Ten Dollar Monkeys

Once upon a time in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching. The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.
While the man was away the assistant told the villagers. ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.’

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again and once again there were monkeys everywhere . . .

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works! :0)

Ghost Car

The Ghost Car

This is supposed to be a true story. It allegedly just outside of Ironwood, a little town in Michigan’s upper peninsula.

This out of state traveler was on the side of the road, hitchhiking on a real dark night in the middle of a thunderstorm. Time passed slowly and no cars went by. It was raining so hard  he could hardly see his hand in front of his face.

Suddenly he saw a car moving slowly, approaching and appearing ghostlike in  the rain. It slowly and silently crept toward him and stopped.

Wanting a ride real bad the guy jumped in the car and closed  the door; only then did he realize that there was nobody behind the wheel, and no sound of an engine to be heard over the rain.  Again the car crept slowly forward and the guy was terrified,  too scared to think of jumping out and running. The guy saw
that the car was approaching a sharp curve and, still too scared to jump out, he started to pray and begging for his life. He was sure the ghost car would go off the road and in the swamp and he would surely drown!

But just before the curve a shadowy figure appeared at the driver’s window and a hand reached in and turned the steering  wheel, guiding the car safely around the bend. Then, just as silently, the hand disappeared through the window and the hitchhiker was alone again! Paralyzed with fear, the guy watched the hand reappear every time they reached a curve. Finally the guy, scared to near death, had all he could take and jumped out of the car and ran to town.

Wet and in shock, he went into a bar and voice quavering, ordered two shots of whiskey, then told everybody about his supernatural experience. A silence enveloped and everybody got goose bumps when they realized the guy was telling the truth and not just some drunk.

About half an hour later two guys walked into the bar and one says to the other, “Look Toivo, der’s dat idiot dat rode in our car when we wuz pushin’ it in da rain.”

A Dog Named “Sex”

Everybody I know who has a dog usually calls him “Rover” or “Spot”. I call mine Sex.

Now, Sex has been very embarrassing to me.

When I went to the City Hall to renew the dog’s license, I told the clerk that I would like a license for Sex. He said, “I would like to have one too!” Then I said, “But she is a dog!” He said he didn’t care what she looked like. I said, “You don’t understand. … I have had Sex since I was nine years old.” He replied, “You must have been quite a strong boy.”

When I decided to get married, I told the minister that I would like to have Sex at the wedding. He told me to wait until after the wedding was over. I said, “But Sex has played a big part in my life and my whole world revolves around Sex.” He said he didn’t want to hear about my personal life and would not marry us in his church. I told him everyone would enjoy having Sex at the wedding. The next day we were married at the Justice of the Peace. My family was barred from the church from then on.

When my wife and I went on our honeymoon, I took the dog with me. When we checked into the motel, I told the clerk that I wanted a room for me and my wife and a special room for Sex. He said that every room in the motel is a place for sex. I said, “You don’t understand. … Sex keeps me awake at night.” The clerk said, “Me too!”

One day I entered Sex in a contest. But before the competition began, the dog ran away. Another contestant asked me why I was just looking around. I told him that I was going to have Sex in the contest. He said that I should have sold my own tickets. “You don’t understand,” I said, “I hoped to have Sex on TV.” He called me a show off.

When my wife and I separated, we went to court to fight for custody of the dog. I said, “Your Honor, I had Sex before I was married but Sex left me after I was married.” The Judge said, “Same here!”

Last night Sex ran off again. I spent hours looking all over for her. A cop came over and asked me what I was doing in the alley at 4 o’clock in the morning. I said, “I’m looking for Sex.” — My case comes up next Thursday . . .

Well now I’ve been thrown in jail, been divorced and had more troubles with that dog than I ever foresaw. Why just the other day when I went for my first session with the psychiatrist, she asked me, “What seems to be the trouble?” I replied, “Sex has been my best friend all my life but now it has left me for ever. I can’t live any longer being so lonely.” and the doctor said, “Look mister, you should understand that sex isn’t a man’s best friend so go get yourself a dog!”

Sticky Note: New DVD My Favorite Storyteller

Don't miss this one folks!

Gary has been a wonderful friend of mine for many years and my mentor in storytelling so I’m truly tickled to share the news of his newest DVD with you!

This master storyteller’s books, plays and films are highly acclaimed; now in this special DVD, it’s Gary himself telling the tales!

“An Evening with Mountain Storyteller Gary Carden” is now available.

To get your copy, contact Gary at: gcarden498@aol.com

The cost is only $25.$20!

You can visit him in “Blog Holler.”

You can also drop by his website for some tales at the TanneryWhistle.

Older Than Dirt?

Thanks to my friend Shirley in NC for sharing this with us!

Some of you are “still young” so you may not get everything in this story. If there is something you don’t understand, ask those of us who are “older than dirt” sometime and we will explain.

Enjoy!

“Hey Mom,” one of my kids asked the other day, “What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?”

“We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,” I informed him.
“All the food was slow.”

“C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?”

“It was a place called ‘at home,’” I explained. “Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.”

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck.
Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a Monarc bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn’t have a television in our house until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone’s lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the picture look larger.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called “pizza pie.” When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that too.

It’s still the best pizza I ever had.

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. I delivered a newspaper on my bike six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else’s tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn’t do that in movies. I don’t know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren’t allowed to see them.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend:

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother’s house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to “sprinkle” clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz:

Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.

Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack and Clove chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with table side juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with word prefix (OLive-69332)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi’s
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Washing machines with wringers; and washtubs for rinsing

If you remembered 0-5 = You’re still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don’t tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You’re older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.

Don’t forget to pass this along!! Especially to all your really OLD friends….