The Men in My Life, by Ray S

Where do I start? Don’t expect a laundry list of passionate trysts or deep meaningful relationships. Conquests? If there ever are any, much less worth sharing with you, I have acute memory loss. Must be the latent Puritan coming to the surface!

What a question to put before a gay man or a lesbian, the latter could more be interesting, the first could be redundant, to say the least. Of course, it is every man to his own.

Moving on to the more intellectual and cerebral evaluation of this subject one can’t overlook memories, fond or otherwise, of the cause of our being her today, namely our fathers and mothers (Whoa, I am back to biology again), male family members, the teacher or professor, perhaps a priest or rabbi, a man of a particular political persuasion, even Presidents Washington and Lincoln. I must confess that long, long ago I was smitten for a few years with Jolly Old St. Nicholas. Some of us had a thing for “older men.” Now that I’m in the same stage of my life, I’ve found that I lack the girth an temperament—and besides I don’t look good in red!

Alas, as time slips on I find I am still available and waiting for that special gay knight riding the white unicorn to come and swoop me up into his arms and carry me off to the land of cupid where we will live forever in a state of gay bliss.

Aside from all that foolishness, our subject has happily brought to my recollection the many wonderful men that have contributed to my well being, with their friendship and love. Last but surely not least the same goes for the beautiful lesbians I have been blessed to know.

© 28 March 2016

About the Author

Terror, by Ricky

Not to “down-play” the feelings, but terror is nothing more than extreme fear. Fear caused by circumstances that are too horrible to even think about, like: being buried alive or being a passenger on an airliner that is falling to its doom from 40,000 feet or catching the Ebola virus or discovering too late that vampires, werewolves, and zombies are real. Since these thoughts really are too unsettling to think about, I will write about other forms of terror. (Those of you with weak hearts or stomachs may wish to skip reading this posting. Going to read on are you?? Well then, you have been warned.)

Among the less fearful terrors in the animal kingdom are the Wire Hair Fox Terror, the Boston Bull Terror, and the Scottish Terror.

Moving up the fear ladder, most of us can remember Dennis Mitchell, commonly known as Dennis the Menace. His neighbor, Mr. Wilson, considered Dennis to be a Holy Terror. Another such boy you may recall is Johnny Dorset who was made famous by O. Henry in his book, The Ransom of Red Chief. Johnny is such a Holy Terror that his kidnappers have to pay the boy’s father to take him back. Even “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” is known as “The Terror of Colorado Boulevard”. Hmmmmm. Here’s a thought. Before their son was old enough to know right from wrong, would Joseph and Mary have described a mischievous Jesus as being a Holy Terror?

If you stop and think about it, we all have been a terror at one time or another. Most notably when we try to open a small letter or package where the instructions tell us, “To open, tear along the dotted line.” The act of doing so identifies us as a tearer. People who are very good at tearing are known as tearerists.

To paraphrase FDR, “The only thing we have to fear is…” in two years Republicans may again control Congress and the Presidency. Now that is a fear worthy of producing terror!

© 17 November 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Sad but True, by Gillian

It is undeniably true, and equally undeniably sad, that selfish, inconsiderate, people keep insisting upon dying; often at very inconvenient times and in equally inconvenient places. Often they don’t even bother giving me any warning; which actually is of no consequence because, when I do have some presentiment of bad behavior on their part and sternly insist that they mend their ways, do they pay attention? No! They just pop their clogs, topple off their perches, in total disregard of my needs and wants.

Now, most of these people are old enough to know better. They must know that I, at a similar age, am too old to deal with emotional upheavals. Bad things just keep getting harder to deal with. So, do they cease and desist from such things? Far from it. In fact old friends insist on dying with ever-increasing frequency.

Take just last week. Nancy, the chef from Betsy’s cross-country bike trip, died unexpectedly. She was not only cook and bottle-washer, but she also rode her bike, along with the others. So her death was almost a double whammy: the loss of Nan the cook, and Nancy, the co-rider. She was also the first of the group to die, so that hit everyone very hard. I mean, just how inconsiderate is that? She was a perfectionist, and very competitive, so I guess she just had to be #1. (Actually, that whole group was made up of some very competitive people, so in a way it would not have been surprising if they’d chased each other right into the arms of that old Grim Reaper, like lemmings going over the cliffs.) But no, in the event, Nancy had to be first.

On top of that she was only 68, abandoning ship early, leaving old souls like Betsy to pedal on.

