Dad jokes. You have heard them. You may have even told a few — probably the same ones over and over. That’s what dads do. My friend Jeff, who is a father of four, has a library of dad jokes. Some are quite funny. The rest? Well, they are dad jokes.

My dad had a few of them he used repeatedly. Some were intended to be funny. Others just became catch phrases for him that left me scratching my head.

When Dad and I played board games and he moved ahead of me, he would exclaim, “I am moving faster than Tom Mix!” I had no idea who Tom Mix was, and I didn’t care. I simply didn’t want his Top Hat to pass my Dog on the Monopoly board. But, in recent years, I felt the need to learn who this Mix guy was. He was apparently the John Wayne or Clint Eastwood of his era, starring in 291 cowboy movies between 1909 and 1935, most of which were silent films. And he was fast, apparently.

Dad didn’t care much for insects, especially flies. Growing up near the multitudes of hog lots in northern Iowa, the flies were aplenty — and big. When I would leave the front door to the house open, Dad would jokingly tell me to shut it as I was “letting all the flies out.” And when he would smash one loudly with a flyswatter, he would proudly state, “He won’t do that again.”

After church on Sunday mornings, I would turn on the TV and catch an episode of “The Lone Ranger.” When Silver was racing along the path, Dad would ask me to turn the channel because it was “getting the living room dusty.”

Dad wasn’t much of a sports fan, but he would put up with me trying to watch a Minnesota Vikings football game on some Sunday afternoons. When the Vikings would score, he would proclaim, “Home run!” Then he would take a nap in his recliner for the remainder of the game.

Dad and my uncle owned a gravel and excavation business. Sometimes, they would tear down old farm houses, burn them to the ground and bury the remains in the fields. Often, the homeowners would strip the buildings of anything of value first, leaving the houses without doors or windows. I would tag along with Dad when he would meet with the landowners at the site, and his first words were often, “I see you are having an open house.”

And finally, when debating on a decision he had to make, Dad would try to make light of the situation and would often say, “Well, Columbus took a chance. Look where he is.”

How about you? What dad jokes did your father rely on for a few laughs? Send me a note and let me know.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305
www.thedailyumbrella.com

See Shane Goodman's previous columns here.

POLITICAL MERCURY
Project 2025 taking down porn sites will be the start of the second Civil War

The conservative master blueprint Project 2025 will start the next civil war. Just not in the ways you think.

In a crammed catalog of things I just don’t want to think about — in a kind of running and screaming and kicking way — the storyline I’d most like to avoid considering, the clear topper in a Canadian football-sized field of contenders, is conservative Think Tankers talking about pornography and issuing confident decrees on sexuality as if they were Alfred Kinsey or the recently departed Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

Enter now Project 2025, the user’s guide for the real Handmaid’s Tale, which on Page 5 of the introduction calls for the criminalization of pornography — the motivation for the invention of Facebook (which ranked women as commodities) and the clogger of search engines and big reveals on computer histories the world over.

Meet Emily Blok
Finding her own way of making a difference

By T.K. West

After attending Ankeny High School, Emily Blok received degrees in accounting and business education from Northwestern College. While there, she also played softball and ran cross country. Blok began her teaching journey at the Southeast Polk High School before joining the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn Community School District. Now, she teaches business at the ADM High School.

“I have been so encouraged since moving to ADM,” Blok says, “Building relationships and serving others is what brought me to education from my previous role, and ADM challenges me to keep that purpose and empowers me to make a difference. I feel very supported at work and have met some lifelong friends since starting in August.”

[...]

These celebrities were born on this date:  Charlize Theron, David Duchovny, Sidney Crosby, Bruce Dickinson, Mike Trout, Rodney Crowell, Brit Marling, David Rasche, John Glover, Michael Shannon, Wayne Knight, Garrison Keillor, Raul Malo, DeMar DeRozan, Harold Perrineau

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The answer to yesterday's riddle:

What do you call a peach that works at a shoe-mending company? A PEACH COBBLER! - Mike Chiston, Gail Tomlinson, William Snyder, Stan and Sandie Akes, Carolyn Rogers

Today's riddle

What do you call a sleeping bull?

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