Dear friends,

Jokes are wounded little stories in which we laugh at ourselves. No slam, hit, or slur of any kind is intended against women (I am one), men, gays, young, old (I am), gnus, morons, biologists, pilots or the physically impaired. I once heard Danny Thomas comment that groups of people get singled out for sport without malice and that the world might be easier if we could laugh at ourselves and perhaps look to the repeated happening that could have suggested some identifiable Achilles heel.

I have been married, have a grown daughter and a grown son. My daughter (the biologist) created this website. My son (the pilot) is also a story teller and reminded me of many great stories. I even have a son-in-law who is a lawyer!

Hope the mother with the overzealous funny bone doesn't embarrass the much loved little ones!

I am happy to be a Texan born and bred, reared in the Rio Grande Valley in deep South Texas, next to Mexico. My father was a self-taught animal doctor, and we had kennels and a pet farm during World War II with all the monkeys, puppies, kittens and talking parrots a little girl could hope for. Along with the fun I naturally learned a lot of responsibility caring for these animals. My parents also loved beautiful home landscape and were great flower gardeners so we had a most successful yard replete with tropical flowers, aviaries, kennels and more. In South Texas, plants grow as vigorously as they do in Hawaii (a fact I discovered many years later as I visited my son stationed there in the Navy. I always kidded him about " tough duty but someone has to do it, eh?") I pleasantly recall service men and their girlfriends spending many Sunday afternoons in our spacious, flower-filled yard picnicking, romancing and whatever! (We had an army base at our little town during World War II.)

I have always loved animals, music, humor and people - I'm not sure in what order! I married the local boy sweetheart right after we whupped up on the Germans and the Japanese and had two wonderful baby boomers, a daughter first then a son. Perfect! My daughter who created this web site is also a biologist and artist. My son, who was in the flying part of the Navy, continued his lifelong interest in flying and became a commercial airline pilot.

I had many lung problems as a child and young woman, but I obviously had tenacity as I survived many scary asthma episodes. As a teenager, I contracted tuberculosis, growing up as I did in the most densely infected Tuberculosis area in the United States.

Animals were always part of my life, and while I love animal stories, I never find anything remotely funny in anything cruel. I can handle beating up all manner of human beings, but ne'r pup nor kit nor tweety bird!! That probably speaks something backward about my values, but so be it.

I adore all real music, classical and Broadway my favorites, especially choral, having sung all of my life. (It is not without significance that my first child is named Melody.) As a child, I even played Hawaiian guitar and sang on the radio in my little old home town.

After I married, I went to work for a very successful man in the steel pipe business. Any good secretary learns all about the company on which she rides herd, and I was no exception and a quick learner. Familywise, I decided that life would be more satisfactory for all of us if I separated from my husband of many years, and so I did what I never ever planned to do, I got a divorce and moved to the big big city. A real first for a girl from a town of 10,000! I have never regretted the move. I ultimately went into the steel pipe business under my own name, and enjoyed a fine degree of success. I am proud of a good reputation for honesty and was credited as being very knowledgeable in a field dominated by men. I never found discrimination, I am happy to say. You may click here to jump to an article I wrote for the NASPD newsletter. (Note: this article is no longer in place.) The big city also afforded me more opportunity to flex my musical wings, which I did for sixteen years with the official chorus of a major U.S. recording orchestra, a time I regard as one of the most pleasurable and rewarding of my life. I still greatly enjoy music, though I do it from the audience.

As I said, humor has always been so important to me. Life would be pretty insufferable if we couldn't laugh at ourselves. I recall so well how much fun I have had at business conventions, when four to forty of us would gather in the lobby, the bar or someone's suite, and take turns telling 'stories.' If I did that today, I am confident that some of the old stories I have recalled here would still break up the group. Apparently, three months is sufficient time between 'drinks' (see jokes) to make an old story new again. It is from word-of-mouth that my best stories came so be advised that you won't find many of the sanitized, diluted anecdotes that make it to the Reader's Digest here. I plan to spend as much of my life as I am allotted in finding something to laugh about, remembering it and repeating it and making you laugh as well!

One last story

Storytellers know that many stories are better told than written, ergo the vast number of standup comics (see need). This one is for that hapless soul who can't tell a story well.

Fred, a prison inmate, was trying to find his way in his recent unfortunate incarceration and discovered that his fellow inmates would call out a number while on rest period in the yard and the rest of the men would bust out laughing. Thus, a shouted "seven" would be cause for a big laugh followed by "nine" and more guffawing. Fred asked for an explanation and was told that talking was not encouraged so they had all learned a series of jokes identified simply by a number. When a number was called out, they would all think of the same story simultaneously.

"Got it" exclaimed Fred. Immediately, on the next break, he called out "fifteen" but got no response. He tried again with "eleven" - same negative response. In his frustration, Fred asked his buddy what he was doing wrong.

"Well some can tell'em and some can't."

Note from Melody:
My Mother, Dottie Lytle, was one of those rare joyful people who remembered jokes, told them at the drop of a hat and told them well. Friends often said "You need to write a joke book!" In 1997, her health crashed and she moved to Austin so we wrote that book and put it online. On June 26, 2002, her lifelong battle with lung disease came to its inevitable end. Her humor and humanity are missed intensely by all who knew her.