It's not often that a person can fix the exact date of some early memory, even to the approximate time, but I can. And even better, the first pun I ever heard.
It was approximately 7:30 P.M. on October 31, 1952. The reason why I can do this is because we had just returned from the west coast, Dad having been off for the Korean War previously, and it was the first time I went out trick-or-treating with my brother Phil, who was preschool at that time (lucky guy!).
We met a little girl, name unremembered. She was pleasant, and asked me if I wanted to hear a joke. I said, sure. Here it is, approximately:
"There was this French woman who had just bought a big jar of aspirins, and she was riding on a city bus. Unfortunately, her jar of aspirins spilled, and they splattered all over the dirty floor of the bus.
The unfortunate French woman said, (mimicking French accent) 'My ass-per-ins!'
The bus driver then said, 'Stick it out the window, lady.'"
I was always grateful to her for that pleasant joke, even though I knew instinctively not to tell it to Mom or in Catholic school. In one fell swoop, she exposed me to a dirty joke, an attempt to mimic an accent, and a horrendous pun. Many of us accomplished far less at that early age.
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