One of the qualities I admired my dad for when I was little was his ability to make people laugh. I grew up in the days of great TV comedians like Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Red Skelton, and Danny Thomas. Dad emulated them. He loved to tell jokes. In his pocket he always carried a card with something like a hundred punchlines on it, numbered in a list. Idolizing him, I made a card of my own.
     I still remember a lot of his jokes. I loved the ridiculous setups and the surprising, but inevitable, punchlines. If the punchline was good, a single joke could keep me laughing uncontrollably for five minutes. I'd finally wind down, but I'd start up again whenever the line came back to my mind. One joke could keep me laughing for days.
    The jokes dad used to tell are still going around. He didn't make them up, of course, any more than the people who tell them today did.
     I hear these jokes on the radio. I see them passed around on the Internet. I still laugh. They're so damned funny! They're funny because they distill all the absurdity of life itself, of every day a person spends on earth, into a single line.
    Here are some of the jokes my father told, and some others that have kept me laughing the way his jokes made me laugh. Welcome to my Hall of Famous Jokes!

 "What Remains Is the Essence", the home pages of Max Reif
poetry, Meher Baba, children's stories, "The Hall of Famous Jokes", whimsical prose, paintings, and lots more!

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