On the Lighter Side

By Don Shearon First Published December 15, 1972WOULD I LIE TO YOU?A radio commentator sharing our breakfast cereal the other very cold morning remarked that it was not a fit day to put your tongue on the pump handle.Well, that one furrowed the brow of the Lady at Our House. She didn't have an inkling what he was talking about.That, I told her, is one of the penalties of having been a city-bred girl and never having the advantage of outdoor plumbing.In the metropolis of Lincoln even THAT long ago (isn't that sneaky?), almost no one had any use for mail order catalogs except to select purchases.“And what about Fairbury?” she wanted to know.I wanted to tell her she's much older than I, but stifled the impulse. It was too cold a morning to have been locked out in my PJs.After a certain amount at such batting the subject around, I finally explained that on very cold mornings, the kids used to touch their tongues to the pump handles to see if their tongues would stick.And sometimes they did, too. Ouch!All the foregoing calls to mind how very gullible Our Lady used to be. Perhaps naive would be a better word.Whatever you want to call it, I could tell her just about anything and get away with it. That was before she learned to look out for the curves. Today, she won't believe me when I'm telling the truth, but I have no one to blame but myself.And that's still another story.One time, Our Lady wanted to know how you could tell when you left one county and entered another. I told her there usually was usually a little jog in the road. In some areas this really was the case, but not universally.She mulled over this for a while, then asked how you knew when you entered a differed state. Our Lady absorbed a lot of misinformation until I overplayed my hand.About the time I described high stone walls with armed guards on patrol, we parted ways.One I really did get away with, though, came about when we were visiting a farm, probably Our Lady's first experience in a barnyard. She asked what the windmill was for.To cool the cows, of course.WOMEN'S LIBBERS, PLEASE NOTEThis message is for those emancipated (or should that be emaciated?) females who affect Ms. In front of their names and profess to be so downtrodden by the chauvinistic males of the species.A newswire item originating ‘In Lansing, Michigan,’ says a study of correctional institutions in that state shows that men are sentenced to “much stiffer prison terms” than women for the same offenses.The average sentence upon conviction of second degree murder: Women, 6.1 years; men, 16.8 years.Now was that again about women being so discriminated AGAINST?Arise, fellow males! Now it's our turn to be liberated. The line will form to the right, and don't get caught in the crush.

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