Give Us This Day our Daily Chuckle

This scoop up some hot bubbling sweetness in my long-handled tin cup.

I would dash outside and pour the searing sweetness onto a patch of crystal white snow that hardened immediately into sheets of snow taffy. I called it my own form of Baked Alaska.

As I was growing up, maple-syrup time was also festival time. While preparing and feasting on a variety of maple-syrup based delicacies, raconteurs would reminisce on legends of the past.

Tribal history has it that some warriors were honing their tomahawk throws for accuracy when one hit a maple tree and a clear liquid began to flow from the gash.

Moqua, the spouse of the mighty Iroquois hunter Woksis, had been resting by a nearby tree on her way to get some water in a nearby creek. When she saw the clear liquid that had formed into a small pool at the base of the tree, she scooped it up and used it for cooking.

Her husband was so pleased with the sweetness of the venison he was served that night that he relayed the word to other hunters and tribes encountered on his hunting forays. They tried it, and liked it.

Some tribes rendered the sap into sugar cakes because they were easier to transport than liquid syrup. They also used it for trade – a form of money, if you will. The sweetness was use to flavor food, in

~ Mayor Of Hiroshima , 1945

9. “ Where did all those @#$%ing Indians come from?”

~ George Custer, 1877

8. “Any @#$%ing idiot could understand that.”

~ Albert Einstein, 1938.

7. “It does so @#$%ing look like her!”

~ Picasso, 1926

6. “How the @#$% did you work that out?” much the same it is used today.

~ Pythagoras, 126 BC.

When the first European settlers arrived, they saw the natives transforming sap into syrup by tossing red-hot stones into hewed-out logs filled with the “sweet water.” These pioneers bored holes into the maples and squeezed in small tubes, or taps, to channel the dripping sap into wooden buckets.

The buckets were collected by horse- and oxen-drawn sleds carrying barrels or storage tanks that were taken to sugar shacks and emptied into iron pots for boiling.

Some sections of middle America, where Mennonite communities still exist, continue some of these time-honored methods between their daily farm chores.

A typical operation involves a community where one or more farmers own several acres of maple trees and may even lease more acreage from neighbors. Using modern crop-rotation practices, they may tap three-quarters of the acreage each year and produce a couple of thousand gallons of maple syrup.

Much like the old way, these farmers still burn wood, because they don’t use electricity, to boil the sap. And they still use horses for transportation instead of tank trucks.

Practices that have changed include marketing and product efficiency. And health. Government regulations have upgraded cleanliness standards, and

Trump will ever become President”

~ Hillary Clinton, 2016 *** operations that produced about 10 gallons a day now process up to 50 gallons by using tubing instead of buckets to transfer the sap and syrup. Reverse osmosis has replaced boiling. Sap-sucking pumps have replaced the old-fashioned buckets.

Now that we have the Obama birth question settled, I demand that Hawaii provide papers proving that it is a state.

This just in: In 2006 Obama ran for President of Kenya but was disqualified because he was born in the US.

Stop trying to make everybody happy. You’re not tequila!

In other words, maple syrup making has become much less about fun and much more focused on finances. It’s become so formulaized, there’s even a college course offered in maple-syrup production.

Modern maple-syrup harvesters still offer their product at local markets but have to compete with slick commercial operations that stock their bottles in nearby supermarkets.

Many times I’ve wondered about the countries that don’t have maple syrup. Imagine, there are kids in this world who have never heard of it, let alone never chased down some snow taffy.

Other countries, such as Japan and South Korea, have produced their fashion of maple products. The latter has a strain of maple tree that produces a sap they consume as is instead of processing it into syrup.

When you replace your maple syrup supply, make sure you’re getting the real thing. Ersatz popular-label

Spring continued on page 13 who wish they were on list number one”.

Songs:

Do you remember the late Tom T. Hall and his song, “Old Dogs and Children, and Watermelon Wine?”

Or how about Merle Haggard and “Today, I started Lovin’ You Again . . ?”

The “F” Word . . .

Question : When is the use of “@#$%” or “@#$%ing” acceptable?

Answer: There are only 11 times throughout history where the “F” word has been considered acceptable for use.

In ASCENDING order, those exclamations were;

11. “What the @#$% do you mean, we’re sinking?”

