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May 12, 2006
Mother's Day IV-Quotes and Quips
My mother grew up a straight-laced, Baptist girl (who didn't smoke and didn't chew and didn't go with boys that do) but ended life a Presbyterian, who was wont to take her family to Luthern church for Christmas Eve service (though she still wasn't much for smoking or chewing). Once, upon looking into the student lounge of our boarding school when my brother Virgil was in school, she remarked, "It's a den of iniquity!" Nonetheless, though she could be easily embarrassed by innuendo, she often rather relished a slightly bawdy joke, particularly if it had a medical angle.
On the embarrassment end, once she turned bright red when colleague at a hospital in the US remarked that she had to buy her son a G-string. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Norma," her colleague remarked, "It's for his guitar."
Her two favorite jokes were as follows.
*A doctor who was taking a rather a long time to perform a circumcision slipped as he finished. "It won't be long now," he said.
Only when my mother told this joke (and for the life of me I can't remember in what type of situations she would actually tell it), she would often muddle the punchline, saying instead, "I'll make short work of this." We boys would howl.
*The old rabbi was getting along in age and his life work was to be celebrated. The younger rabbis were at a loss as to what to get him as a present. Finally, they decided to make a gift for him, as that always seems to be more meaningful. There were several months before the party and so they decided to save the foreskins from all the circumcisions to make a wallet. For some reason, there were less than the usual number of circumcisions during those months and so there was not much material to work with. Upon receiving the gift, the old rabbi remarked that, "Yes, thank you. It is very nice, but it is rather small." To which a rabbi replied, "Oh, don't worry about that, rabbi. Just rub it softly and it will turn into a briefcase."
And I really can't remember when my mother would repeat that joke. For some reason, though, my extreme gullibility perhaps, my classmates convinced me to tell that joke to my high school biology class. Miss Robertson, a Scottish missionary teacher who could be gotten off topic for an entire double period listening to our complaints about boarding and who sometimes took it upon herself to give us some necessary sex education, was rather taken aback when I delivered it, uttering something to the effect of "Yes, thank you, Neil," as the boys who had put me up to it earthquaked with stifled laughter. And my only justification then, is my only justification now for posting it on my blog, "My mother told me that joke."
Personal Growth or Lack Thereof | By jackdas | 5:37 PM
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