In a final act of selfishness, she had to go and die in some remote half-a-horse Wyoming town in the middle of winter. Whoa! How’s that for heaping it on? Just because she fell in love with this Wyoming rancher, just because she wanted to live on his remote ranch, just because she adored the midst of nowhere, we had to traverse the sleet and snow of Windy Wyoming on bitterly cold February days. Huh!

—————–

With that, I guess my attempt at some kind of dark humor has fizzled out. I suppose I had to try it as the only way, at this particular moment, to deal with the sad but true fact that as we age we lose so many friends; faster and faster they fall. All the tired old platitudes, such as death is just a part of life, offer me nothing, though I do try to remind myself constantly that in fact I am very fortunate: in order to lose so many friends you first have to have so many friends. Still, I hate that feeling of always waiting for another shoe to drop, dreading who will be next. Then, one day, I shall be the one who is next. Sad but true.

© February 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

Bumper Stickers, by Ricky

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”*

Hiking along the chosen road, I am thinking about how can I incorporate into my life a bumper sticker admonition, “Practice random acts of kindness and commit senseless acts of beauty.” Traveling on, I soon perceive why this road is less traveled.

Not far from the fork in the road, (which I pick up and place in my knapsack) ancient and majestic oaks grow o’er the way, eventually shutting out the noon-day sun and providing only a dim twilight to illuminate the way forward. Thick and thorny underbrush steadily crowd in from both sides, forcing travelers towards the center and ever onward. Retreat finally becomes nearly impossible as thorns grab and tear if one attempts to go back.

The road, now a trail turned path, twists, writhes, and bends to and fro so often all sense of location and direction become scrambled. The very air grows thick and ever more oppressive with the deepening gloom and each forward step. One can almost feel malice emanating from the surrounding forest, feeding rising fear and urging speed to hurry forward to path’s end, leaving this cursed wood behind.

A state of depressed desperation occupies my mind as the trail seems to end at the mouth of a small abandoned mine. Tracks in the dirt ahead clearly indicate the path continues into what ultimately becomes a large cave. Passing through the entrance, I travel not far, when blocking my progress forward and any egress to the rear, are four large and starving trolls.

While I fight the urge to panic, which can result only in mental paralysis, the trolls force me deeper into the cave. Once near their cooking pots, just like in all the stories I’ve heard, they begin to argue on how to cook me for their dinner. Before their discussion can lead to some rash action towards me, I decide to turn on all my charm and personality in a ploy for them to release me unharmed. I do not use my good looks because I believe trolls are not influenced by human beauty.

I manage to convince them that I can supply unlimited food almost immediately, if I can but leave intact. At first they are against my plan, then skeptical, and finally in agreement. I leave the cave and fight my way back through the thorns to the divergent point of the two roads. I search all around until I find some appropriate old wooden planks and make a sign along the road less traveled but near to the divergent point.

My plan works perfectly. The next year, I replace the sign with a beautiful but fake U.S. Forest Service information sign, thus fulfilling the bumper sticker’s admonition. The sign is the senseless act of beauty and feeding the starving trolls is the random act of kindness.

The sign reads: “WARNING! Troll Cave Ahead. Enter at your own risk!”

The sign tells the truth, but the foolish don’t believe the warning and eagerly travel to the cave anyway. Thus, I provide our society with an act of kindness by slowly and steadily removing fools from the gene pool and proving once and for all that old cliché, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Yes. I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference to the trolls, me, and many fools.

© 5 January 2015



*From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, 1916

About the Author  

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

Depressed, by Ray S

Now, class, in order to understand better the many words that begin with the 4th and 5th letters of the alphabet please open your Depressed dictionaries to page number—oh no, you figure the page number with all of the clues I’ve already given you.

We need to start a list of the words that either begin with the 4th and 5th alphabet letters or sound almost like them and your interpretation:

Depressed—getting down low, or is it low down?
Digressed—not concentrating on your homework
Disappointed—oh well, better luck next time
Diverted—keep your mind on the ultimate climax
Demented—what happens when you have too much fun
Devoted—when you’re fortunate enough to find a loving partner
Demanding—watch out for those dominatrixes
Dormant—sorry, the wrong letters and a sign of my depressing condition
Distraught—at least I got the letter ‘D’ in there, and this word is more than enough to describe my depression
Depraved—well that is a matter of which way the pendulum swings when it comes to opinions and teachings of a lot of people about the Gay Way when in reality it is simply (though not always simple) another version of the Gods’ and Demigods’ way of varying the mix of the earth’s beautiful creatures. Also there is the constant reality of the depressing state of world and national affairs.

