– Norman Brooks
Sometimes memories are the only things that last.
I say that because I came across an old cassette tape of a church Christmas program recorded about 40 years ago.
“This will be cool to listen to,” I thought to myself. But it wasn’t.
After I finally found an old cassette player in the back of the closet, I sadly discovered that my recording from the 1970s had deteriorated in quality.
Thank goodness for memory. That’s where I can still hear the second tenor parts in my head.
That’s good, too, because no season produces songs like Christmas.
So, why not share your holiday favorite?
E-mail your nominations to bill.kirby@augusta
TODAY’S JOKE: Bill Wood, of Hephzibah, shares a longer story today:
Bud, a small rancher, was overseeing his herd in a remote pasture in Montana when suddenly a brand-new car advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust. It stopped, and the driver, a young, well-dressed man, hopped out, smiled broadly and extended his hand.
“Hey, mister,” he said confidently. “If I tell you exactly how many cows you have in this herd, will you give me a calf?”
Bud looked at him, smiled and said, “Sure.”
The young man then whipped out a smartphone, Web-surfed to a NASA page on the Internet, where he called up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location. Next, he accessed a NASA satellite that scanned the area and obtained an ultra-high-resolution photograph.
The young man then sent it to a high-tech image-processing facility in Germany, and in less than a minute he had received an e-mail providing an exact count of the rancher’s herd.
Turning to the old rancher, he said, “You have 86 cows and calves.”
The older man laughed and said, “You’re right, son. I guess you can take one of my calves.”
He watched with amusement as the young man selected one of the animals and stuffed it into the trunk of his car. But before he could leave, the old rancher asked him, “Hey, if I can tell you what your business is, can I have it back?”
The young man paused for a second, and then said, “OK, why not?”
“Well,” said the rancher, “you’re a consultant.”
“Wow!” the younger man said. “That’s right, but how did you guess?”
“Oh, I didn’t guess,” he said. “You showed up here even though nobody called and you wanted to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked.”
The young man stood there glumly but didn’t respond.
“That’s OK,” the old rancher said, patting him on the shoulder, “but could you open your trunk so I could get back my dog?”