~ Capt. E. J. Smith of RMS Titanic, 1912.

10. “What the @#$% was that?”

5. “You want WHAT on the @#$%ing ceiling?”

~ Michelangelo, 1566.

4. “Where the @#$% are we?”

~ Amelia Earhart, 1937

3. “Scattered @#$%ing showers, my ass!”

~ Noah, 4314 BC

2. “Aw, come on Monica. Who the @#$% is going to find out?”

~ Bill Clinton, 1998

AND THE WINNER IS .....

1.”There is no @#$%ing way

It’s better to walk alone than with a crowd going the wrong direction.

Be who you needed when you were younger.

If you had to choose between drinking wine every day or being skinny, what would you choose? Red or white?

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

I have two lists: 1) “people I’m not speaking to” and 2) “people

Both songs have been running through my mind for days . . . can’t get them out of my mind. (Or I should say, “I cain’t get ‘um outta ma mind,’ cause when you talk about country music yew jes gotta talk like country folk . . .”

There!

Now YOU go on and be tormented by these great song lyrics! . . . .and let my poor mind rest awhile!

You’re welcome.

On their honeymoon, the blonde bride slipped into a sexy nightie and, with great anticipation,

Chuckles from page 2 crawled into bed, only to find her new Catholic husband had settled down on the couch.

When she asked him why he was apparently not going to make love to her, he replied, ‘It’s Lent.’

In tears, she sobbed, ‘Well, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Who did you lend it to, and for how long?’

Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle , followed by a good bottle of beer ....

Golf ! You hit down to make the ball go up ..

You swing left and the ball goes right ..

The lowest score wins , on top of that , the winner buys the drinks .

Golf is harder than baseball . In Golf , you have to play your foul balls ..

If you find you do not mind playing golf in the rain , the snow , even during a hurricane , here’s a valuable tip ...your life is in trouble ..

Golfers who try to make everything perfect before taking the shot rarely make a perfect shot ...

The term ‘mulligan’ is really a contraction of the phrase ‘ maul it again ....’

A ‘gimme’ can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers ...neither of whom can putt very well .....

An interesting thing about Golf is that no matter how badly you play , it is always possible to get worse .

Golf’s a hard game to figure .. One day you’ll go out and slice it and shank it , hit into all the traps and miss every green .

The next day you go out and for no reason at all you really stink .

If your best shots are the practice swing and the ‘gimme putt’, you might wish to reconsider this game.

Golf is the only sport where the most feared opponent is you .

Golf is like marriage , If you take yourself too seriously it won’t work , and both are expensive ..

The best wood in most amateurs’ bags is the pencil . ***

At dawn the telephone rings . . .

“Hello, Senor Rod? This is Ernesto, the caretaker at your country house.”

“Ah yes, Ernesto. What can I do for you? Is there a problem?”

“Um, I am just calling to advise you, Senor Rod, that your parrothe is dead.”

“My parrot? Dead? The one that won the International competition?”

“Si, Senor, that’s the one.”

“Damn! That’s a pity! I spent a small fortune on that bird. What did he die from?”

“From eating the rotten meat, Senor Rod.”

“Rotten meat? Who the hell fed him rotten meat?”

“Nobody, Senor. He ate the meat of the dead horse.”

“Dead horse? What dead horse?”

“The thoroughbred, Senor Rod.”

“My prize thoroughbred is dead?”

“Yes, Senor Rod, he died from all that work pulling the water cart.”

“Are you insane?? What water cart?”

“The one we used to put out the fire, Senor.”

“Good Lord!! What fire are you talking about, man??”

“The one that destroyed your house, Senor! A candle fell and the curtains caught on fire.”

“What the hell?? Are you saying that my mansion is destroyed because of a candle?!”

“Yes, Senor Rod.”

“But there’s electricity at the house!! What was the candle for?”

“For the funeral, Senor Rod.”

“WHAT BLOODY FUNERAL?!”

“Your wife’s, Senor Rod. She showed up very late one night and I thought she was a thief, so I hit her with your new Taylor Made Super Quad 460 golf club.”

SILENCE...........

LONG SILENCE.........

“Ernesto, if you broke that driver, you’re in deep doo-doo!” ***

A dog lover, whose own dog was a female and “in heat’, agreed to look after and house her neighbor’s

Chuckles continued on page 5