Good Morning My Friends and Fellow Campers,

It’s Saturday Morning and I’m bound and determined to get Monday’s episode done on time!  My Sunday is pretty much tied up.  I’m playing security at church tomorrow, so that means going in about an hour early…AND we have a community … wait … what are they calling it … Miami County Christmas Celebration.  Every year all the churches in the community get together and put on a Christmas service in one of the bigger church buildings (definitely not ours, lol) but since our band is the best they ALWAYS have a special place in the presentation and our Pastor is always part of the service again because he is…well, you don’t want to say your pastor is the best, so let’s just say because he is a respected member of the community.  So, anyway.  What I’m trying to say is that Sunday is very busy.  So this episode needs to be done today.

So, what’s on the table?  Anyone have any old business to bring up?  No new comments from today’s episode, even though it was absolutely slammed full of cartoons and stuff.  That’s fine.  (Sniff!) It’s okay (Sniff!)

Okay, new business?  Anyone have any new business?  Yes?  In the back?  Speak up please? Uh huh… No, we are not doing Secret Santa this year.  Have we EVER done Secret Santa?  You realize that we are all digital here right now, right?  So, what am I going to give you if I’m picked as your secret Santa?  A random electron?  Am I going to wrap it?  Who are you, anyway?  Does anybody recognize that mook?  He’s a what?  A spy for the liberals?  Well, leave him alone.  Maybe he’ll learn something.

Anyway, with nothing new to bring up, let’s move on to the important stuff.  The laughter.  But before I do, I want to bring one thing up.  There was a meme that I saw the other day and I wanted to post it on Facebook until I realized how over done it was, even if I had never heard it before.  It was:

“When God put a calling on your life, He already factored in your stupidity.”

That’s the most comforting thing I’ve ever heard.

And I thought, I HAVE to share that with EVERYBODY!  That is SO TRUE.  It is SO ME!  And I thought, “do your due diligence Impish.  Check it out and find out who wrote it, if you can.”

When I started looking around, it’s not only been around for a little while, but there have been actual sermons written about it. 

But, the best reference of all, was actually God, Himself.  1 Corinthians 1:26-27 Where Paul says, For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;  God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;  

Now we’re getting to it!  If anyone is foolish, it’s me. 

I know there are plenty of folks out there who are thinking that, “yeah, I know there are just a few wise people, but surely I must be one of them.”

Not me.  I definitely fall into the foolish category.  (look around you!!) 

And absolutely not powerful by any stretch of the word.  Any of you who have been following along with the trials and tribulations of Impish Dragon can attest to that!!

(I’m now laughing to myself here as I’m typing just as fast as my fingers will move to get these thoughts down as fast as they will come out!!)

So, when it says that God takes into account our stupidity, what it’s saying is that He takes into account ALL of our weaknesses, our foolishness, our fears our inability to speak in public, our difficulty in understanding, our shyness, our lack of funds, our lack of time, our physical limitations, I could go on and on.  He takes ALL that into account AND CALLS US ANYWAY, BECAUSE IT’S ALL PART OF HIS PLAN.  All WE have to do is follow along with it confidently because we have the faith in Our God to KNOW that if it’s His plan then it is a perfect plan.

What an awesome God we serve.

Now…

That is kinda what it looks like…

I had a waitress who worked for me in one of my restaurants who came up to me and said, “There is a customer who is asking for Farmer John Cheese.”  It took the longest time for me to work out what she was asking for. 

Here is a GREAT Top 10 List sent in by our good buddy Joe from NJ.

Top 10 Things Men Know about Women:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. They Have Breasts.

Now THAT is a GREAT Shirt!

I can hear it now, “Grandpa, what’s a Blockbuster?” or even worse, “Grandpa, what’s a video store?”

I’m gonna order a few for the front lawn.  You know…so I can…um…keep the lawn clean.  Yeah, keep the lawn clean.

There would be holes in whatever is in back of that.

The Science Teacher

The 6^th grade Science Teacher, Mrs. Parks, asked her class,

• “Which human body part increases to 10X its size when stimulated”?

No one answered … until little Mary said,

• “You should not be asking 6th graders a question like that. I’m going to tell my parents, and they will go and tell the Principal who will then fire you”!

Mrs. Parks ignored her and asked the question again,

• “What body part increases to 10X its size when stimulated”?

