Growing Up with a Preacher Man
Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)
The Jokes My Dad Told
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by Carolyn Ann Howard
My father loved to tell jokes. He loved to read jokes and have jokes told to him. In general, he just liked to laugh. The problem was, Dad had no comedic timing. He always told a joke to start a sermon, thinking that the laughter would put his parishioners at ease. We would all hold our breath during the joke hoping we would be able to laugh after it was over, nervous laughter if nothing else. We always laughed, though, and proud of himself for having pulled off yet another one, he would begin his sermon.
After Dad's funeral, I went to clean out his house. That man loved paper. He had a ton of those plastic Sterilite 3-drawer carts, and they were filled with paper. Old bills, bulletins, programs... anything made of paper, you name it. One of those drawers was filled with jokes that he had cut out of newspapers, books, magazines, or from the internet. Scraps and scraps of paper with nothing but jokes on them.
He also had a whole bunch of flash drives with documents on them. He kept detailed records of everything including his medical records, information about his cars, his life story, lists and lists of members of his various churches, relative's emails and phone numbers, and people for whom he was saying prayers for and on what day he said them. One of the files on one of the flash drives was entitled "Illustrations and Jokes."
Here are some highlights:
A small plane with an instructor and student on board hit the runway and bounced repeatedly until it came to a stop. The instructor turned to the student and said, "That was a very bad landing you just made."
"Me?" asked the student. "I thought you were the one doing the landing!"
Medical student to a nurse: "Every time I breath, someone dies."
Nurse: "Why don't you try Listerine?"
Two guys were standing by the side of the road holding up signs that said, “The end is near! Turn around before it’s too late!” A short while later a car whizzed by. The people in the car sneered at the guys and yelled, “Leave us alone, you religious nuts!”
A few seconds later, the guys heard the sound of
screeching tires and then, a splash. The one guy turned to the other and said,
“Do you think we should change our signs to say ‘Bridge Out Ahead’ instead?”
Restaurant server to guest, "How did you find your steak?
Guest: "Quite by accident. I moved the slice of tomato and there it was, underneath!"
