When I was younger and my daughter was about 11 years old, I started to work on a scrapbook with a compilation of clean jokes, inspiring words and wise-cracks, which I thought I would leave it as a joy with my child in her growing up years.
The opposite seemed to be true. My child has since grown up and moved on in life but the book is still with me. In fact, it is now a joy to me as I turn its pages to have a look.
The work is of course not finished, but there is enough material there to make you laugh, and sometimes, to make you cry a little too.
In the early years, both my daughter and I would spend many happy hours filling it up with all kinds of interesting writings which we find in books, newspapers, magazines, other people’s speeches, well almost from any source that literally we could get our hands on. The qualification was that it should be unique or at least appeal to us in some special way.
It now contains more than 600 pieces of a variety of all kinds of what you would say are “trivial” but to me, it is an awesome treasure trove of wise-cracks and funny short stories which I think one would be hard pressed to find anywhere else. I never thought that it is to become a wonderful literary companion to me for life.
The very first funny short story found in my scrapbook is this one (courtesy of Readers’ Digest, way back in the 80’s, attributed to a guy named Leo Gossett) which I shall share with you. Let me hear from you what you think of it.
“The Browns were ecstatic when a longed-for child was born to them. They agonized over a name for their son, and after rejecting all the common ones, settled on Fantastic.”
“Fantastic Brown had a wonderful childhood, except for the kidding he took over his name. He hated it. He grew up, married, had children and continued to hate his name.”
“He enjoyed a successful professional life and, in his old age, finally became critically ill. On his deathbed he begged his wife, “Please, please, leave Fantastic off my tombstone. Just put Brown.”
“He died, and as he had asked, his wife left Fantastic off the stone. But Brown seemed too plain, and she wanted something about how wonderful a husband he had been, so under Brown she had these words engraved: “During his marriage, he never looked at another woman.”
“And now, everyone who passes the tombstone murmurs, “Fantastic”!
Hope you like it. Cheers!
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