During basic training, our drill sergeant asked for a show of hands of all Jewish personnel. Six of us raised our hands. Much to our relief, we were given the day off for Rosh Hashanah.

A few days later in anticipation of Yom Kippur, the drill sergeant again asked for all Jewish personnel to ID themselves. This time, every soldier raised his hand.

"Only the personnel who were Jewish last week can be Jewish this week," declared the sergeant.

The topic of the day at Army Airborne School was what you should do if your parachute malfunctions. We had just gotten to the part about reserve parachutes when another student raised his hand.

"If the main parachute malfunctions," he asked, "how long do we have to deploy the reserve?"

Looking the trooper square in the face, the instructor replied, "The rest of your life."

A child psychologist had twin boys—one was an optimist; the other, a pessimist. Just to see what would happen, on Christmas Day he loaded the pessimist’s room with toys and games. In the optimist’s room, he dumped a pile of horse droppings.

That night, the father found the pessimist surrounded by his gifts, crying.

“What’s wrong?” the father asked.

“I have a ton of game manuals to read … I need batteries … and my toys will all eventually get broken!” sobbed the pessimist.

Passing the optimist’s room, the father found him dancing for joy around the pile of droppings. “Why are you so happy?” he asked.

The optimist shouted, “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

My three-year-old grandson sat in the bathroom with me, watching as I removed my dentures and brushed them.

After a few minutes, he asked, “Can you take your ears off too?”