George Washington Slept There, And So Did A Few Others

When GW, and I am not talking Bush here, when GW moved into the White House, do you know the first thing he asked the Secret Service? “Where’s the cherry trees? I think I need another set of teeth.”

When John Adams moved into the White House, he tried to find the cherry trees.

When Tommy Jefferson moved into the White House, the first thing he did was check out the female staff…I mean, books.

When Jimmy Madison moved into the White House, his wife, Dolley, went to decoratin’. She was nowhere pleased with Abby Adams’ choice in furniture. “That Franklin stove has to go.”

When Jim Monroe moved into the White House, he asked that booze be named after him. That is why we have a fifth. (He was the fifth President, you know.)

When John Quincy Adams moved into the White House, he requested that folks quit calling him Quince. ‘Course nobody listened. Nobody ever listened to him.

When Andy Jackson moved into the White House, the first thing he went for was the booze…and the dueling pistols.

When Martin Van Buren moved into the White House, he put in a cabinet in the kitchen.

When Tippecanoe moved into the White House, he died.

When John Tyler moved into the White House, he moved Texas in too.

When Jimmy Polk moved into the White House, the first thing he looked at was the maps. He wanted a country to invade, and Canada was out of the question.

When Zack Taylor moved into the White House, he died too. Need I say more?

When Milliard Fillmore  moved into the White House, he didn’t stay. He was moved out after one term.

When Franklin Pierce moved into the White House, people kept forgetting his name. When he passed them in the hall, his staffers would say, “Oh, there goes old what’s his name.”

When James Buchanan moved into the White House, he still couldn’t find a wife. Or an intern, for that matter.

When Abe moved into the White House, he asked about the Lincoln bedroom. He had heard so much about it. Then he discovered that the bed was too short.

When Andy Johnson moved into the White House, he became the first Johnson to move into the White House.

When General Grant moved into the White House, he made sure the typewriters had an S. After all, it was his middle initial. He didn’t want the country to confuse him with Ulysses W. Grant.

When Rutherford B. Hayes moved into the White House, he left saying, “You won’t have Rutherford B. Hayes to kick around anymore.”

When James A. Garfield moved into the White House, well, he didn’t stay.

When Ben Harrison moved into the White House, he sang, “Here a billion. There a billion. Everywhere a billion.”

When Grover Cleveland moved into the White House, he said, “I’m back. Did you miss me?”

When William McKinley moved into the White House, he said, “Send in Teddy. He’ll take San Juan Hill.”

When Teddy Roosevelt moved into the White House, he brought that big stick he’d been talking about.

When Willie Taft moved into the White House, he threw his weight around.

When Woodrow Wilson moved into the White House, he retired the big stick and started talking. He kept making his point. In fact, he made it fourteen times.

When Warren G. Harding moved into the White House, he dated his secretary. And her secretary too. He is also famous for saying, “Who put the pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?”

When Calvin Coolidge moved into the White House, he quit talking.

When Herbert Hoover moved into the White House, he got depressed.

When FDR moved into the White House, he decided to stay.

When Harry Truman moved into the White House, he charged everybody a buck to see him. After all, the buck stopped with him.

When I-Like-Ike moved into the White House, he told Dick Nixon, “There’s only room here for one President and I am it.”

When JFK moved into the White House, so did Jackie.

When LBJ moved into the White House, so did his hound dawg.

When Dick Nixon moved into the White House, he asked the Secret Service, “Where can I buy some tape? Preferably eighteen minutes long.”

When Gerald Ford moved into the White House, he tripped.

When Jimmy Carter moved into the White House, toothpaste sales went sky high.

When Ronnie Reagan moved into the White House, he congratulated himself on getting back into show business.

When George H. W. Bush moved into the White House, the broccoli moved out.

When Bill Clinton moved into the White House, he started the internship program. “Give a girl a good start in life,” he said.

When George W. Bush moved into the White House, he put in a direct phone line to God.

When Barack Obama moved into the White House, he discovered that George Bush had taken out the phone line to God and moved it to Texas. Rick Perry needed it.

When Mitt Romney moved into the White House, oh, that’s right, he didn’t move into the White House. After all, he was part of that 99% of people who ran for President and lost.

When Donald Trump moved into the White House, he moved the darn thing down to Mara-a-Lago in Florida.

