The couple got into their respective
recreational kayaks and paddled
onto the beautiful, but cold, late fall,
inland lake. After an hour the hus-

band said he was tired and wanted
to head back to shore. Getting up in
years and not as agile as he used to
be, he struggled to get out, tipped

the kayak and fell into the cold water.
The wife, younger and more agile,
tried to make her shivering husband
feel better while he stood in waist

deep water. “Honey I have a pun for
you: two Eskimos sitting in a kayak
were chilly, so they lit a fire in the
craft. To no one’s surprise, it sank,

proving once again that you can’t have
your kayak and heat it too.” He turned
away from her, threw his paddle on-
shore and hurried to the car to get the

dry clothes he forgot to take along. Pull-
ing her kayak out of the water, she
shrugged and thought it was an ap-
propriate pun given the situation.

A man and his teenage son
decide to spend a glorious
spring day fly fishing at the
waters below the local dam.

Unfortunately, every other man,
woman and child in town know
it is the season opener for fly
fishing on the river and people

line up three deep below the dam
casting over, under and around
each other to get their flies in
the water. The man’s son can’t

ever get in a cast and he loses
his prized baseball cap to others’
casts snagging it and lifting it
off his head and slamming it against

the dam. The man, feeling sorry
for his son, says that he has a
pun to lift his son’s spirits:
Two fish swim into a concrete wall.

One turns to the other and says
“Dam!” The teenager just drops
his rod, turns and walks back
to the car. The man thinks to

himself, I thought that was
pretty funny.

So there they sat in the waiting
area of the terminal when their
number was called to get in line

to board the plane. They rolled
their carry-ons with them, both
pieces of luggage having been

accepted. They were glad not to
have to go to the luggage claim
area upon arrival because time

was short for his wife to get to an
incredibly important meeting upon
which her future employment de-

pended. Her carry on was then
rejected as too big and would
have to be checked. When they

got to their seats, she sat sullen
and despondent at the prospect
of losing her position with the

company and to make her feel
better her husband told her a pun:
A vulture boards an airplane, carry-

ing two dead raccoons. The steward-
ess looks at him and says, “I’m
sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed

per passenger.” His wife wiped
her eyes, ordered two shot sized
bottles of bourbon and stared daggers

at her husband with what he was
sure were raccoon eyes. He sat
back in his seat assuming that
hadn’t been helpful.

Couples awake and kiss on the silver screen,
But I always reach for the Listerine.

Whites are as threatened as a
prairie dog by a rattler, a rabbit
by a coyote, and “large un-
gulates and medium-size birds

to lizards” by crocodiles and
just about anything to the king
of the jungle. Except those are
real threats. Whites are afraid

of the advance of people of
color and have no idea how
to share because they buy in-
to the myth of the superiority

of the spoiled only child. Well,
child, it is time to get a life.
There is one race, the human
race and many, many wonder-

ful ethnicities forming a rainbow
coalition of God’s great people
and God’s great world and God’s
great universe and God’s great

creation and we have the privilege
of being a part of it all — together.

I am called to love my
enemies and I am told
that the dividing wall of

hostility has been broken.
I have to repeat these as
my mantras in order not

to be sucked right into
the very violent cultural
posture I despise, but I

don’t have to stand by
as the “hear no evil, see
no evil, speak no evil”

monkey. I must oppose
peacefully, I must oppose
non-violently, I must

oppose in the love, which
passes understanding,
the ultimate opposition

to evil, that which, in
the eternity of now
converts evil to good

and the cold pincers
of avarice to the warm
hands of compassion.

Concerning the day Kennedy was shot,
the biographer wrote, “What has become
unraveled since that afternoon in Dallas
is … the sense of a coherent reality
most of us shared. We seem from
that moment to have entered a world
of randomness and ambiguity.” It
was like a light went on for the reader,
“Of course, then, that day, that moment
while I was driving home from school,
turning the corner, hearing the news —
that specific recollection is the un-
ambiguous moment before the giant
doorway leading to national ambiguity
opened. And I drove on into what event-
ually would resemble more a dystopian
brave new world and a shrugging of
Atlas than the magical realm of Camelot.”

The viewer loves the very popular show set in the Caribbean,
where the white police detective with the paunch from the UK
always considers the dilemma and solves the almost inexplicable
crime and that is exactly what is wrong with the very popular
show. Of course, the Northern European British Isles, white
guy goes to the Caribbean and helps the helpless, clueless,
regardless how earnest assistants on how to solve the crime,
always. Yes, according to the dominant white country producing
the film no matter how beautiful the brown-skinned people in
the series are the incredibly intelligent (even while presented
as sort of clueless) white guy is the one who gets the job done
in a flashing moment of sheer genius. And, of course, now the
viewer is faced with a dilemma.

He sat in the waiting room after
being escorted from the lobby
as the afternoon was passing,

the sun was setting, the rain
was falling and the fog was
descending. It was the perfect

mood for hearing stories from
those several others who sat
around. “I have gone blind in

my left eye and am now almost
blind in my right eye,” she said.
He said, “Yes, the left eye. I had

a pressure reading of forty-seven
in my left eye and they couldn’t
save it and now I’m losing sight

in my right eye.” Others joined in,
interestingly and somewhat ironic-
ally, all talking about glaucoma in

the left eye. He hadn’t been in that
place before but he felt a sort of
camaraderie with them all because

of asymmetrical glaucoma of the
left eye. It reminded him of the time
he went to a widowed person’s meet-

ing as a young widowed person and
hearing such sad stories of deaths of
spouses. He couldn’t help but think

as he sat there waiting for his examin-
ation, that, in comparison, this was a
proverbial walk in the park, perhaps

even if only with one good eye,
yes, thank you, Jesus,  for the
one good eye.

He rejoices and gives thanks tonight
because he expected the worst and
got a temporary reprieve. He’s been
told he can make it for a while and
“a while” sounds real good when
ASAP was de rigueur. And so after
the physician’s appointment, stop-
ping off for a great dinner of fish and
chips shared with his wife at an Irish
restaurant and then home for a few
deep breaths and four fingers of
potato vodka sounded just great.
While at one time in his life he
hated the thought that he might
ever have to put drops in his eyes,
he now has to put three drops during
the day and one before bed and he
just can’t wait.