Newport Elks 6/29/2014 

When my Jan and I arrived at our local Ford dealer to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver's side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked.

'Hey,' I announced to the Mechanic, 'It's open.'

His reply, 'I know. I already did that side.'

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with that expensive casement type with shutters. Today, I got a call from the contractor who installed them. He was complaining that the work had been completed a whole year ago and I still hadn't paid for them.

Hellloo............ Just because I have fair hair doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid. So, I told him just what his fast talking sales guy had told me last year, that in ONE YEAR these windows would pay for themselves!

Hellloo? It's been a year! I told him. There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I finally just hung up.
He never called back.

I bet he felt like an idiot.

Did you hear what the English, the Irish and the Scots did when they heard the world was coming to an end?

The English all went out and got drunk.

The Irish all went to church.

And the Scots had a closing down sale.

Q: What does the Loch Ness monster eat?

A: Fish and ships

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The driver says, "Ugh! That's the ugliest baby I've ever seen."

The woman stalks off to the rear of the bus and sits down. She turns to the man sitting next to her and says, "The driver just insulted me!"

The man says, "You go and give him a telling off. I'll hold your monkey for you."

Did You Know? - Cockle is the common name for a group of (mostly) small, edible, saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Cardiidae. Various species of cockles live in sandy, sheltered beaches throughout the world. The distinctive rounded shells of cockles are bilaterally symmetrical, and are heart-shaped when viewed from the end.

Did You Know? - One of the meanings of "cockle" is the chamber of a kiln: in reference to the heart, it refers to the chambers, of which there are four (two atria and two ventricles).

The heart has always been associated with emotions, especially love, excitement and fear, probably because when we feel a strong emotion we feel our heart thumping and beating faster.

So when something "warms the cockles of our heart", it is a reference to something pleasant that makes our heart beat faster and makes us feel good. It is probably also the origin of the saying that something gives us that "warm and fuzzy feeling".

Do You Remember? - Molly Malone

The song tells the fictional tale of a fishmonger who plied her trade on the streets of Dublin, but who died young, of a fever. In the late 20th century a legend grew up that there was a historical Molly, who lived in the 17th century.

She is typically represented as a hawker by day and part-time prostitute by night. In contrast she has also been portrayed as one of the few chaste female street-hawkers of her day. However, there is no evidence that the song is based on a real woman, of the 17th century or at any other time.

The name "Molly" originated as a familiar version of the names Mary and Margaret. While many such "Molly" Malones were born in Dublin over the centuries, no evidence connects any of them to the events in the song.

Nevertheless, in 1988 the Dublin Millennium Commission endorsed claims about a Mary Malone who died on 13 June 1699, and proclaimed 13 June to be "Molly Malone day".

Lyrics!

In Dublin's fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

"Alive, alive, oh,
Alive, alive, oh,"
Crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh".

She was a fishmonger,
But sure 'twas no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,
And they wheeled their barrows,
Through the streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

(chorus)

She died of a fever,
And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.
But her ghost wheels her barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

(chorus) x2

Did You Know? - Whelk is a common name that is applied to various kinds of sea snail, many of which have historically been used, or are still used, by humans for food.

Although a number of whelks are relatively large and are in the family Buccinidae (the true whelks), the word whelk is also applied to some other marine gastropod mollusc species within several families of sea snails that are not very closely related.

The Winkle or common periwinkle, Littorina littorea, is a species of small edible sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc that has gills and an operculum, and is classified within the family Littorinidae, the periwinkles.

This is a robust intertidal species with a dark and sometimes banded shell. It is native to the rocky shores of the northeastern, and introduced to the northwestern, Atlantic Ocean.