Square Dancing With Sister Robert Claire

First week of junior high, Kel wised off to her
same as he'd done to the one all year before.
I can still see it. Her so short, the uppercut put
all her weight under the whack of her pudgy fist
against the V of his chin. Kel arching a back-dive, landing
legs up, desks dominoing halfway up the row.
Sweet Jesus, she was tough, but bless her the first one
who liked boys best and didn't carry a grudge.

But she sure as hell wasn't one of the almost pretty nuns
you could almost imagine out there in the world.
Picture pie-faced Lou from Abbott and Costello,
lumpy-looking in any duds but now add a thick black
floor-length habit with dozens of folds, hidden pockets.
Around her waist rosary beads big as marbles
dangling to where knees would be.
Hair, ears, and neck under a stiff white wimple,
she waddled the aisles like a wooly toad.

One week she dragged us into the gym
and the alien world of square dancing—and girls.
Shedding blazers, ties, and shoes, we were cornered.
In sweat socks and knee socks, we shuffled like prisoners,
allemande left and dosido stranger than dominus vobiscum.
Robert Claire stood on a chair trying to clap rhythm
into our dumb feet, sometimes leaping down, landing
light as a blackbird. She'd skip and twirl among us
arm over arm until her habit billowed like a gown,
face aglow, God's clumsy children urged toward lessons
of possibility and romance she brought from a life before.
Reluctantly, we learned to move together, touch, let go.

- Michael Cleary

The Lowest Form of Humor?

OK, ok already; I apologize in advance - - - - 

A 3-legged dog walks into an old west saloon, slides up to the bar and announces, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."
 
Did you hear about the Buddhist who went to the dentist and refused to take Novocaine? He wanted to transcend dental medication.
 
A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and met in the lobby where they enthusiastically discussed their recent victories in chess tournaments. The hotel manager came out of the office after an hour and asked them to disperse. He couldn't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.
 
A woman has twins, gives them up for adoption. One goes to an Egyptian family and is named "Ahmal". The other is sent to a Spanish family that names him "Juan". Years later, Juan sends his birth mother a picture of himself. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband she wishes she had a picture of Ahmal, too. He replies, "They're twins for Pete's sake!! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal!!"
 
A group of friars opened a florist shop to help with their belfry payments. Everyone liked to buy flowers from the self proclaimed Men of God, so their business flourished.  A rival florist became upset that his business was suffering because people felt compelled to buy from the Friars, so he asked the Friars to cut back hours or close down. The Friars refused. So the florist then hired Hugh McTaggert, the biggest meanest thug in townto reason with the men of god in alanguage they could understand. He went to the Friars' shop, beat them up, destroyed their flowers, trashed their shop, and said that if they didn't close, he'd be back. Terrified, the Friars closed up shop and hid in their rooms. This proved that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

And last, and almost certainly leastest: 

 Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot his whole life, which created an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him frail, and with his odd diet, he suffered from  very bad breath. This made him a super-callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Fathers Day

Today is a holiday that we celebrate because of a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd. One Sunday morning in May of 1909, Dodd was sitting in church in Spokane, Washington, listing to a Mother's Day sermon. She thought there ought to be a holiday to celebrate fathers as well so she went on a crusade to celebrate fathers, and the tradition of observing Father's Day caught on.

When Charles Bukowski was a teenager, his father stumbled across some of his short stories and read them. Bukowski came home that day to find his clothes, his typewriter, and all the stories he had written lying on the lawn outside his front door.

John Cheever's father was a hard-drinking shoe salesman and an unpredictable man. One night Cheever's mother casually mentioned that she and his father had gotten into a fight, and his father had decided to drown himself at the local beach. Though he didn't have a driver's license, Cheever jumped in the family car and drove to the beach as fast as he could. He found his father drunk, riding a roller coaster, and had to coax him down and bring him home.

When Franz Kafka was a young boy, he once shouted for a glass of water in the middle of the night, and his father pulled him out of bed, put him on the courtyard balcony, and locked him out of the house. He later wrote, "For years thereafter, I kept being haunted by fantasies of this giant of a man, my father, the ultimate judge, coming to get me in the middle of the night."

The poet Hart Crane's father was the wealthy owner of a candy company, who couldn't understand why Hart Crane wanted to be a poet. His father constantly threatened to disown Hart Crane unless he got a real job.

Stephen King's father was a merchant seaman who deserted the family when Stephen was two. He has no memories of the man, but one day he found a boxful of his father's science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, including an anthology of stories by horror author H. P. Lovecraft. That box of his father's books inspired him to start writing horror stories.

Feets of Engineering

3 Engineers are debating about God. The 1st engineer says, "God must have been a mechanical engineer because of how the whole muscle/skeletal system is designed." The 2nd engineer says, "No, God must be an Electrical Engineer because of how the Central Nervous system is designed." The 3rd engineer says, "You're both wrong. God must have been a Civil Engineer... because only a Civil Engineer would run a sewer line through a recreational area."

Things A Guy Should Have Learned By Now

or, How A Good Sunday Can Go Bad

1) When you're working outside in 110 degree weather, either wear gloves or put your tools in the shade when not using them.

2) When disassembling a structure bigger and taller than yourself, don't stand directly underneath it.

You're welcome.