Little Mary’s mouth fell open, then she said to those around her,

• “Boy, is she going to get in big trouble”!

The teacher continued to ignore her and said to the class,

• “Anybody”?

Finally, Billy stood up and said nervously,

• “The body part that increases 10X its size when stimulated is the PUPIL of the eye”. 

Mrs. Parks said, 

• “Very good Billy”.

Then she turned to Mary and continued,

• “As for you young lady, I have three things to say,

1. You have a dirty mind!
2. You didn’t read your homework.
3. One day you are going to be VERY, VERY, DISAPPOINTED”!

You know, there is so much truth in that.  I used to see it so much more in my old job as a 911 dispatcher in how the calls increased around this time of year and now as a counselor I am seeing it again as well as living through a portion of it myself.  To some of us, this is a pretty crappy time of year.  Keep that in mind as you go through your days.

You gotta love modern engineering

Do you ever look at all your kids and think…

That one will be dropping me curbside at the nursing home.  That one will be paying for it.  That one will visit me the most.  And that one?  He’ll be sneaking me in the good Jameson and cigars.

I know, I know.  It looks really bad.  But it was a staged advertising photo for Santa.  Him and I are actually very good, old and dear friends.  Now, the advertising campaign never did come off.  I even forget what it was for.  I think he was trying to start his own cologne or shampoo line or something…who knows with that guy.  But that picture is still floating around and every year around this time it pops up somewhere and I get blamed for ruining Christmas for someone and I thought this year I’d just get ahead of the whole thing and reveal the picture myself.

Indiana, Beech Grove Law

It is forbidden to eat watermelon in the park.

I used to live in Beech Grove for a short time…never heard of this law.

A deputy police officer responded to a report of a barroom disturbance.

The “disturbance” turned out to be well over six feet tall and weighed almost 300 pounds. What’s more, he boasted that he could whip the deputy and the “Heavy Weight Boxing Champion of the World.”

Said the policeman, “I’ll bet that you’re also an escape artist too, probably better than Houdini.”

The giant nodded.

“If I had some chains,” the deputy continued, “you could show us how strong you really are. But all I’ve got is a set of handcuffs. Why don’t you see just how quickly you can break out of them?” Once in the cuffs, the man puffed, pulled and jerked for four minutes.

“I can’t get out of these,” the giant growled.

“Are you sure?” the deputy asked.

The fellow tried again. “Nope,” he replied. “I can’t do it.”

“In that case,” said the deputy, “you’re under arrest.”

A large family, with seven children, moved to a new city. 

They were having a difficult time finding an apartment to live in. Many apartments were large enough, but the landlords objected to the large family.

After several days of searching, the father asked the mother to take the four younger children to visit the cemetery, while he took the older three to find an apartment.

After they had looked most of the morning they found a place that was just right.

Then the landlord asked the usual question: “How many children do you have?”

The father answered with a deep sigh, “Seven … but four are with their dear mother in the cemetery.”

He got the apartment.

Doing my little part to help

A mission statement is defined as “a long awkward sentence that demonstrates management’s inability to think clearly.”
All good companies have one.

-From The Dilbert Principle, 1996

A man walks into a bar one night. He goes up to the bar and asks for a beer.

“Certainly, sir, that’ll be 1 cent.”

“ONE CENT!” exclaims the guy.

The barman replies “Yes.”

So the guy glances over at the menu, and he asks,  “Could I have a nice juicy T-bone steak, with chips, peas, and a fried egg?”

“Certainly, sir,” replies the bartender, “but all that comes to real money.”

“How much money?” inquires the guy. “4 cents,” he replies.

“FOUR cents!” exclaims the guy. “Where’s the guy who owns this place?”

The barman replies, “Upstairs with my wife.”

The guy says, “What’s he doing with your wife?” The bartender replies,

 “Same thing I’m doing to his business.”

One day during cooking class, the teacher, Mrs. Jones, was extolling her secrets for preparing perfect sauces. 

When she ordered us to the stoves to prepare our assignments, she said, “Don’t forget to use wooden spoons.” 

As I stirred my sauce, I contemplated the physics behind the mystery of the wooden spoon, and decided it must have something to do with heat conduction. 

I approached Mrs. Jones to test my theory. 

“Why wooden spoons?” I asked. 

