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The first salute received by a freshly commissioned second lieutenant is always significant, symbolizing authority and prestige. When I pinned on my new Air Force gold bars and stepped out to face the world, I encountered a staff sergeant. Giving me a snappy salute, he said, "Good morning, lieutenant. Your hat is on backward." As the years have passed, anytime I begin to feel self-important, I remember those words.
—Contributed by Lt. Col. H. Fred Waller (Ret.)
Trapped!
CsT deputy district attorney asked several robbery victims to study a lineup of five people. He had placed the suspect in the middle, and had told each man to step forward saying, "Give me all your money—and I need some change in quarters and dimes." The first two did it right. Then the middle fellow broke the case. "That isn't what I said," he blurted.
—Jeff Dusck, quoted by Neil Morgan in San Diego Tribune
A Texan visiting Maine belittled every scenic wonder he was shown. His host, in exasperation, slipped a huge lobster into his bed. When the
Texan pulled down the covers, he gasped and called his host to the bedroom.
"What in tarnation is that?" he asked.
"That's a Maine bedbug," the Yankee replied.
"Oh," the Texan said as he studied the lobster closely. Then he added, "It's a young'un, ain't it?"
—J. Michael Kennedy in Los Angeles Times
i'While my hbsband was shopping in an old-fashioned country hardware store, he noticed a well-dressed man trying to sell the clerk a computer. Appalled because a business that handled so much merchandise didn't have one, the salesman asked, "How do you know when to reorder stock?"
"Well, when someone wants something, we go look," the clerk replied. "If we don't see it on our shelves, we say, 'Oh, my goodness, we're out!' Then
we reorder." —Contributed by Joyce ft»le
Luigi Barzini, Sr.: ^jJ^/^h Impatience poisons all our joys and prevents us from recognizing happi-ness. We are made impatient by the impression that happiness is always a little further on. We want to rush through everything to achieve it. But happiness, as a philosopher once wrote, is like a ball chased by a child— when you catch up with it, you give it
a kick. —Vila Vagabonds (Rizzoli, Milan)
"Please, God," the man prayed, "you know me. I'm always praying to you and, yet, I have had nothing but bad luck, misery and despair. Look at the butcher next door. He's never prayed in his life, and he has nothing but prosperity, health and joy. How come a believer like me is always in trouble, and he is always doing so well?"
A voice boomed from beyond, "Because the butcher doesn't bug me,
that's Why!" —Joey Adams
Noel Perrin:
One New Year's Eve I was at a °" party in a farmhouse on a hill above a small Vermont village. By midnight the snow had stopped and the moon had come out. It was one degree below zero. Almost everyone at the party had gone outside to look at the new snow. All around was a silence so total that the world seemed not merely cleansed but newly created. Nowhere was there the sound of a car in that hushed world, or so much as a dog barking. The clear moonlight revealed no mess either. Men live in Vermont: no doubt there were beer cans and even abandoned refrigerators within easy walking distance. They were nullified by the snow.
To be outdoors on such a night is to experience that awe which modern man is said to have lost the capacity for, but which he has really just ceased to look for in the right places.
—Vermont: In All Weathers (Viking Penguin)
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43% of 'churched youth' have had sex by age 18
WASHINGTON - More than 40 percent of teen-agers who attend conservative churches have had sexual intercourse by the age of 18, - while a third decline to brand sex , outside marriage as morally unacceptable, according to a study released Monday.
The survey found that 43 percent of the "churched youth" who responded to a questionnaire had sexual intercourse by age 18.
The questionnaire was given to 1,438 "regular" churchgoers, ages 12 to 18, in June and August. Eight evangelical denominations conducted the survey. _.,
