Silly Joke Friday

Silly Joke #1

So, this old man is walking down the street in Brooklyn.He sees a young boy sitting on the street in front of a candy shop, shoving tons of sweets in his mouth as fast as possible. The man walks up to the boy and says “You know son, it’s really not healthy to eat all that candy.” The kid looks up at him and says, “You know my grandfather lived to be 97 years old.” The man replies “Oh and did he eat a lot of candy?” The kid looks at him and says “No, but he minded his own f$%#ing business!”

Silly Joke #2

A Greek and Italian were sitting in a Starbuck’s one day discussing who had the superior culture. Over triple lattes the Greek guy says, “Well we have the Parthenon.” Arching his eyebrows, the Italian replies, “We have the Coliseum.” The Greek retorts, “We Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics.” The Italian, nodding in agreement, says, “But we built the Roman Empire”. …and so on and on until the Greek comes up with what he thinks will end the discussion. With a flourish of finality he says, “We invented sex!” The Italian thinks for a couple of seconds and replies quietly, “That is true, but it was the Italians who introduced it to women!”

Silly Joke #3

A young reporter went to a retirement home to interview an aged but legendary explorer. The reporter asked the old man to tell him the most frightening experience he had ever had. The old explorer looked into the distance and warmed to his task. “Once, I was hunting Bengal tigers in the jungles of India,” he began. “I was on a narrow path and my faithful native gun bearer was behind me. Suddenly, the largest tiger I’ve ever seen in my life leaped onto the path in front of us. I turned to get my weapon only to find my gun bearer had fled. The tiger leaped toward me with a mighty ROARRRR! I soiled myself.” “Under those circumstances, sir, I think anyone would have done the same,” the reporter said trying to be understanding. The old explorer replied: “No, not then -– just now when I went ‘ROARRRR!’”

Bonus Silly Joke

An 87-year-old man said to his friend who was only 80, “Well, I eat Italian bread every day. It keeps your energy level high and you’ll have great stamina with the ladies.” So, on the way home, the 80-year-old stops at the bakery. As he was looking around, the lady asked if he needed any help. He said, “Do you have any Italian bread?” She said, “Yes, there’s a whole shelf of it. Would you like some?” He said, “I want 5 loaves.” She said, “My goodness, 5 loaves…don’t you think by the time you get to the 5th it’ll be hard?” He replied, “Holy crap! Does everybody in the world know about this Italian bread but ME?!!

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Missing The Ocean, The Caribbean, And Most Definitely Some Snorkeling…

After recently discussing how I’ve been running out of things to say in my blog, a friend suggested talking about any of my vacations to exotic or interesting places. Ironically, the last time I took any sort of exotic trip was to where I actually met this friend, that being Grand Cayman in February of 2016. Sadly, I haven’t travelled since because of how challenging it’s been with my health.

Nevertheless, there is one thing I truly miss from all those exotic vacations I used to take with such regularity in my life and that’s seeing the brightly lit clear blue ocean that I always experienced when in the Caribbean. By way of cruise or a land-based resort, every year for more than a decade, I’d take a one to two-week vacation somewhere in the Caribbean. And one thing I always made sure to do whenever I was on one of those getaways was to go snorkeling, and usually a few times at that.

I love snorkeling and wish I could somehow beam myself onto a Caribbean island whenever I want, solely to do this activity at least once a week. Gliding across the top of the ocean and exploring what’s underneath was always so peaceful for me. Even with all my pain, the buoyancy of the salt waters and the warmth of them as well would always support and soothe me, all while I found a wonderful way to draw closer to another aspect of God.

Through my many snorkeling adventures, I’ve swam next to huge sea turtles, been within arm’s length of the largest and most colorful lobsters you could ever imagine, held starfish in my hands, stood still as schools of vibrant fish surrounded me, fed and petted stingrays, explored shipwrecks and other treasures left on the seafloor, weaved my way through complex coral reefs, been face to face with barracuda, touched many shiny humongous fish, and plenty more.

In the silence of the depths of the ocean, stress just seems to melt away for me. Quite often I’ll even take a long deep breath and swim down as far as I can where I pretend that I’m part of all the ocean life somehow. I have definitely had some strong spiritual experiences doing so and am very grateful for them.

While I’m told that scuba diving is far better for this type of exploration, I unfortunately can’t equalize the pressure within my ears and suffer too much pain the deeper I dive, so I resort to doing what I can do, which is snorkeling and diving down to about 10 to 15 feet at the most. And honestly, I’m fine with that, as I’ve fully enjoyed all my experiences every single time I’ve done this activity throughout my life and probably would do it on a daily basis if I lived in the Caribbean.

I find the ocean to be extremely healing for me, mind, body, and soul, and know that someday I’d like to be living far closer to one of its shores than I do now. I keep saying I’m going to take a trip again to the Caribbean soon, mostly because I miss those bright blue waters and exploring their depths, but I still haven’t and have gone three years now without doing my most favorite activity in the world. I’m sure a day will come again though where I’ll be snorkeling once more, but for now, I’m at least thankful that I have such vivid memories of doing this activity in plenty of years past.

Regardless, I still like to take a few moments from time to time to close my eyes and visualize myself feeling supported by something so much larger than I. As it’s in each of those moments, where I’m brought back to a place and time that I surely have felt much peace and joy and most definitely the presence of God…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson