I used to be a deli worker but couldn’t cut the mustard!

I used to be a musician but wasn’t noteworthy.

I wanted to be an evangelist, but they put me out to pasture.

I tried being a dentist, but hated living hand to mouth.

I looked into working at a hydroelectric plant, but there it was just one dammed thing after another. (Sorry, Mom.)

Being a math teacher looked good, but that had too many problems.

So, I became a pastor where there are no problems and everyone loves everybody else.

“That fish I caught weighed 20 pounds!” “Twenty pounds! Were there any witnesses?” “Of course. Otherwise, it would have weighed 30 pounds.”

After the Marx Brothers came out with their movie “A Night in Casablanca,” Warner Brothers studio threatened to sue them. The title was too much like their movie “Casablanca.” Groucho Marx ended the nonsense by threatening to sue Warner Brothers for plagiarizing the name “Brothers.”

The Statler Brothers singing group (remember them? They were so terrific. Are they still around?) enjoyed telling how they chose their name. They were sitting around a hotel room trying to find a suitable name for a quartet. Someone spotted the box of Statler tissues on a table and suggested Statler would be a classy name. And that’s how it happened. In telling that story, they would always add, “Just think—we could have been the Kleenex Brothers!”

Couple of cartoons from an ancient New Yorker magazine. One shows two men in suits with briefcases. One says to the other, “A tattoo? You’re kidding. It sure looks like a suit.”

The other cartoon lists the “nine circles of heaven.” The 9th heaven is reserved for those who paid attention during trigonometry. The 8th heaven is populated by Glen Campbell fans (remember him?). The 7th heaven for those who never ever monitor their telephone calls before picking up.

The 6th heaven is for people whose favorite mode of transportation is the bus. The 5th is for people who remember birthdays and anniversaries. The 4th heaven is for people who get down on their knees and clean behind the refrigerator.

The 3rd heaven is for people who floss twice a day. The second is for people who reuse wrapping paper.

And the first heaven — ta-da!! — is for those who bake their cakes from scratch. My sister Patricia falls into that group!

(You wouldn’t think they could get all that in one cartoon.)

From a hand-written page yellowed with age, I had jotted down…

SIX THINGS MY DAD GAVE TO ME

1. An example. Integrity, strength, provide for the family, work ethic.

2. Discipline.

3. Work to do. (He did not believe in idleness for kids.)

4. A friendship. He was a great counselor.

5. Love in action.

6. Sense of history. Heritage. Family.

SIX THINGS MY MOM GAVE TO ME

1. Love made visible

2. Provisions: food, warmth

3. Family

4. God. At New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist in Alabama and the Methodist Church in West Virginia.

5. Unconditional acceptance. (although with high expectations)

6. Positive attitude. Sunny disposition. Always optimistic.

We’ll be posting the cartoons for the study on Exodus here in a day or two. Watch for it in the box on the right (on the homepage of www.joemckeever.com).

A few quotes, mostly from Laurence Peter’s 1977 book “Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for our Time”…

“A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

“Whenever the painting isn’t working, I add a puppy.” — Norman Rockwell

“He who proselytizes in the cause of unbelief is basically a man in need of belief.” — Eric Hoffer

“The Bible is God’s chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.” — Henry Ward Beecher

“A statesman is any politician it’s considered safe to name a school after.” — Bill Vaughan

“The word ‘good’ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of 500 yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.” — G. K. Chesterton

“There are scores of thousands of sects who are ready at a moment’s notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject.” — George Bernard Shaw

“The great god Ra whose shrine once covered acres is filler now for crossword-puzzle makers.” — Keith Preston

“I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.” — Carl Jung

“I don’t know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.” — Somerset Maugham

“Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.” — George Bernard Shaw

“No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“War would end if the dead could return.” — Stanley Baldwin

“The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities.” — John Foster Dulles

“No matter how many communes anybody invents, the family always creeps back.” — Margaret Mead

“Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forbears. It seems to absolve us.” — Van Wyck Brooks

“A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.” — Arthur Clarke

“A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.” — G. C. Lichtenberg

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy — and Jill a wealthy widow.” — Evan Esar

And semi-finally, from the front cover of the February 2009 issue of “Writer’s Digest,” how to write a great novel in the new year: “Start with a bad first draft.” (That’s so liberating. The first draft can be awful, but that’s okay. Just get it down on paper! Or in your computer.)

And finally….

“What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of a window.” — Burton Rascoe (We would add that that applies also to cartoonists and preachers as well as writers. And I happen to be all three!! Poor Margaret.)