I recently saw an episode of The Andy Griffith Show that I must have seen dozens of times. A Google search will tell you that this was Season One, Episode 13, “Mayberry Goes Hollywood”.
In that episode, the town decided to really “put on the show” for the film crew. Everybody dressed up in false finery, and the storefronts spiffed up their window displays. I never noticed it before, but the window of the funeral parlor advertised its convenient “layaway plan”.
Thought I to myself, “I do believe every funeral home has a layaway plan. The only point to ponder when comparison shopping would be as to the convenience of the laying away!”
Just last week a man was driving his wife to a dentist appointment in Tazewell. She was nervous, as lots of people are when they are about to visit their modern-day version of Doc Holliday. She kept saying, “We’re going to be late.” Hubby replied, “Yeah, but not much.”
(Just a side note, if you ever invite my wife and me to dinner, tell us to be there at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday if you really want us to show up at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Then we might be on time.)
Not long after the couple crossed into Claiborne County they encountered a funeral procession. As do all respectable folks in the South, they pulled to the shoulder of the road out of respect for the deceased.
“Oh, we’re never going to get there,” said the wife.
“Claiborne-Overholt,” Hubby said.
“How did you know that?” asked the wife.
“I read it on the side of the hearse.”
“When did they start putting your name on the side of the hurst when you die?” she questioned.
“Good grief,” Hubby said, “that was the name of the funeral home.” (I wonder what kind of layaway plan they have?)
When they were a couple of miles from the dentist’s office, the wife asked, “When are we going to cross the river bridge?” Hubby told her they’d crossed it several miles back. She replied, “That’s why I thought we were going to be late, because we hadn’t even crossed the bridge yet.” (I guess she was still looking for the green support beams.) Hubby reassured her they were almost there.
They were heading north on the main drag through Tazewell. Hubby saw a state trooper heading in the other direction. “There goes a state trooper,” he said. Just at that moment a black car passed them, going in the same direction.
“How did you know that was a state trooper?” the wife asked, pointing to the black car.
“The highway patrol was going the other way,” said the hubby. “That was just a plain ol’ black car.”
Wifey replied, “It could have been an unmarked car.”
This same husband and wife were having a conversation during another road trip. The wife was talking about how bad she felt. Hubby asked, “Wonder how Methuselah [according to the Genesis 5:27 in the Bible, the oldest man who ever lived, 969 years] felt before he died? The wife said, “At his age he probably didn’t feel anything.”
On another occasion Hubby was at a craft sale. He admired the wreaths one of the vendors was selling. Hubby asked the vendor if she made funeral wreaths.
“I suppose I could, but I’ve never made one.”
“I need one for my wife,” Hubby said.
“I’m so sorry! When did your wife die?” asked the vendor.
“Oh, she’s not dead yet, I’m just planning ahead!”
I wonder, Dear Reader, if you can identify this husband and wife. If you take a guess and want to know if you’re right, let me know and I’ll tell you.
Here’s a clue. When Hubby was dating his wife, Hubby’s mother was jealous of the attention he paid to his bride to be. Whenever anyone would ask his mother where the hubby to be was, she’d reply, “He’s out driving Miss Mary, I guess!”
The best laughs in life are free. Dear Reader, you can’t pay for entertainment like this. You might say life is pretty hard up for a person who thinks this is entertainment. To you I say, “One man’s entertainment, another’s boredom. Kind of like one person’s trash, another man’s treasure.” Let’s just say Fred Sanford and I could have been great contemporaries.
Here are some thoughts from my email world for you to ponder, Dear Reader, until we once again meet via the printed word.

Is this a great description of America:
Andy has left town and Barney is in charge?

"You know you are getting old when everything hurts,
and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work."
--Hy Gardner

"At my age, flowers scare me."
-- George Burns

"I’m at that age where my back
goes out more than I do."
-- Phyllis Diller

***. GRAMMAR LESSON ..
Is it "complete", "finished", or "completely finished"? No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between the two words "Complete" or "Finished".
In a recent linguistic competition held in London and attended by, supposedly, the best in the world, Samdar Balgobin, a Guyanese man, was the clear winner with a standing ovation which lasted over five minutes.
The final question was: 'How do you explain the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED in a way that is easy to understand?' Some contestants said there was no difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED.
Here is his astute answer:
“When you marry the right woman, you are COMPLETE. When you marry the wrong woman, you are FINISHED. And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are COMPLETELY FINISHED!”
He won a trip around the world and a case of 25-year old Scotch.