The Funniest People in Families: 250 Anecdotes

Some samples: 1) Just after the end of World War II, while country comedian Archie Campbell was still an enlisted man in the United States Navy, he hadn’t seen his wife for a long time, so he asked Lieutenant Sam Bailey if a way could be arranged for him to see her. Therefore, Lieutenant Bailey asked Mr. Campbell to take an apparatus to Florida to have it repaired—of course, Mr. Campbell had his wife meet him in Florida. At the repair shop, Mr. Campbell asked how long it would take to have the apparatus repaired, and the technician assured him that it would be repaired by the very next day. This was bad news for Mr. Campbell and his wife, so he explained the situation to the technician, saying, “I haven’t seen my wife in over a year. Take longer than that.” The technician replied, “In that case, it will take at least a week.” 2) One Christmas, Pope John XXIII went to a children’s hospital to visit the patients. One child, Silvio Colagrande, had been blind, but could now see because a dying priest, Don Gnocchi, had willed his eyes to Silvio and the corneas had been transplanted. Upon seeing the Pope, Silvio called out, “I see you with Don Gnocchi’s eyes.” Another child, seven-year-old Carmine Gemma, had recently become blind as the result of an attack of meningitis. He told Pope John XXIII, “You’re the Pope, I know, but I can’t see you.” The Pope held Carmine’s hands for a while, then he murmured, “We are all blind, sometimes.” 3) Anne Sexton once wrote a volume of poetry titled Love Poems. One poem was intended to be titled “Twenty-One Days Without You” because her career required her to spend that amount of time away from her husband. However, the title had to be changed to “Eighteen Days Without You” after her husband said to her, “I can’t stand it any longer; you haven’t been with me for days.”