“Because,” she replied, “if I have to sit here listening to twenty-three metal spoons banging against metal pots, I’ll go nuts.” 

Makes perfect sense to me.

And this next one is dedicated to all you crafters out there…

A Kentucky Phone Company was going to hire a team of telephone pole installers, and the boss had to choose between a team of two rednecks and a team of two Irish guys?

So the boss met with both teams and said: “Here’s what we’ll do. Each team will install poles out on the new road for a day. The team that installs the most phone poles gets the job”.

Both teams headed right out. At end of the shift, Pat and Mike, the Irish guys, came back and the boss asked them how many they had installed. They said that it was tough going, but they’d put in twelve.

Forty-five minutes later, Bubba and Duke, the redneck guys came back and they were totally exhausted. The boss asked, “Well, how many poles did you guys install?” Bubba, the team leader wiped his brow and sighed, “Duke and me, we got three in.” The boss gasped, “Three? Those two Irish guys put in twelve!”

“Yeah,” said Bubba, “but you should see how much they left stickin’ out of the ground!

My dogs exactly!

So remember when I said that one of my Pastor’s favorite lines was that “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a car.”?  Well today, I got this email from our buddy Joe:

Bob, a lot of younger people use quotes from famous people without knowing who actually said it first. Billy Sunday was often quoted. 

    …Joe

Billy Sunday Quotes

• The world is wrong side up. … 
• Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. … 
• Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. … 
• Home is the place we love best and grumble the most. … 
• Hypocrites in the Church?

and he gave me a link to a website with all kinds of Billy Sunday quotes.  And I replied to his email and basically said why have I never heard of this guy, but as I started to look around the website and read some of the quotes I figured out why.  Here’s one of his quotes that really stuck out to me:

The rivers of America will run with blood filled to their banks before we will submit to them taking the bible out of our schools.

I thought, “Where’s this guy been?  They did that a long time ago!”  Then I looked around some more and saw:

American Clergyman – November 19, 1862 to November 6, 1935

That explains an awful lot!  But he had a wicked wit!  Here’s just a couple I’ll leave you with:

○  Home is the place we love the best and grumble the most.
○  Hell is the highest reward the devil can offer you for being a servant of his.
○  What have you given the world it never possessed before you came?
○  If there is no hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses.
○  Try praising your wife, even if it does frighten her at first.
○  I do not exercise personal liberty if it impinges on the liberty of others.

There are more and if you are interested, here is the quotes website.  https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/billy-sunday-quotes

I would pay good money to find out how many left handed screwdrivers they sell.  Per month, per year, ever.  I really want to know.

It’s been such a joy being home with my wife the past 3 weeks.  We’ve caught up on all the things I’ve done wrong the past 30 years.

It doesn’t?

Bro, do you want this pamphlet?

Yeah, Brochure.

That is too funny!!!!

We get quite a few nasty snow storms around here every year.

No!  There is not a man alive who would say that those are his favorites.  

I signed up for a zoom workout that was too advanced for me, so when the instructor said to “do a plank, and then bring your knee to the opposite elbow,” I did a modified version, where I turned off my computer, and made pancakes.

Apparently there are people out there who wash, dry, iron, fold, and put away their clothes – all in one day.
Yeah, I know.
I’m confused, too.

Just so you’re not confused.  The next picture is only a training exercise.  One that we conducted with Santa to prepare him to enter the left controlled cities with all the really good gun control laws.  You know the ones with the highest gun crime rates.

When I look in the mirror and see gray hair, tiny wrinkles, and dimming eyes I think, “They sure don’t make mirrors like they used to.”

I was going to end this issue right here, but then I saw one more that I think really needs to be added in.

Marriage is not about a beautiful wedding, fancy homes, cute kids, nice cars and white picket fences.

Marriage is hospital stays, working long hours, fighting through struggles, paying bills, and keeping the faith and staying together through it all.

Not just staying together, working together, as God intended.  He never, ever said it would be easy.  He only said it would be worth it.  Merry Christmas Mary.  I love you and miss you and I can’t wait until I see you again. 

I was just about to send this when my phone dinged.  I need to say thank you to Steve H. for the very generous donation.  It is deeply appreciated, much needed and will come in very welcome right now.  Thank you brother, I am very grateful.

And for the rest of you, May God Bless you and keep you until we meet again and remember: