It has been said that the eyes are the windows to one's soul. Poetry to me is like a snapshot of ones soul, freezing a moment in time, creating a picture that means different things to different people, evoking unique feelings for the individual reader. Etched into your beings fiber are those moments that shape you. I believe it is good to revisit those that you have stored, the pleasant, the painful and the... Observing where we came from, remembering auspicious beginnings can affect the future giving strength to rise to any challenge that life's crazy ride might throw at you. So, I titled this collection of poems with an Irish proverb, which derives its strength from its simplicity.

Greg Milow has spent twelve years of his life next to his beautiful girlfriend. Only one detail clouds the blissfulness of his experience: she is a total psychopath. When he leaves for a company retreat, she mistrusts his intentions and embarks on a road trip to follow him, unleashing a weekend of raving madness. Help me get rid of my psycho girlfriend is an action-packed comedy filled with eccentric characters, laugh-out-loud situations, and the thrilling menace of romance. A novel that, once you have started it, you won't be able to put down until the end.

The UK's answer to Maupin's, Tales of the City.' Cloud Nine takes us on a brave, breathless and bawdy romp through a world of gutsy glamorous drag queens, and cut throat gangsters. When the world has turned its back on you, there is one place you can go to find family, Cloud Nine. The newest nightclub on London's South Bank and the epi-centre of a new purposely built gay village. Its creator, one time international drag star Trixie Lix; queen of the village and Momma to all that work there. There's Tye from Birmingham, the thirty something manager who's starting a new life after the homophobic murder of his life partner. Then we have Alf a six foot, Afro-Caribbean lovesick doorman. We also marvel at the ageing foul mouthed cleaner, Joan, who is fiercely protective over her friends and the family at Cloud Nine. The latest of the Cloud Nine family is Mickey, a troubled teenager trapped by his gangster father, Jimmy Loney, into a life of violent crime and sexual abuse. We also get to meet the sharp wit of Lady Alice Nana Love' Lovett, the anti-establishment Lady of Little Munch, and her vengeful niece Lady Victoria. Families can be formed in the most unusual of places, Trixie and her family at Cloud Nine take us on an explosively funny journey, with more plot than a vegetable garden, their story will make you laugh and cry, but will definitely make you want to visit....

Pilot, Iowa farmer, award-winning columnist, and editor of two statewide service organization newspapers, Marion P. Johnson shares his insightful, humorous take on life in America's heartland in the 1960s and early 1970s. For those who live or have lived on a farm or ranch or in one of the many small towns that make up rural America, "With Tongue in Cheek" offers a nostalgic walk down memory lane. Johnson's column appeared in "The Roland Record" from 1961 to 1973 and turned into a well-loved, highly anticipated weekly experience for the farming community of Roland, Iowa. "With Tongue in Cheek" showcased Johnson's wit and candor, earning him several Master Columnist awards. Whether discussing the local elections or the county fair, Johnson artfully reveals the pleasures of small-town living. Immerse yourself in the simple joys of yesteryear with Johnson's special brand of humor.

This volume highlights humour's crucial role in shaping historical re-visions of the long nineteenth century, through modes ranging from subtle irony, camp excess, ribald farce, and aesthetic parody to blackly comic narrative games. It analyses neo-Victorian humour's politicisation, its ideological functions and ethical implications across varied media, including fiction, drama, film, webcomics, and fashion. Contemporary humour maps the assumed distance between postmodernity and its targeted nineteenth-century referents only to repeatedly collapse the same in a seemingly self-defeating nihilistic project. This collection explores how neo-Victorian humour generates empathy and effective socio-political critique, dispensing symbolic justice, but also risks recycling the past's invidious ideologies under the politically correct guise of comic debunking, even to the point of negating laughter itself. "This rich and innovative collection invites us to reflect on the complex and various deployments of humour in neo-Victorian texts, where its consumers may wish at times that they could swallow back the laughter a scene or event provokes. It covers a range of approaches to humour utilised by neo-Victorian writers, dramatists, graphic novelists and filmmakers - including the deliberately and pompously unfunny, the traumatic, the absurd, the ribald, and the frankly distasteful - producing a richly satisfying anthology of innovative readings of 'canonical' neo-Victorian texts as well as those which are potential generic outliers. The collection explores what is funny in the neo-Victorian and who we are laughing at - the Victorians, as we like to imagine them, or ourselves, in ways we rarely acknowledge? This is a celebration of the parodic playfulness of a wide range of texts, from fiction to fashion, whilst offering a trenchant critique of the politics of postmodern laughter that will appeal to those working in adaptation studies, gender and queer studies, as well as literary and cultural studies more generally." - Prof. Imelda Whelehan, University of Tasmania, Australia

Bellwood Cowboy is the life story of one of the greatest men I ever knew. Artie Quinton is one of the last of the old time cowboys. His knowledge of livestock and ranch management is renown in Oklahoma. He worked for the Daube Cattle Co. for forty seven years starting during the Great Depression era of the 1930s. Born in a log cabin in 1912 he would lose his mother before he was a year and a half old, then the grandmother who raised him when he was twelve. He attended a country school through the eighth grade. Married to the girl of his dreams, he started working for Daube Ranches in 1937 for $35 a month and that included his wife's pay for cooking three meals a day for up to twenty cowboys. Artie advanced to foreman of Daube Ranches and acquired a reputation as the best ranch manager in the area. He retired in 1984 and at 98 years of age and legally blind, lives alone in the small town of Mill Creek, Oklahoma. Artie has preached more funerals than most preachers, and is the corner stone of his church. Follow his most unique life in the pages of Bellwood Cowboy.

Who are the Curmudgeon Virgins and how are they related to Diddly Squat? Or Sheryl Crow? Or Yankee Doodle?

What do mullets have in common with fired football coaches? Or Facebook? Or mall walkers?

In Search of Diddly Squat provides answers to those questions. It could be called a quest for truth, justice, and the America way, even though there is very little truth and almost no justice in it. Just humor. And satire. And sarcasm. And short, choppy sentences that start with "and." And "or." But not "but."

The Burma-Shave craze reached its zenith during the 1950s, with more than 7,000 signs posted across the United States.

To market Burma-Shave, Allen Odell, an advertising wordsmith, devised the concept of sequential signs to sell his shaving cream. Typically, six signs were erected, with each of the first five containing a line of verse, and the sixth trumpeting the brand name.

Burma-Shave signs appeared in every state except Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. The creative people at Burma-Shave, as well as customers who sent in jingles of their own, ultimately created more than 600 of the rhymes.

In the world of advertising, Burma-Shave stood as unique, creating signs that became a part of the popular culture.

Although the Burma-Shave company is no more, these fun little rhymes hold great nostalgic value for those of us who fondly remember them from our Sunday drives.

Who wrote Only Fools and Horses? What is Rodney Trotter's middle name? What is the name of the actor who played Uncle Albert? When the first episode of Only Fools and Horses hit our screens in September 1981, the show became an instant classic. Over the years it has gone from strength to strength and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest British comedies of all time. Whether you are looking to spice up your pub quiz or really test your in-depth knowledge of the Trotters, The Only Fools and Horses Quiz Book is a welcome, quirky addition to the bookshelf of any fan that will keep you quizzing - and laughing - for hours on end.

The first of its kind to explore the Nobel Prize experience

"Dad, some guy is calling from Sweden." It was 2:30am on October 13th, 1998, the youngest son in the Laughlin house had answered the phone. His dad had just become a recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics.

Frantic and funny events of the next two months are chronicled as the Laughlin's academic household morphs into a madcap staging area for the family and thirty guests who will be in attendance during Nobel week. From tickets to Stockholm to clothing measurements, Nobel lecture preparations, attach assistance and a quick trip to the White House for a formal reception with President and Mrs. Clinton, readers will laugh out loud while gasping in awe.

The glorious Nobel ceremony and elaborate banquet is held each winter with a viewing audience of tens of millions. An intimate dinner with King Gustaf in his royal palace follows the Nobel evening in which Anita Laughlin finds herself the King's dinner partner for what becomes an evening of hilarious surprises, and yes, reindeer.

This book is laced with cartoons drawn by Bob Laughlin that evoke collective feelings of surprise and bewilderment as he and his wife ascend the steep learning curve of Swedish protocol together.

Dr. Kuhn has written a book about her life and travels as a foreign language teacher. In essence, it is a book of memories, autobiographical in nature. She describes many of the 45 trips in detail, but she also groups many of the trips togeher. In 1973 when she began taking students to Europe, she had a good background of working with students and knowing how they think and act. (or so she thought) There is an interesting list of things to take, where to put the items, where they can be bought and the prices of the items. There is also a list of personal rules and regulations that were required of all students. They were called Mademoiselle's Rules or Mlle's Rules. Then there is a comprehensive list of Trip Procedures, giving all the do's and don't's of traveling. Students were allowed to "sample" beer and alcohol as long as their parents had signed a permission slip, but students will always try to outthink the teacher and circumvent the procedures. Dr. Kuhn describes many of the things that went wrong on both student trips and adult trips, along with things that didn't seem funny at the time, but in retrospect seem humorous today.

The Cleburne County Search and Rescue Team recently found and saved a man lost on Mt. Cheaha in Alabama. The man had set out with his wife and kids on the difficult Pinhoti Trail, but once the wife and kids headed back, the man continued on. When he didn't return, his wife panicked and called in the search squad-who eventually found a man in his fifties, weighing about three hundred pounds, wearing leg braces, and using crutches. This story just goes to show that if you're gonna be stupid, you've gotta be tough. Author Bob Cole knows all about it. He grew up on a farm in rural Georgia and used to have to chase cows before getting on the bus for school. Smelling like manure in front of the other kids certainly added a bit of toughness. Since those days, he has worked, married, and seen the world, but through it all, the old adage about toughness and stupidity still holds true. This collection of true short stories follows Bob as he travels along the bumpy road of life. Follow him through a midlife crisis, family hijinks, meeting a new son-in-law, and on a mission trip to foreign lands (after all, stupidity is worldwide). Despite some hard times-and some tough decisions-Bob Cole has never lost his sense of humor, and it's apparent in this collection that will keep readers laughing, crying, and actin' tough

In the UK, the early 1970's were a time of innocence. 'Punk' was what Clint Eastwood called a villain before he blew their head off, Maggie Thatcher was 'that nice lady with the funny hats' and young people were actually paid to go to college and get educated. However change was afoot. Hot pants and the 'maxi' had replaced the mini skirt, a guaranteed job after school was a thing of the past and the booming sixties had given way to the three day week and growing industrial unrest. The introduction of decimalisation had brought with it creeping inflation, household budgets were being stretched and one particular group of students, living in England's sprawling Metropolis, were finding it increasingly difficult to make their student grant cover the cost of their beer, records, clothes and food (in that order), never mind pay for their accommodation and the occasional course book. Desperate measures were needed if they were to make their money stretch to the end of term. This is their story of survival....... What others have to say about the book....... It'll never make the Richard and Judy Booklist. (The authors mum) Who are Richard and Judy? (His dad) His expansive use of the English vernacular puts the author in the same esteemed company as Shakespeare, Milton and Dickens. (His agent) B#ll#cks (Charles Dickens)