My Dad’s favorite poet was Anon, a prolific scribbler. Here’s one he collected, probably in the 1950s:
Don’tcha worry, honey chile,
Don’tcha cry no more.
It’s just a little ol’ atom bomb
In a little ol’ limited war.
It’s just a bitsy warhead, chile,
With a little ol’ tactical shell.
And all it’s gonna do is blow us all
To a little ol’ limited hell.
–Anon
This was written in response to one or another psychotic government employees who happily discussed the idea of a limited nuclear war.
Here’s another Uncle Lubert story, actually two related stories showing Lubert’s practicality.
Uncle Lubert gave his nephews some lumber and told them to build an outhouse. They worked away at it but came up short – not enough lumber to build the last piece, the door. They said “Uncle Lubert! We don’t have enough wood to build a door for the outhouse!” Lubert said, “Turn ‘er toward the view, boys, turn ‘er toward the view.”
The related story: Uncle Lubert gave the boys an old car to use as a field car, to get around the farm. The farm was hilly and covered with trees. The boys drove off happily, but returned to Uncle Lubert several minutes later. “Uncle Lubert, this car has no brakes! How are we supposed to stop it!” Uncle Lubert said “Aim ‘er for a tree boys, aim ‘er for a tree!”
Not all my Dad’s jokes were about his Uncle Lubert. One of his favorites: A man in a small town strange to him is looking in vain for the Post Office. He encounters a small boy and asks him “Son, how do you get to the Post Office?” The boy says “I dunno.” The man says “You don’t know much, do you?” The boy says “Yeah, but at least I ain’t lost!”
This useful tale came in handy when someone said “I dunno.” The “You don’t know much, do you” and sometimes “Yeah, but at least I ain’t lost!” followed naturally.
ER had several jokes that came from his uncle Lubert Theiss. Lubert was a dairy farmer in the hills of Meigs County.
On one of Uncle Lubert’s barns, the sliding door had not one cat hole, made so cats could enter and exit the barn, but six cat holes. When asked “Uncle Lubert, why do you have six cat holes in your barn door?” Lubert replied, “When I say scat, I mean SCAT!”
My father, ER Hayes, was a great teller of jokes. He had his favorites, of course, repeated as needed to entertain his close associates.
Here’s one, first of a series on this website.
A farmer was driving his hogs to market. There were two ways to cross the local river, a ford, quite close to his farm, and a bridge, much further and requiring a longer trip.
One of his neighbors asked “Why don’t you take your hogs across the ford? It would save you some time.”
The farmer responded “What’s time to a hog?”