Shooting An Elephant

When I was in junior high school elephant jokes were all the rage. Here are some of my favorites.

How can you tell if there is an elephant in the bathtub? You can smell the peanuts on his breath.

How do you kill a blue elephant? With a blue elephant gun.

Why did the elephant paint its toenails red?  So it could hide in the cherry tree.

How can you tell when an elephant has been in the refrigerator? By the elephant footprints in the Jello.

How do you kill a pink elephant? Squeeze its trunk until it turns blue and shoot it with a blue elephant gun.

How do you stop an elephant from charging? Take away his credit card.

How do you raise a baby elephant? With a forklift/

How can you tell if there are two elephants in the refrigerator? You can hear them giggling when the light goes out.

How can you tell if there are three elephants in the refrigerator? The door will not close.

What do you call an elephant in a phone booth? Stuck.

How did the elephant get wrinkles around its' knees? From jumping out of trees.

How do you capture a whole herd of elephants? Go to their watering hole with an empty gallon jug, binoculars, and a pair of tweezers. When the elephants come to drink you look through the binoculars backward. The elephants will look tiny. Use the tweezers to grasp their tails. Pick them up and drop them into the gallon jug.

That is enough to keep you entertained for a while. Just be thankful that I used elephants and not Silly Suzie jokes.

Let's Dress Up

Halloween is coming. Did you celebrate? Did you dress in a costume? Did you Trick-or-Treat?

 I love Halloween. I love the colors: black and orange. I really love the candy. And I love to see kids having so much fun rushing from house to house looking for more treats.

Even though it is older Halloween is usually attributed to Samhain in Ireland. It is celebrated at the time it is believed that the world of the dead was closest to the world of the living. Sometimes the spirits of the dead could cross over to cause trouble.

They would knock on doors looking for food. People began leaving treats sitting on the doorstep to keep the spirits from playing tricks on them.

Of course the spirits were scary to look at. If a human had to be out on All Hallow's Eve they wore a scary mask to look like a spirit. They were allowed to pass. 

Soon mischievous young people began to dress in costume and bang on doors demanding treats. Halloween had begun.

I have memories of my favorite costume. I was in kindergarten. Mom could make anything. Using orange material she sewed a pumpkin. It even had a little hat with green leaves to look like the top of the pumpkin. Then she bent a few wire coat hangers and stretched the pumpkin over them to make a full round pumpkin. It was so fat that I had problems getting it through the door of the classroom at school.

Over the years there have been many homemade costumes. After all there were seven of us. Then I had four children. KISS has been a favorite for many of the children. 

For several years my second son dressed as death. I had seen how to do his makeup in a magazine.

My oldest son would dress as a scarecrow. He sat in a folding chair by where the kids came for their treats. As soon as no one but the child was looking he would wave. Not one mother ever believed the poor child who saw the scarecrow move.

I know there are some who believe that Halloween is evil. They are able to believe as they wish. For me Halloween is just a time to be silly and have fun.

How Come

 My daughter is blessed with three big brothers. I always wished I I had a big brother. 

My daughter adored her brothers. They adored her. It is still true and they are all in their 50's.

I thought when the novelty of having a girl in the family the boys would relax a bit. Not so. 

She has felt protected and loved for her entire life.  Each brother served a different part as hero for her.

The oldest brother is the calm person who makes things right. She turns to him for security.

The second brother is her fierce warrior guard. He is there to make everyone afraid to cross her.

She and her third brother are Irish twins meaning there is barely a year's difference in their ages. Besides being her friend he is constantly there for her.

There was something about my lovely daughter that drove us all out of our minds. She was a "howcum" child.

She was full of questions. They always started with "how com." "How come I need to wear a coat? How come I can't take the dog to school with me?" "How come it always gets cloudy before it rains?"

When she realized that she was making us crazy she asked even more. Fifty years later she still does it. You would think that by now she knows everything there is to know.