When Joe Biden moved into the White House, he forgot to stand up when the White House Band played “Hail to the Chief.” He thought they were playing it for somebody else. After all, he’d lost all them other times he ran.

Happy President’s Day everybody.

City Politics

There had been a rumor that The Mayor would not run for a fourth term. Like most rumor mills, there was some truth to the rumor, but mostly the gossip was fiction. The Mayor had debated with himself whether he should go for a higher office such as Governor, Senator, even President. If he could run “the City Glorious”, why not the whole darn country?

Finally he decided for a fourth run. His reasoning was that he was having way too much fun as mayor. Why give up show business? Why run for President when every Tom, Dick and Harriet would be after your rear? That didn’t sound like fun.

The morning after The Mayor’s penis appeared on the eleven o’clock news, he announced his reelection campaign. When asked about the “genital appearance,” he told reporters, “I did it for the good of the city. Tourists will realize what a fun place we are.”

He had always been a tightrope walker, but this time he didn’t have a net. Now he was caught in a compromising position. His staff thought that the voters were not going to be happy about the whole thing.

“How could you show that thing on TV,” Mrs. Bartok, a teacher at a local elementary school, asked the newsroom, madder at the television station for showing it than at The Mayor for making the “appearance.”

When asked, the President of the Chamber of Commerce commented, “The Mayor’s only doing what comes naturally. Besides it’s good for business and it’s good for the image of the city.”

The night before the news broke, The Mayor had been in tough negotiations with the garbage people. During a particularly difficult part of the session, The Mayor needed to take a leak. He called a recess, urged all heads to cool off, while he went to the head. Then he made a dash down the hall to the men’s room because he had to go real bad. Twinkie Twinkler, a local tv reporter, followed, on the hunt for a story

For seven long years, Twinkie served in the journalistic wilderness. She put in her time as the perky weather girl. But she had ambition. She wanted to be an anchor. She spent months cajoling, begging the news editor to let her do some reporting, any reporting.

Finally he broke down and said, “Yes, as long as you continue to do the weather forecasts.” What could it hurt? the editor thought. I get both a perky weather girl and a news reporter. Just to be on the safe side, he assigned her to the city hall beat. Lots of boredom and no glory. He underestimated Twinkie.

When Twinkie told all her friends, they commented on The Mayor’s larger than life personality. He ran city hall like it was his own private fiefdom.

“That shrimp,” Twinkie said, unafraid. “He’s short and skinny and bald.”

“Yes,” her friend Norah said, “but he’s such a womanizer, except with his wife. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. So you watch yourself, kid.”

Now here she stood outside the men’s room. She needed a story to help her with her career. That’s when it came to her. Like a bolt of lightning. “I’ll get my story.” She walked through the men’s room door and saw The Mayor before one of the urinals.

“Mayor, can you give me a comment about the negotiations?”

When The Mayor turned around, Twinkie’s eyes became large moons. What Twinkie saw was unbelievable. So unbelievable she grabbed her smart phone from her purse, aimed its camera and clicked a pic. Just to be on the safe side, she took several clicks.

The Mayor was always a man who acted well under pressure. He hadn’t gotten where he was by backing down when confronted with what he would later refer to as “an interesting situation.”

“Well, my dear,” The Mayor said, standing there with his flag run up full mast. “I’m always glad to share a little of my charismatic personality with the local media.”

The pictures appeared on the eleven o’clock news. The phones started to ring off the wall around the town. His honor had done it again. Everybody was telling everybody else what they’d seen. “Can you believe it?” they asked.

The next day one of the city commissioners approached the city manager, “Do you think we could sell them? The pictures, I mean.”

“Maybe,” the city manager said. “We could use the money to pay off the budget deficit. At least it would keep the public’s mind off all the money we’ve stolen. I mean, wasted.”

The Mayor, who had always been popular, soon found his poll numbers going from 75% to 90%. The public loved him even more than they had before. It gave the city’s nickname “The City Gorgeous” a real meaning. A local amusement park even developed a Weiner Ride in honor of His Honor. The owner of the local minor league baseball team changed the name of his team from the Hot Dogs to the Hot Weiners.

All this was to say that it looked like The Mayor was going to be a shoo-in. Until he shot his wife.

Actually she shot at him first and missed. In the City Gorgeous it was to become known as the Shootout at the OK Corral, the OK Corral being the local watering hole for all the big fishes in the little pond.

