MORE BAD JOKES
Dave Gardner, originally from Tennessee, was a comedian who specialized in southern vernacular humor, and enjoyed considerable popularity during the 1950s and early ‘60s, due to the recordings he made of his routines. Many of his stories haven’t worn very well, because he was a thoroughgoing racist, and eventually became a sort of court jester to the Ku Klux Klan. Despite his ugly side, one of his tales still tickles me.. I’m telling it from imperfect memory, since I haven’t heard his records in ages, so my rendering may be a little off. But here’s the gist of it:
Chuck and Baby
Chuck had a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and he loved to roar around on it, wearing his black leather jacket and his cap with the gangster skull and crossbones on it, scaring the whistle out of the local motorists. He’d gotten some speeding tickets, but so far the cops hadn’t pulled his license, because he was a local boy, and he wasn’t really in a motorcycle gang, even though his cap made him look like he was. His girlfriend’s name was Lurlene, but everybody called her Baby, because she was so cute, just like one of those Kewpie dolls they hand out at the test-your-strength booth when the carnival’s in town. Baby would snuggle up behind him on the cycle’s buddy seat, hug him around the waist and off they’d go, hell bent for leather, ramping all over the county.
In good weather, Baby didn’t generally wear much more than a Kewpie doll, but one Saturday afternoon in June it turned a mite chilly, so Baby gave Chuck a little love-tap upside the head, BLAP, to catch his attention.
“Stop the machine,” she hollered.
SKEEK. Front wheel didn’t even rise up. Now that’s brakes!
“What’s the matter, Baby?”
“Chuck, I’m cold, you know that?”
“I’m pure-dee sorry to hear it, honey. But I can fix that, don’t you worry. I’ll take off my jacket, put it on you backwards, zip it up, ZEET, POP, and that way you’ll be warm.”
“Oh, Chuck! You’re so wise!” she said.
“Yup,” he said. “I bet I know what’s written in every book and every dictionary in the world.”
“What’s that?”
“Words.”
So they took off again, heading up the highway past some sharecroppers’ cabins. But a big ol’ semi-hemi-double-wide-tractor-trailer truck passed them, and then slowed down to a crawl. Well, that just made Chuck wild. He whipped the Harley into the oncoming lane so he could get by, and he ran smack into another truck, KABLAM! Hair, teeth, and eyeballs all over the road.
By and by a state trooper showed up at the scene of the accident. He got out of his cruiser, stuck his thumbs in his gunbelt, rocked back on his heels, and said, “My, my. What’s going on here? What happened to these lovely children?”
There were two little black boys by the side of the road, and one of them said, “I know!”
WHAP!
“Don’t hit me again, I’ll tell you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, Mister Chuck, he was killed outright. But Miss Baby was doing all right till me and Junior Willie turned her head around.”
The great poet and novelist James Dickey, author of “Deliverance,” was another Southerner, though by no means a racist, and in the course of a televised interview conducted on his back porch, he told the following shaggy dog story:
The Green Suit
Leroy worked at the Texaco garage, pumping gas, rotating tires, and doing oil changes. He wasn’t right bright, but he was a hard worker, and he had a good heart. He was a teetotaller, and he didn’t go spending his money on foolish things, because he belonged to the First Methodist Church, and he took his scripture seriously. Every week he took his pay check home to his mama and papa, but he saved out a little for himself, because he wanted to buy a nice suit to wear to Sunday services.
Finally he had enough money, and he went to the local Robert Hall store. The fast-talking salesman showed him several suits, and Leroy picked a green one that was on special discount. He tried it on, and it seemed to fit all right, so he paid forty dollars for it, and wore it the following Sunday. After church, he decided to go to the ice cream shop for a scoop of Tutti-Frutti, and on the way he ran into a friend. “Now, that’s a good-looking suit, Leroy,” the friend said. “The color’s right. Brings out your strange eyes. But I got to tell you, buddy, the left sleeve is too long.”
So Leroy went back to the Robert Hall store and hunted up the salesman.
“I like the suit,” he said. “Paid forty dollars for it, and the color’s right. But the left sleeve is too long.”
“Well, I’m sorry, my friend, we don’t do alterations on discount items,” the salesman said. “But I tell you what – while you’re walking around, every now and then kind of shoot out your left arm, casual-like, and nobody will notice.”
So that was what Leroy did. But he met another friend who told him the right sleeve was too short. Back at the Robert Hall store, the salesman told him, “No problem, son. All you have to do is pull in your right arm from time to time, and everything’ll be jake.”
Leroy followed his advice, but someone else told him the pants were too long. This time the salesman told him just to hitch up his pants every so often, and he’d be fine.
Next Sunday after church, Leroy headed for the ice cream shop again, shooting out his left arm, pulling in his right one, and hitching up his pants. An older couple noticed him, and the woman said, “Now that’s a pity! Look at poor Leroy, all crippled up with the lumbago and the arthuritis and the Saint Vitus dance and I don’t know what-all! He’s too young for such plagues. I mean, I know his mama, she’s younger than I am.”
“It’s a shame, all right,” her husband said. “But my, don’t that suit fit him good!”
Well, let’s see. So far I’ve insulted bikers, black children, and redneck yokels. Time for a Polish joke.
Stan’s parents were strict Catholics, and they’d never told him about the birds and the bees when he was a kid. After he was confirmed, he asked Father Nikolas about the facts of life, but the priest dodged the question, saying that God would reveal everything he needed to know when the time was ripe. So when he grew up and got married, he remained completely ignorant about sex. On his wedding night, his bride lay in the bed, clearly expecting something from him, and getting more and more impatient. In a panic, he went into the living room and called his mother for advice. She was squeamish about telling her son exactly how to make love, so she said, “Put your most precious thing where she goes to the bathroom.”
Five minutes later, Stan called her back. “Bowling ball in toilet. Now what?”