and mine were in the back seat -- they weren't happy, but Shelly pointed out we weren't trying to put the moves on 'em once we broke down." Willamina made no answer. "Shelly let me hug her when I got her home, and I told her Pa what happened. Turns out he'd already got a phone call and knew about it, so he knew I wasn't lyin' to him." "I thought I smelled her perfume on your vest." "She let me hug her at least," Linn said. "I'm surprised she allowed that. She said it was the one worst date she'd ever been on." "Mm-hmm." They finished breakfast; Linn washed dishes with his usual speed and efficiency as Willamina finished getting ready for work. Linn switched his boots and shrugged into his old jacket and prepared to head for the barn; he hadn't slept, obviously, but he was young, and at that age, sleep isn't all that necessary. Willamina stopped at the All-Night -- something she didn't usually do -- she saw Big Mike's truck was at the pumps, and Mitch was filling the tank. She went up to the lad, laid a hand on his shoulder: he turned his head, grinned: "Hi, Mom, whatcha doin'!" he greeted her -- an old joke between them -- Willamina said "How's that good lookin' Jeep of yours these days?" Mitch sook his head sadly. "I'm headed for the parts store right now," he said gloomily. "My fuel pump went out." "Ouch!" Willamina sympathized. "Were you on the road?" "I was way the hell out in the B&W," he admitted -- "the Bushes and Weeds" -- he grinned again, that quick, impulsive grin of the self-conscious young -- "we had to rig up a fuel system to get home." "How could you rig a fuel system with your fuel pump dead?" Mitch laughed; the nozzle shut off, his father's truck's tank full: he turned, placed the nozzle back in the pump, screwed on the gas cap. "I rigged up my sister's vodka dispenser. She wanted to put vodka in an IV bottle and dispense drinks at a party, but they never had the party so she just put it in the back of my Jeep. She thinks it's a trash hauler." "I see." "We had to punch a hole in the hood and run IV tubing through it and direct into the carburetor. Had to take the air cleaner off. One of us stood up and held the IV bottle out over the hood and regulated flow with that IV pinch thing." He shook his head. "Took us all night to get back, but we made it!" Willamina looked at the All-Night. "I'm going to buy a lottery ticket," she said. Mitch looked at her, surprised. Willamina laughed. "I was replacing the bulb in my bathroom exhaust fan light yesterday," she explained. "The old one was only twenty years old, don't know why it failed so soon." Mitch shook his head sorrowfully and intoned in a doleful voice, "They don't make 'em like they used to." Willamina laughed, patted his shoulder. "I dropped the replacement. It twisted out of my fingers just as I tried to screw it in, it did a swan dive over the shower curtain and I just knew it was going to explode when it hit the shower floor!" "Uh-oh," Mitch grunted sympathetically. "It bounced." Willamina's smile was broad and genuine. "It was a new LED bulb, they're plastic instead of glass. I put it in and it worked. With luck like that, I'm buying a lottery ticket!" Mitch laughed, walked with her into the All-Night. "After last night," he said, "I'm buying one too!"

Quick Aussie Summer 'Sandwich' served cold.

I wonder, could the reason he never returned be … she gave birth to Phillips screwdrivers?

EXPERT OPINION "Sir?" "Yes, Jacob?" "The Silver Jewel will be sending over supper for you." "Good." Linn shifted in his hospital bed, the way a man will when he's uncomfortable from what he considers an excess of bed rest. "Sir, I've been considering the Carbon Mercantile." Linn's eyes were carefully expressionless. "Go on." "Sir, it'll be remarked on that you went in with no more body armor than an irritated expression." "I doubt me not," Linn grunted, "that it will be spoken of. Or more likely I'll get spoken to about it." Half his mouth twisted up, half a wry smile, an intentional expression, not a result of internal or external injury. "I was off duty, ridin' fence, I heard the traffic and I was close by." "Sir, we could've made a tactical entry in front --" "I handled it." "Yes, sir, you handled it well but you were reckless." Pale eyed father glared at pale eyed son, his eyes hardening and becoming visibly more pale. "Sir, over and above the fact that I've only got one of you, and settin' aside that if you'd got killed, Mama would never speak to you again -- that was a tactically poor decision." "It worked," Linn said coldly. "Yes, sir, it did," Jacob agreed, "and this discussion won't leave this room, but damn it, sir, you're the only one of you I've got!" "You said that already." "Maybe I want to emphasize the point." "You were talking tactics, now your'e being selfish." "No more selfish that you were, you pale eyed hellraiser!" Jacob snapped. "If you want to strip your blouse and step behind the barracks, put 'em up because I'll go toe to toe with you whenever you want!" Sheriff Linn Keller eased forward, leaning away from his set-up mattress: he glared coldly at his son and said, "I can fire you at any time." Jacob leaned over the siderail and glared just as hard at his father. "Fire me then." Father and son regarded each other in hard headed, jaw bulged silence for several long seconds; the atmosphere between them fairly crackled, and finally Linn nodded. "Sit down, Jacob," he said, leaning back. "If you hadn't spoken as you did, you'd not have been doing your job." "My job," Jacob said coldly as he settled back down on Doc's rolling stool, "is what you've told me in the past: to keep the man above you out of trouble, and to keep the people under me out of trouble. Right now I am trying to do just that." "You're doing it well." Linn's teeth showed momentarily and he frowned at this betrayal of his pain, his weakness. Jacob hesitated and Linn stepped into the hesitation. "You've hit me where I live, Jacob. I don't want to leave Shelly and I sure as hell don't want to leave while you're here to make life interesting. You have children and I delight in them and I don't want to not see them grow and become all they are going to." His head dropped back against the sweaty pillow. "Jacob, all I could think of was ... hell, I wasn't thinking," he admitted. "The only thing in my head was that no one is going to come into my county and pull something like this." He swung pale eyes to his frowning son, grinned. "Look at the message it sent." "That the Sheriff is a damned fool?" Jacob grinned. Linn raised a hand off the covers, waved it. "Besides that. No, Jacob, you had the place surrounded, and when they looked out the back door and saw two rifles in their faces, they gave up and that left only the one. I couldn't know that, but your tactics are sound. No" -- Linn shifted again, frowning at the IVs in his left elbow, looking up at the chuckling pump, the bag above it -- "Why can't they put some Kentucky Drain Opener in that?" he muttered -- he looked at Jacob again. "Jacob, this sends the message that we don't fool around. Nobody will talk about establishing a perimeter, assessing the situtation and coming up with a plan. The only thing that'll get talked about will be that this county kicks the door and goes in killin' without hesitation." Jacob remembered the two dead men inside the front door, both with a fist sized hole through their wishbone, one with the distinct shape of a shotgun's butt mashed deep into his face where an old veteran lawman engaged the enemy at close quarters in an effective manner. "I'll agree, sir, you didn't hesitate any a'tall." "Had I been on duty instead of ridin' fence," Linn muttered, "I'd just have a bruise instead of a hole in my lung. Your Mama didn't say much when she was in but her eyes said plenty." "Yes, sir." "Sometimes, Jacob, we have to do something even if it's wrong. I did and it worked." "Yes, sir." "We want to send a message, Jacob. This sent the message that we don't negotiate, we kill. We don't hesitate, we kill. We send this message and we prevent future hostilities." "I see, sir." "Bruce Jones helps with that. Did you see last week's paper?" It was a rhetorical question; in an era of increasingly electronic communications, the local newspaper was still quite popular, and a stray thought tickled the edge of Jacob's memory, something about a tourist's review of Firelands describing the quaint habit of actually reading a print newspaper in public, at the barbershop, even on a bench on the public street. "I saw the paper, sir." "You saw how he covered the Lawman's Invitational." "Yes, sir." "He publishes scores like he prints the football team's scores. He shows lawmen on the line, knocking down steel plates, he shows them running an assault course and he's gotten some great photographs of men at a dead run, brass flyin' in the air, knockdowns at half-mast" -- he stopped, nodded. "That is also prevention, Jacob. We want to impress on the criminal mind that if they come here, they leave in a rubber sack." "Yes, sir." "That's not why I went in like I did." Jacob's left eyebrow quirked up. "Sir?" Linn leaned forward again, almost managing to hide a pained grimace as he did: being shot through the ribs is not a comfortable thing, neither at the time, nor when healing up. "It made me mad, Jacob," Linn said. "I won't have that kind of thing in my county so I went in with a full head of steam and I let my badger loose on 'em." Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller nodded, considered, looked back at Sheriff Linn Keller, rose. "Sir," he said, "you are a hard headed and contrary old man." "I'm not old yet, Jacob, but I fully intend to get there!" Dr. John Greenlees tapped discreetly at the door, pushed it open, just in time to get a face full of laughter as father and son were apparently sharing something amusing. "Are you ready to get out of here?" Doc asked without preamble, then added, "you contrary old man?" Father and son looked at one another, looked at Doc, and Jacob shook his head. "There you have it, sir," he chuckled, "I am now given expert opinion on the subject!"

I do believe that law would be put to better use if it were enacted in Chicago.

NANTUCKET AND GLOSTER Daisy's head came up like a hound hearing the distant horn. She snatched the towel from her shoulder, wiped her hands: she reached behind, seized the dangles on her apron string, pulled hard: she skipped out the door, the forgotten apron dropping to the kitchen floor. Forgotten were the viands, victuals, stews and bread in the oven: her departure was seen, and two girls came in behind her to tend the kitchen in her absence. Daisy skipped down the hallway, her breath coming quicker, her heart lightening: she'd been a child in Ireland, a green-eyed lass still in the Old Sod, when she'd first heard this sung -- she'd danced then, and collected the coins thrown her way, and she'd be damned if she'd miss dancing to this shanty! The voices were loud, they were a little off key, there was a squeeze box: Daisy buckled on her hard-heeled dancing shoes, tied a ribbon quickly in her hair to keep it from falling forward, ran up the three steps to the little stage. Daisy seized the rope, pulled, quickly, parting the curtains: a tin pipe joined the squeeze box, Daisy's soul soared on the music, and her legs followed, to the whistles, yells and appreciation of the Silver Jewel's population. It wasn't often they got seamen this far inland, it was not often at all the Sheriff raised his voice in song, but here he was, that pale eyed lawman and four horn-callused Nantucket whalers, or Glostermen, or whatever the hell they were -- Daisy didn't really know, and she didn't care. Daisy's Pa treated her to the strap when she came home, flushed with success and with a double handful of coin: no daughter of his would disport herself in such a shameful manner! -- Daisy went to bed welted from belt to ankles, and the next night she was back at the waterfront, dancing again, her cheeks red with defiance, and this time she kept her coins -- and her dancing -- secret. Daisy's great delight was the Irish hardshoe, and she was good at it: men pounded hard-callused hands on tabletops in time to the music and Daisy's brisk counterpoint to the heartily-sung saltwater chanty. Upstairs, that dignified matron of society and commerce, Esther Keller, put down her pen and smiled, listening, remembering: not long after, she came downstairs, her steps quick, light, men's voices buoying her heart and delighting her soul, for she, too, knew what it was to dance before men, to the disapproval of a stern and very proper father. Esther slipped through the men at the bar, laughing, skipped down the hall and into the stage door: she nearly ran up the three steps, lifted her skirts, fell in beside Daisy. Shave his belly with a rusty razor, Shave his belly with a rusty razor, they sang, and two women fell into exact rhythm, dancing as if they'd punished the boards together for years: the Silver Jewel's cook, and the Sheriff's wife, danced for the joy of dancing, danced for the men who sang for the joy of singing. Daisy's cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining, and she danced for a man with broad shoulders and big hands, a red-headed Irishman who roared the seafaring song with the Nantucket men, an Irishman who kept time with a half empty mug of beer and an adoring look for the woman on stage: the green-eyed woman of business danced for men who knew what it was to row a boat with desperate speed, a woman who danced her thanks for these Nantucket whalers whose efforts helped haul her from a river, a deep and muddy river, hungry for human sacrifice, and she danced for the pale eyed man who stood shoulder to shoulder with the big Irishman, singing as loudly and as lustily as they. Two women danced for the joy of dancing, and a saloon full of men sang for the joy of singing together, and for the women who loved them enough to dance to their united song.

I think we need a Mascot, so here he is.

Brother John entered the 'Monastery of Silence' and the Chief Priest said, "Brother, this is a silent monastery, you are welcome here as long as you like, but you may not speak until I direct you to do so." Brother John lived in the monastery for a full year before the Chief Priest said to him: "Brother John, you have been here a year now, you may speak two words." Brother John said, "Hard Bed." "I'm sorry to hear that" the Chief Priest said. "We will get you a better bed." The next year, Brother John was called by the Chief Priest. "You may say another two words Brother John." "Cold Food." said Brother John, and the Chief Priest assured him that the food would be better in the future. On his third anniversary at the monastery, the Chief Priest again called Brother John into his office. "Two words you may say today." "I Quit." said Brother John. "It is probably best." said the Chief Priest. "All you have done since you got here is complain