And then you could touch upon the despicable: like Donald Trump or guns in hands and who and what they kill, and of course, the Democrats and those elephant worshippers.

My, my, Class, you’ve done quite well with this exercise in DE words. For your next week’s lesson, I want each of you to choose one of the DE word subjects and prepare an essay to be read in class—no more than 965 words each.

Class is dismissed and perhaps Depressed.

© 7 December 2015

About the Author

Alice’s Adventure in Purple Passionland, by Ray S

The question had been looming in my frustrated mind for at least forty-five minutes. Where the hell am I, and what can I do? In my haste to leave for this dinner date I neglected to confirm the specifics like apartment number. When I had confirmed that I was at the right building, I was unable to find their names on the directory much less their apartment number. This occurred after mindless wandering between a couple of other similar high-rise buildings. In case you wonder why I failed simply to use my cell phone to let them come rescue me from the street people, I couldn’t remember their number. Would the papers announce: “Little old man found comatose under a loading dock; Doctors suspect senior molestation.”

At that moment I looked up to see two men approaching. Who else but Marty and Bob, one of my hosts and the other dinner guest whom I hadn’t seen for at least a year. I dropped my bag and almost floored them as I threw my arms around them and kissed my saviors. “We thought you had forgotten about tonight,” was all they could say in disbelief, probably thinking, “He really must be slipping.”

As dinner was about ready friend Bob produced a small box of hors d’oeuvres and invited all to sample freshly made brownies. They were made by him and Betty Crocker with the addition of Bob’s own prepared formula of something with the unfamiliar name “Lower List” and “Purple Mist.”

Then Marty’s husband Tucker inquired, “Haven’t you ever smoked pot?” He was incredulously amazed that it was possible that pot wasn’t a part of everyone’s life.

Bob allowed as how just a crumb of the “edible” would be okay. “Go ahead; take this chocolately bit. It won’t hurt.” I later learned that all three of the boys were tripping along nicely. I am reminded of Alice and the bottle with the inscription: DRINK ME.

Sometime between the soup and salad courses I began to wonder at Marty’s mastering the kitchen activities, but the plated dinners made it to the table perfectly. About part way into the salad course and then to entrée, I became aware of a soft haze dropping down over the dinner guests. Having my trained eye for color I can describe for you that it was soft and transparent and in shadings of lavender edged in the finest corona of deep purple no more than a thirty-second of an inch wide. I had been told that that little crumb MIGHT start to react but not to worry.

Dessert was a luscious apple strudel a la mode. I looked down at it on its dessert plate, and it looked up at me as if to say: TRY ME, you’ll like it.” I’d heard that before.

I was enveloped in that Purple Mist when I heard the other three discussing:

What can we do with his car?

It’s parked on the street.

Well, he certainly can’t drive it.

They decided to see if I was able to walk. So Tucker decided to see if I could walk twenty feet. Success! So I could accompany Bob to show him if I could find my car, and then he would drive it into the garage. Then what are we going to do with him besides an anti-climax of strong coffee—as if it made any difference.

What fun I was having wallowing in all of this attention. Yes it was another time and place.

Dear Bob had done wonderfully guiding the old sedan to the garage, after which he took leave of our jolly band. For the next three hours some sort of trigger activated my talking machine. Marty and Tucker kept an eye on their errant guest by sitting up and encouraging other-worldly philosophies on how love prevails.

About 3:30 AM Marty pointed me to the guest bedroom with the firm suggestion I fall into the bed. Tucker said “Good night or morning.” and the two of them offed to their own bed, with the assurance I’d be wakened for breakfast.

After some coffee and fruit I found a good degree of sobriety and lots of sleepiness. No more ethereal lavender-purple mist. As I set about the trip back home, I reviewed this most recent TRIP and what gratitude I had for my two Fairy God Fathers.

Pulling out of the garage, I stopped at the gate and looked up to their balcony and there the two of them were waiving their magic wands in a farewell gesture with one hand while holding onto their diamond tiaras with the other.

“Adieu, my two Fairy queens, with love and appreciation for the finer joie d’vie.”

