No, really, this IS my life....

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Humor on a hot day

There was a man who had worked all of his life and had saved all of his money. He was a real miser when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, "Now listen, when I die, I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. I wanna take my money to the afterlife." So he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died, she would put all the money in the casket with him. Well, one day he died. He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to her closest friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said "Wait just a minute!" she had a shoe box with her, she came over with the box and placed it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket down and rolled it away. Her friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that money in the casket." She said, "Yes, I promised. I'm a good christian, I can't lie. I promised him that I was going to put that money in that casket with him." "You mean to tell me you put every cent of his money in the casket with him?" "I sure did, " said the wife. "I got it all together, put it into my account and I wrote him a check."


100 Years Ago...
A lot of this is applicable to our grandparents, and even some of our parents.
It May Be Hard to Believe That A Scant 100 Years Ago...
The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the twenty-first most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in the U.S. was twenty-two cents an hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took place at home.
Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason, either as travelers or immigrants.
The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
Drive-by-shootings, in which teenage boys galloped down the street on horses and started randomly shooting at houses, carriages, or anything else that caught their fancy, were an ongoing problem in Denver and other cities in the West.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty. The remote desert community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their families.
Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn't been discovered yet. Scotch tape, crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
One in ten U.S. adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour after hour, of the sewing machine's foot pedals. They recommended slipping bromide, which was thought to diminish sexual desire,into the woman's drinking water.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.
Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.
Punch card data processing had recently been developed, and early predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time by the government to help compile the 1900 census.
Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least one full-time servant or domestic.

Friday, June 15, 2007

BTW

My summer posting, not going to happen so much this year. See, this new house has a pool. That means that we can spend HOURS swimming, and I don't have to pack anything up, or drive anywhere, or deal with anyone else's kids unless I invite them over. One kid can play in the sandbox while the other swims, and if one of the kids happens to be taking a nap, I can take the other outside to swim, and have no noise in the house to wake her/him up. This is frickin' awesome!

Now, to go wash all the pool towels that have accumulated before we swim again!