When Mrs. Mayor thought about what she had seen on the news, she became angrier and angrier. Her anger started getting angry. She arrived at the OK around six the next night and she was totting. In her purse, she had a magnum the size of the thing The Mayor carried in his pants. Over in the corner, The Mayor squeezed one of his female constituents’ buttocks. He figured why not. Anything to keep the voters happy.

Mrs. Mayor pulled the gun from her purse and aimed. Then she said, “I haven’t seen that thang in a month of Sundays. Now here you are, showing it on TV. Who do you think you are?”

“I’m The Mayor.”

Mrs. Mayor fired, not once, not twice, but three times. Unfortunately she couldn’t hit the side of a barn. She was near-sighted. She missed The Mayor and hit his constituent in the bottom. It was not a pretty sight. It is never a pretty sight to see a bottom bleed all over the place.

The Mayor, being the opportunist he was, saw the opportunity he had been waiting for. A way to rid himself of a wife, who was no longer the entertainment she had once been, and get away with it. For a very long time, he had the hankerings for his secretary, Willow Pussywillow.

The Mayor pulled out the .45 he carried in the concealed weapon department and shot her corpus dilecti. Mrs. Mayor fell over dead. And not just dead. She was as dead as a corpse in a coffin six foot under.

Now the citizens of the City Gorgeous were a very tolerant people. Sure, The Mayor had no legal recourse but to stand his ground. It was a sure thing that he would get off scot free. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that the standoff would hurt the tourist trade. When the story broke on the national news, people cancelled their tickets to paradise by the bushel load.

There was only one thing to do. Fire The Mayor, arrest him and throw him in jail for exposing his weapon in public. And that was exactly what happened. As they say in the news biz, it was Bye Bye, Miss American Pie for The Mayor.

Illegal Immigration, Just Fix It

Recently the President of the United States addressed a Joint Session of Congress. The White House Press Release stated that the eagerly awaited speech would cover the ongoing crisis with Illegal Immigration. Members of both parties, and Independents too, breathed a sigh of relief. Something would be done.

“Mr. Speaker,” the President began, “Mr. Vice President, Democrats, Republicans, Republicans, Democrats. And lest I forget, Independents. These are troubling times. As that illustrious revolutionary, Thomas Paine, wrote, ‘These are the times that try men’s souls.’” The President held up the Thomas Paine pamphlet to emphasize his point.

Yep, that is what he said. And the President should know. Both parties had been trying his soul since his first term started. On Day One, a Republican challenged him to a duel. The President laughed off the challenge by saying, “I’m no Andrew Jackson.” Of course, his staff kept reminding him that even Andrew Jackson was no Andrew Jackson.

If the Republicans were a barrel of laughs, it was even worse with the Indepenents. They kept passing bills and sending them up to him for his signature. Each bill sang, “Here a piggy, there a piggy, everywhere an oink, oink.” The President’s response on each and everyone of the porkies was, “Ain’t gonna happen.”  Then there were the Democrats. They could not agree on anything. Except how to party hardy.

“Yes, indeedie,” he continued, “these are the times that try men’s souls. And I must say that those words sum up our immigration situation.”

One could hear the drop of a pin. Each and every member of Congress, each and every member of the Supreme Court, each and every member of the President’s Cabinet except for the one who would be the Head Cheese if something happened to all the other cheeses in the hall, they breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t sure what the President was about to say. At least, he was about to say something. After six years of this and that, tits and tats, whereforths and whatevers, the President was about to do what the American people demanded. He was about to “just fix it.”

“My friends,” he said to the people, “we have tried everything to stop this flow of illegal aliens into our country. We have built a giant wall as high as the Tower of Babel and still they come. We have a large army of border patrol and National Guard. Still they cannot be stopped. We have had the support and extra firepower of the NRA. Still they come and join the twelve million already here illegally.. We even put them on the FBI’s most wanted list. Still the Canadian geese flock across our borders.

“After careful consideration, the White House has decided that there is but one last thing we can do. Stephen King has the answer. We must build a dome over America, the Stephen King Memorial Dome. Then, at last, we will be free from the invasion of all these pesky Canadian geese.”

When I’m Dead and Done

Another Uncle Bardie lyric.

When I’m dead and done
And my song has been sung,
When my sun has set
And my race is run.

