With all the controversy surrounding health care reform, bank bailouts, uncivil behavior, I think it’s high time for us all to get a big dose of laughter, the best medicine of all.

By the way, the quote “Laughter is the best medicine” is one we have heard time and again, but I can’t tell you who said it first. The English poet Lord Byron came pretty close when he said, “Always laugh when you can. It’s cheap medicine.”

Another poet, the hater of capitalization, e.e. cummings said, “the most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” Since we waste enough time and money, I don’t want you to waste this day without laughter, so I’ve searched a few laughable tidbits and hope you enjoy them.

Our newspaper gets most of its headlines right, but there are a few unforgettable funnies out there. For instance, one newspaper had this as its top story one day. “Utah Poison Control Center Reminds Everyone Not to Take Poison.” Thank the Lord for that one!

I know that we are all worried about the increased incidence in teenage pregnancies these days, so one newspaper wrote about that subject and the headline read, “Statistics Show that Teen Pregnancy Drops Off Significantly After Age 25.” You don’t say?

Here’s one group of volunteers I am really worried about. It’s an article that catches my eye with the following, “Volunteers Search for Old Civil War Planes.” That shouldn’t take long.

Now this one is from The Register-Guard and I don’t know where that is, but it’s a headline that could have come straight from Washington, D.C. “County to Pay $250,000 to Advertise Lack of Funds.”

Two good ole boys were fishing in the Flint River for Appaloosa catfish. One of the boys hung a big one and when he got it to the boat the other fellow said, “that fish has only one eye.” The other boy replied, “Look on the other side of the boat and you’ll see the other one.” That’s a big fish!

Another fish story. A fellow caught a fish so large that it towed his boat so fast he blacked out. When he awoke in the hospital he was told that he had been traveling so rapidly that motorboats couldn’t catch him and there was fear that he would starve to death. He escaped lingering death because friction burned out the bottom of his boat and he tumbled into the lake.

I’ve heard some good hog-callers in my life but none quite like the one I read about from Arkansas. He once got so pumped up calling the hogs that they would come from as far away as Oklahoma. One day, after he had been calling hogs for a few days, 25 hogs showed up wearing California license plates!

There was also one about the guy who was hoeing tobacco in Kentucky back when tobacco was a big crop. A small snake struck his hoe but he killed the snake. He went inside his house for dinner and when he returned an hour later, the hoe handle had swollen so large that he was able to cut two cords of wood from it.

Out in Texas, the rows are so long that one farmer started out in the spring with a tractor, a plow and a drill. He was gone so long that his wife collected three widow pension checks before he returned. But he did return later that year and it turned out that when he got to the other end of the field, he traded his plow and drill for a combine and harvested his crop all the way back home.

I haven’t seen this around here but I have seen plenty of chicken houses. Most of these houses aren’t for laying hens, but I thought of them when I read about the chicken farmer who installed stained glass windows in his chicken house so the hens would lay colored Easter eggs. That’s true!

Did you hear the one about the man who had the well trained dog? Our dog, Little Bit, is pretty smart, but this hunting dog had him beat. If the owner of this dog carried his gun on his right shoulder, the dog would hunt rabbits. If the gun was carried on the left shoulder, the dog hunted squirrels. One day the owner was showing his neighbor his new fishing rod and in a few minutes the dog appeared from out behind the barn carrying a can of worms.

The battles between country boys and city slickers have been going on for a long time. There is this tale about a talking match between a country boy and a city slicker. Each one bet $5 that he could out-talk the other. They talked and talked and talked. The judge and the listeners fell asleep after 27 hours, but the country boy and the city slicker kept on gabbing. The morning after their second night the city boy was dead, but the country boy was kneeling right by him still whispering in his ear.

Finally, I can’t leave you without one stinker.

There was a man murdered in Wilson, Idaho, and his body was found in a bathtub filled with milk. There was also a banana in the tub. It was feared that he was the latest in a spate of cereal killings.

There, I hope you feel better!