A woman’s husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet she had stayed by his bedside every single day. 

One day when he came to, he motioned for her to come nearer …..

As she sat by him, he whispered, eyes full of tears, ‘You know what?
You have been with me all through the bad times. 

When I got fired, you were there to support me. 
When my business failed, you were there. 

When I got shot, you were by my side. 
When we lost the house, you stayed right here.
When my health started failing, you were still by my side…

You know what Martha?’

‘What dear?’ she gently asked, smiling as her heart began to fill with warmth.

‘I’m beginning to think you’re bad luck…

A lady goes to the bar on a cruise ship and orders a Scotch with two drops of water.  As the bartender gives her the drink she says, ‘I’m on this cruise to celebrate my 80th birthday and it’s today..’

The bartender says, ‘Well, since it’s your birthday, I’ll buy you a drink.  In fact, this one is on me.’

As the woman finishes her drink, the woman to her right says, ‘I would like to buy you a drink, too.’

The old woman says,  ‘Thank you. Bartender, I want a Scotch with two drops of water.’

‘Coming up,’ says the bartender.

As she finishes that drink, the man to her left says, ‘I would like to buy you one, too.’

The old woman says, ‘Thank you.  Bartender, I want another Scotch with two drops of water.’

‘Coming right up,’ the bartender says.

As he gives her the drink, he says, ‘Ma’am, I’m dying of curiosity.  Why the Scotch with only two drops of water?’

The old woman replies, ‘Sonny, when you’re my age, you’ve learned how to hold your liquor.  Holding your water, however, is a whole other issue.’

“Wub,” said my friends.

What did she mean, I demanded to know. 

Wub, she insisted.  As in W U B.

Ahah, WUB!

I still didn’t know what it meant but at least I knew I was dealing with an acronym. 

For those of you not lucky enough to own a paperback titled ‘Port Out Starboard Home’  by Michael Quinion, I can tell you all he says about acronyms.

Posh, for instance, supposedly came from the first letters of the words in the phrase ‘Port Out Starboard Home’ , referring to the position of the cabins upper class folk booked when travelling between England to the colonies.

Posh came to mean upper class fancy, but was nothing to do with the P and O shipping line and more probably some sort of London slang for money.

Mr Quinion said that we are now surrounded by an absolute alphabet soup of acronyms these days, such as FIFT (Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisations), SARS (Sevre Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and my favourite — POTUS (President of the United States).

We get so used to using the acronym in some cases that we forget where the word actually comes from, for instance radar is from Radio Detection and Ranging, Laser comes from Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, and scuba from Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

Mr Quinion says the fashion for creating acronyms was actually a military one dating from the time of the First World War, which is extremely recent compared to the origins of most words. 

An example of an early military acronym is awol, Absent With Out Leave, although it wasn’t consistently used as a word until the Second World War. 

The very word acronym to describe these words made of initials wasn’t even coined until 1943.

Although Mr Quinion doesn’t say so, they have become a blight on the modern wordscape and are particularly beloved of management and all sorts of organisations from banks and government departments to universities.

Say you make a tentative inquiry about where to pay some charge or want to know some sort of information.

The acronymist will say something like: You need a Pfls 2B for that, get it filled and take it to Temd Poc in MSxvb and after its approved, go to YAB.

Sometimes you get the information but you can’t understand it anyway because you don’t understand what the Rept UDnOg is or where the SLURB is located, let alone what it does.

Actually, it’s not a bad thing to be called, as you will see. Old Farts are easy to spot at sporting events; during the playing of the National Anthem Old Farts remove their caps and stand at attention and sing without embarrassment. They know the words and believe in them.

Old Farts remember World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal , Normandy and Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War, The Cold War , the Jet Age and the Moon Landing. They remember the Peacekeeping Missions, not to mention Vietnam .

If you bump into an Old Fart on the sidewalk he will apologise. If you pass an Old Fart on the street, he will nod or tip his cap to a lady. Old Farts trust strangers and are courtly to women.

Old Farts hold the door for the next person and always, when walking, make certain the lady is on the inside for protection.

Old Farts get embarrassed if someone curses in front of women and children and they don’t like any filth or dirty language on TV or in movies.

Old Farts have moral courage and personal integrity. They seldom brag unless it’s about their children or grandchildren.

It’s the Old Farts who know our great country is protected, not by politician’s, but by the young men and women in the military serving their country.

This country needs Old Farts with their work ethic, sense of responsibility, pride in their country and decent values.

We need them now more than ever.

Thank God for Old Farts!

Pass this on to all the Old Farts you know.

I was taught to respect my elders. It’s just getting harder to find them.

Two older Jewish ladies, Sophie and Fran, were shopping one afternoon, and Sophie says to Fran, “Wish me good luck. My son finally met a girl and maybe they will get married – But the only thing my son said is that she has Herpes. What is Herpes?”

Fran says, “I don’t know, but I have a medical dictionary at home and I will go home and look it up for you.”

The next day the ladies again meet, and Fran says to her friend, “Sophie it’s okay. You don’t have to worry. It’s a disease of the gentiles!”

They met at the singles club meeting and discovered over time that they enjoyed each other’s company.

After several weeks of meeting for coffee, Claude asked Maude out for dinner and, much to his delight, she accepted. They had a lovely evening. They dined at the most romantic restaurant in town.

Despite his age, they ended at his place for an after-dinner drink. Things continued along a natural course and age being no inhibitor, Maude soon joined Claude for a most enjoyable roll in the hay.

As they were basking in the glow of the magic moments they’d shared, each was lost for a time in their own  thoughts ……………

Claude was thinking: ‘If I’d known she was still a virgin,  I’d have been gentler.’

Maude was thinking: ‘If I’d known he could still do it, I’d have taken my tights off……..

A noted sex therapist realized that people often lied about the frequency of their encounters, so he devised a test to tell for certain how often someone has had sex.

To prove his theory, he filled an auditorium with people, and went down the line, asking each person to smile. Using the size of the person’s smile, the therapist was able to guess accurately until he came to the last man in line, an elderly gentleman, who was grinning from ear to ear.

“Twice a day,” the therapist guessed. But the therapist was surprised when the man says no.

“Once a day, then?” Again the answer is no. “Twice a week?” “No.” “Twice a month?” “No.” The man finally said yes when the doctor got to “once a year.”

The therapist is angry that his theory isn’t working, and asks the elderly gentleman, “What the heck are you so happy about?”

The gent answered, “Tonight’s the night!”