According to legend, Professor Raymond Weaver from Columbia College was at a cocktail party in the late 1930s when a guest asked him if he had read Gone With the Wind. When he said no, the guest said, “Well, you should. It’s been out six months.”

The professor then asked the guest if he had read The Divine Comedy. When the guest said no, the professor said, “Well, you should. It’s been out 600 years.”

The Searching Question

In 1916, at Columbia College, Professor Raymond Weaver gave his first class in English literature their first quiz. A whistle of joy went up from the group, which had been trying to make things hard for the new instructor, when Weaver wrote on the blackboard, “Which of the books read so far has interested you least?”

But then Weaver wrote the second and last question: “To what defect in yourself do you attribute this lack of interest?”

Note: Professor Weaver taught English at Columbia College from 1916–48.

A young man had just gotten his driver’s permit and inquired of his father, an evangelist, if they could discuss the use of the car. His father took him to the study and said to the boy, “I’ll make a deal with you, son. You bring your grades up from a C to a B- average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut and we’ll talk about the car.”

Well, the boy thought about that for a moment and decided that he’d best settle for the offer, and they agreed.

After about six weeks the boy came back and again asked his father about the car. Again they went to the study where his father said, “Son, I’ve been real proud of you. You’ve brought your grades up, and I’ve observed that you’ve been studying your Bible and participating a lot more in the Bible study class on Sunday morning. But I’m real disappointed seeing as you haven’t got your hair cut.”

The young man paused a moment and then said, “You know, Dad, I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve noticed in my studies of the Bible that Sampson had long hair, Moses had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, and there’s even strong argument that Jesus Himself had long hair.”

To which his father replied, “Yes, but they WALKED everywhere they went!”

After the college boy had delivered the pizza to Bud’s trailer house, Bud asked, “What is the usual tip?”

“Well,” replied the youth, “this is my first trip here, but the other guys said if I got a quarter out of you, I’d be doing great.”

“Is that so?” snorted Bud. “Well, just to show them how wrong they are, here’s five dollars.”

“Thanks,” replied the youth, “I’ll put this in my school fund.”

“What are you studying?” asked Bud.

The lad smiled and said, “Applied psychology.”

Children’s X-Mas Carols

A teacher in Atlanta asked her students to write the words to their favorite Christmas Carols. She probably got fired for mentioning Christmas in school. Anyway, here are some of the humorous lines she received:

• Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly
• We three kings of porridge and tar
• On the first day of Christmas my tulip gave to me
• Later on we’ll perspire, as we dream by the fire
• He’s makin’ a list, chicken and rice
• Noel. Noel, Barney’s the king of Israel
• With the jelly toast proclaim
• Olive, the other reindeer (all of the other reindeer)
• Frosty the Snowman is a ferret elf, I say
• Sleep in heavenly peas
• In the meadow we can build a snowman, Then pretend that he is sparse and brown
• You’ll go down in listerine
• Oh, what fun it is to ride with one horse, soap and hay
• O come, froggy faithful
• You’ll tell Carol, “Be a skunk, I require”