Rev. 10/16/99

Jokes Calling in Sick Case For The FBI Irresistible Force and Immovable Object Golfing Priest 'Twas the night before Y2K TECH SUPPORT CALLS Moses - the early years Noah's Rabbit How to Bathe a Cat Jokes, ah yes, years ago I made a study of the propagation of jokes. It was 1956 and I was teaching at the University of Idaho. At that time it took about 1 year for jokes to percolate from the east coast or west coast to the interior US. The primary mechanism was traveling salesmen -- in my case it was textbook salesmen. In those days the movement of jokes between the east and west coast was facilitated by telephone tie-lines large companies such as General Electric maintained. An employee on the east coast would call a company factory on the west coast. After conducting legitimate business they would exchange the latest jokes. Today, with the rapid expansion of Internet, this original mechanism has collapsed. Now I see a 1-2 month period between the time I see a new joke and pass it on and the time someone sends it back. My main circle of jokesters consist of my next door neighbor, my lawyer (I've got to ask him if he considers it "billable time"), a political friend in Washington DC, one in North Carolina, a classmate in Boise and Louise, my cousin. I do act as a filter -- passing on only about 5 percent of my intake. The above are the "cream" --