Alice

Denver, © 7 March 2016

About the Author

Rickyisms, by Ricky

These are NOT “jokes” they are positively,
undoubtedly, irrevocably–infallible TRUTHS!!!
THINGS
I LEARNED WHILE STATIONED IN THE SOUTH WITH THE AIR FORCE
A ‘possum is a flat animal that sleeps in the middle of the road.

There are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 of them live in the South.

There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 of them live in the
South, plus a couple no one’s seen before.

There are NO cockroaches in the South.  There is, however, an abundance of Palmetto
bugs which, oddly, are found only in the South.

If it grows, it’ll stick ya. If it crawls, it’ll bite cha.

“Onced” and “Twiced” are words.

It is not a shopping cart; it is a buggy!

“Jawl-P?” means, “Did everyone go to the bathroom?”

People actually grow, eat, and like
okra.

“Fixinto” is one word. It means “I’m going to do that.”

There is no such thing as lunch. There is only dinner and then there’s supper.  (I guess no southern preacher ever told his flock the last supper was held a little over 2,000 years ago.)

Iced tea is appropriate for all meals and all occasions.  One starts drinking it when two years old. We
do like a little tea with our sugar. It is referred to as the “Wine of the
South.”

“Backwards and forwards” means, “I know everything about you.”

The word “jeet” is actually a question meaning, “Did you eat?”

The word “squeet” means, “Let’s go eat.”

You don’t have to wear a watch, because it doesn’t matter what time it is, you work
until you’re done or it’s too dark to see.

You don’t PUSH buttons, you MASH ‘em.

“Ya’ll” is singular. “All ya’ll” is plural.

All the festivals in a Southern state are named after a fruit, vegetable,
grain, insect, fish, or animal.

You carry jumper cables in your car—for your OWN car.

There are only six condiments: salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard, ketchup and
Tabasco.

Mayonnaise is NOT a condiment—it is a food group.

The local papers cover national and international news on one page, the other five
pages are for local high school sports, motor sports, and gossip.

Everyone you meet is a Honey, Sugar, Miss (first name) or Mr. (first name)

The first day of any hunting season is treated as a national holiday.

You already know what a “hissy fit” is.

Fried catfish is the other, “other white meat”.

We don’t need no dang Drivers Ed. If Mama says we can drive, we can drive!!!

A vampire and a priest decided to commit a burglary
together.  Once inside their target
building, the vampire became nervous and suspicious about the priest, who was displaying
signs of untrustworthiness.  So, the
vampire turns to the priest and says, “You better not double-cross me.”
Which knight of the Round Table was the best at math? — Sir
Cumference.
If a red house is made of red bricks, a yellow house is made of
yellow bricks, a blue house is made of blue bricks, and a brown house is made
of brown bricks, what is a green house made of? — glass.
© 14
December 2015
 
About the
Author 

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale
and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to
turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their
farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents
divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

The Fractured History of Clothes, by Ricky

The
first case of sunburn resulted in the slang term “red skins” to differentiate
the early humans into two groups; the clothed and the nudists.
Clothes!
 What a wonderful invention.  The first recorded version of clothes was fig
leaves, which were then exchanged for animal skins; a much needed improvement
for winter and colder climates.  We
should all be grateful for those two “cave” people who had the foresight to
switch from leaves to animal hides.  This
had the added benefit to reduce the excessively sunburned population so that
today the only few remaining “red skins” are those very few that play professional
baseball.
Over
time the cave people moved into communities and the hunter-gatherer peoples
prospered.  But as populations of these
people increased and the animals used for food and skins began to shun the
presence of hunters, some enterprising gatherers sought out some means of
supplementing the animal skin shortage. 
Eventually, they found a way to process animal fur, vegetable fibers,
and worm cocoons into a suitable product for making something to wear.
Since
this was something completely new, there was no name for it.  Clothes are what they wanted to make out of
the new product but they needed a catchy new word to market their product.  Finally some pundit from “Madison on the
Avenue” in the ancient village of York reasoned that since “clothes” was a
plural word and this new product is what is used to make clothes, the product
should be named “cloth” using the singular form of “clothes”.  The community of merchants quickly adapting
to the new word, needed a generic way to indicate the multitude of different
furs, vegetable, and worm based products they had for sale in their
possession.  They decided to use the word
“clothes” but were quickly corrected by their language instructors that
“clothes” and “clothes” were spelled the same but pronounced differently.  Since homonyms had not yet been invented, the
merchants were compelled by their instructors to use the word “fabrics” to
avoid confusion.
The
makers of fabrics tended to be women and were referred to as “loomies” because
“fabric makers” was too hard to say and “loomers” sounded to close to “losers”
which had already been assigned to those who did not win at arm wrestling and
“weavers” was used to label people who would drink too much fermented liquids
and thus could not walk a straight or gay line.
The
merchants quickly discovered that the majority of people who purchased their
fabrics were male.  Indeed, in those
ancient times and into our modern day the males would wear highly colored
fabrics with varied glyphs, runes, borders, and designs to make themselves look
more important than another.  This became
a quasi-universal trait among males of any community.  They were easily recognized by their plain or
elaborate dresses, robes, and evening gowns. 
Eventually, these men became known as “men-of-the-cloth” because “men-of-the-fabric”
seemed too formal.
As
the cost of the fabrics became prohibitive for the poorer members of a
community, the “men-of-the-cloth” were looked upon as being wise and
knowledgeable because they could afford to buy clothing made of fabric.  So, gradually the men-of-the-cloth were
granted leadership positions and the power of authority over other community
members.  This did not always work out
well.
There
are remnants of this practice today. 
Traditional men-of-the-cloth still exist nearly everywhere, but they are
not as powerful as they once were. 
Modern men-of-the-cloth can be identified by the red color of their
neckties and can still be heard talking as if they were all wise and
knowledgeable.  In our day, the most
flamboyant of the men-of-the-cloth often attend after work establishments and
entertain the crowds.  Reportedly, they
are well respected and revered by everyone except those known as being “dragaphobic”.
With
hindsight, perhaps it would have been better if the ancient fig leaf wearing
cave people had stayed nudists.

© 22 September 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale
and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to
turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their
farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents
divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

Aw Shucks, by Ricky

Aw Shucks! I have to work today and will miss SAGE’s Telling Your Story group. I was going to regale you with an awesome story of living and working on my grandparent’s farm. I got so dirty shucking corn husks that I had to shuck off my clothes and bathe in a galvanized wash tub at night. I guess you could say I was a dirty little shucker. In any case, since I must shuck off story group and go to work on Monday, there is no point in writing that awesome story. So, I guess I will just shuck off my clothes and go to bed instead. Night night.

© 5 April 5, 2015

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Rickyisms, by Will Stanton

To ease understanding of the
term “Rickyisms,” some people may equate these brief, humorous quips as
“puns.”  That term comes close; however,
“Rickyisms” are not so generalized as common puns, and they reflect more
precisely the personality of the originator, Ricky.  To begin with, anyone inflicted with “Rickyisms”
should be aware that the originator claims to have a personality of a
twelve-year-old boy; and his little bon mots usually are on that
level.  He has provided us with ample
opportunity to reach that conclusion.
Joking boy

Occasionally, however, his
little quips, written or oral, garner special attention; and, in my
imagination, I assign them special awards. 
One that comes to mind (and I’m sure Ricky will not mind my quoting it)
was, As for poor Yorick, the slain court jester, I
believe Shakespeare killed him — in the library — with the quill.  Yorick probably told Will a ‘Rickyism‘ and was stabbed in the heart for his trouble.  I found that quadruple Rickyism particularly
enjoyable.
I have encountered some people
who do not appreciate puns.  They may
prefer something supposedly more sophisticated and witty.  In addition, I also have noticed other people
who don’t even understand puns, or truly good humor in general.  These are the ones who rely primarily upon
the reptilian part of their brains, which also appears to correspond with how
they think and vote.  It also is
reflected in their love and admiration for racial or political jokes that lack
all valid meaning and wit.  Often, our
discomfort with their attempts at humor is fully justified, for their attempts
at humor are extraordinarily and unnecessarily obscene, or they  may be cruelly denigrating or politically and
maliciously motivated.  An essential part
of successful humor, unrealized by such people, is that there must be some
element of truth in it.  Otherwise, the
attempt is meaningless and unfunny.  I
frequently have noticed that deficiency in many so-called jokes from mindless
Right-Wingers in their attempts to attack and denigrate people whom they
hate.  And, they proudly think they are
being so witty.
 

Unfunny man

True wit requires valid
knowledge and practiced skill.  Far too
often, too many people come to the forum half-prepared.  If you were paying attention, you may have
caught all the puns in this piece.
Wink wink
©  26 November 2015 
About
the Author 
 I have had a life-long fascination with
people and their life stories.  I also
realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or
fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual
ones.  Since I joined this Story Time
group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.