I’ll catch that train to Glory
On Hallelujah Way
Onto Forever
And the dawn of a new day.

Riding mountains and rivers
Through the darkness of the night
With only a North Star
To steer me toward the Light.

When I’m dead and done
And my song has been sung,
When my sun has set
And my race is run.

I’ll travel with my friends
In my heart of hearts
And wonder of wonders
The delight of a new start.

I’ll reach my destination
There’s dancing in the street
Lots of alleluias
And plenty of folks to greet.

When I’m dead and done
And my song has been sung,
When my sun has set
And my race is run.

De Mayor’s Election

No one knew De Mayor’s real name. He’d been in office for so long he was known far and wide as De Mayor. Or Sir. Even his wife, the Mayoress, didn’t know it. She knew him as Hon.

Over the years, he’d been referred to as the Teflon Mayor. Every scandal rolled off him. But not this year. His karma had finally caught up with him. This year he might actually lose the election and become known as De Ex.

That’s how unpopular he was. His poll numbers were a minus five. It looked like Anybody Else could have beaten De Mayor in a landslide.

Over the last twenty years of his leading The City, graft had developed into graft. De Mayor had figured a way  to collect taxes on all the money passed under the table. That money somehow ended up in his bank account. He was not only accused of being in bed with the local crime lord. He was literally in bed with the local crime lord,  Morgana Buzz.

For the first time in five elections, he had an opponent, a skinny thirty year old named Toby. He’d grown up in The City a poor kid, gone off to Harvard Law, started a business that was now employing several hundred local folks. And it looked like he might actually win. His poll numbers were 105 percent and no unfavorables.

De Mayor started off his campaign with the slogan, “Ain’t Things Nice.” Sure things were nice for De Mayor. His street had all the potholes filled in. They were nice for the Mayoress. She’d gotten a loan from The City to buy the local pro soccer team at minus five percent.

Things were nice for De Mayor’s brother. He was Chief of Police. They were nice for De Mayor’s sister. She was the local Tax Collector. And they were nice for De Mayor’s daughter. She took over the gambling concessions in the town.

When the slogan, “Ain’t things nice,” didn’t work, De Mayor started denigrating his opponent by calling Toby “the Candidate of Good Intentions.” But that only helped the kid with the nice smile. Toby kept saying, “We need a change real bad.” The poll numbers showed that the citizens agreed with him.

During the debate, De Mayor reminded the locals, “At least, I know where the graft is.”

Toby came back with, “Why do we need graft in the first place?”

“Why do we need graft?” De Mayor asked, then repeated himself, “Why do we need graft?”

“Yes, why do we need graft?” Toby asked again.

“America was built on graft. You think we would have won the American Revolution without paying off General Cornwallis. You think we’d have gotten Manhattan without paying off the Indians. You think Jefferson would have gotten Louisiana without paying off Napoleon.”

“Yeah, and Jefferson paid three times more than the French were asking. And that’s just the start. Panama Canal. World War I. The Great Depression. All purchased with graft. And why was Custer wiped out? He wouldn’t pay off Crazy Horse. Man, wake up and get to know your history.”

With that diatribe, Toby walked off the stage, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe his ears. And neither could the voters. It looked like De Mayor was done for.

After that, things went from bad to worse. Crime Lord Morgana Buzz quit taking his phone calls. She had gone on to the Governor for a bed mate. De Mayor’s police chief brother raided his daughter’s gambling establishments. De Mayoress’s loans were called in, and she was arrested by the FBI for bank fraud. Only his sister escaped scrutiny by raising De Mayor’s taxes.

On Sunday before the election, De Mayor went to his campaign headquarters.

Toby was waiting for him. “How did I get myself in this mess?”

De Mayor was shocked. “How did you get yourself in this mess? You ran. And I have to admit you’ve had a brilliant campaign. You haven’t done anything, and I’ve beat myself.”

“I don’t want to be mayor,” Toby said. “I don’t know how to be mayor. How am I going to keep folks liking me. I just wanted a little p.r. for my business.”

De Mayor reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of scotch. He poured himself a glass, and he poured his opponent a glass. By the time they finished the bottle and started on a second, they came up with a new slogan for De Mayor’s campaign. And it worked wonders. De Mayor won in a landslide. The slogan was: “Vote for De Mayor. You could be stuck with something worse.”