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So at times, I guess I can be a pretty funny guy. Well, I guess if you experienced me in small doses. Like many guys at my age and position in life, I have a cadre of dad jokes, well actually dadisms. You may commence the eye rolling. Now I'm jimpaulling and this is my view from the middle. As I've mentioned before, I attended church in South Orlando and have for about forty years, the Lyle Community Church. In this podcast series, I've talked about my experience in the drama ministry at the church formerly known as Pinecastle United Methodist Church. By the way. Lately, though most of my exposure at the church has been limited to narrating the Christmas and Eastern musicals and occasional monologue, and once in a great while, my wife and I will give the congregants of you into the Big Fat Park as we portray the characters of Cecil and Peneloty to homeless mentally challenged people whose faithfulness and childlike innocence offer hope and inspiration. You can check out the episode in this series called the Big Fat Park from more on that. By the way, our senior pastor is a fellow by the name of Scott George. Not only is he a great preacher, but he's also a wonderful writer and has authored several books. I've narrated the audiobooks for many of them. You can search Amazon or audible dot com for Scott George or Jim Polling for that matter to find the audiobooks. But on a regular rotating basis, I also serve as a quote host for the Sunday morning service. Basically, I get up and open up the service, make some announcements if there are any welcome first time visitors, and set the stage for what we'll transpire during the upcoming church service. I'm one of a handful of people who take turns doing this. Our pastor likes to keep things upbeat and concise when doing it. It's a total of two minutes, and I'm never sure if anyone is really paying attention to what I'm saying or not, but it is what it is. Occasionally I like to relay an amusing antecdote or short story to kick things off. I try to tie it in with a pastor's message when I can. The congregation seems to like it. Those who are actually paying attention I've got a couple of people who see me in the hall say, hey, you're gonna tell us some jokes today, or what routine do you have for us today now? But the truth of the matter is I don't tell jokes. I don't have a head for them. For some reason, my memory cells don't retain jokes. I may blurt out something funny once in a while, but it isn't in the form of a joke per se, And nine times out of ten it's something I just made up on the spot. You learn to do that being on the air and radio broadcasting, and I guess it just happens when I get up in front of people. I'm convinced it's another God thing that I have limited control over. But as my son and daughter, and especially my wife will a test, I do have the occasional Dad joke that makes its way to the surface. They're mostly dadi isms as opposed to jokes. My wife has to have her eyes checked every so once in a while because they get out of whack from rolling or high back in her head every time I come up with one of these gems. For instance, we'll be going through the line at the grocery store, and invariably the cashier will ask did you find everything? I'll say, we weren't looking for everything. If we were, we'd still be shopping now. The cashier, who hasn't heard this before, is laughing hysterically. But my wife, who has heard this dadism a million times, is rolling your eyes and beating yourself on the forehead. Jim, Jim, seriously, she would scold. Another one I like to use at the checkout counter is when the courtesy clerk grabs a gallon jug of iced tea and asks, would you like this in a bag? I say, no, just leave it in the jug. If you put it in a bag, you'll just run all over. More eye rolling, more forehead pounding, more scolding, Jim, Jim, calm down, Yes, dear. There's another one I used regularly on social media on election day. I usually post that it happened again. I came downstairs this morning and there's a line forming in front of my house. I have to yell, no, no, this is not your polling place, it's polling's place. Get it. My last name is Pulling, spelled with one L. Yeah, yeah, Well, if I have to explain him, it's the one joke that only I can tell. I think i'd come buy this stuff. Honestly, though, My father had a whole bunch of dadisms, mostly in the form of weird sayings. For instance, there was hey, Dad, what are you doing selling monkeys? You want to buy one? I have no idea what that meant. When he talked about how long he and my mother had been married, he'd always say, well, it's a long time with one woman. I've actually used that before. I think I'm becoming my father, but I really shouldn't, since I have no idea what he meant by that. If you bought a car with a bunch of extras on it, he'd say, it's dressed up like a Christmas tree. Bad drivers on the road were silly citizens. If you wanted you to sit down, he'd tell you to park your carcass. Getting your haircut meant you were getting your ears lowered. When people would comment how tall I was, he'd always say, think about how tall he'd be if so much hadn't turned out under him. I guess because my feet were big on I don't know. And if someone deserved punishment for something, he would get a go licking. Sometimes that would be me. Unfortunately, my mother, like my wife now, did her share of eye rolling when Dad would come up with one of these things. We all seem to turn into our parents sooner or later, And I know I got this weird trait for my dad. I have my own stupid little things that I picked up along the way. Like when someone asked me how I am, I checked the pulse in my neck and look at my watch and say, let me check. Yeah, I'm okay. It's even better on I'm on the phone. So when they ask how I am, I can say, hang on a minute, let me check. Yeah, I'm okay. This will clear up, don't worry about it. Sometimes I'll just say I'm ducky. The other person will say ducky, and I say, yeah, I'm quacking up. Then, of course there's the haircut line. My wife will say I'm getting my haircut today, and I'll ask which one. She stopped laughing at that one thirty nine years ago. Another contributing factor in all this was the fact that I spent a lot of time as a teenager listening to comedy albums. George Carlin, for one. In high school, I had his class Clown album memorized in history class. I couldn't remember who started the Revolutionary War, but I could recite Carlin's Seven Dirty Words you Can't Say on television in explicit detail. Hey, I was sixteen. Other comedy album influences were Steve Martin and Bill Cosby, before all of his awful problems. I still chuckle to myself when I go to the dentist and remember Cosby's bit about getting novacane and having teeth drilled. You saw and smelled smoke. Steve Martin used to say he'd be getting ready for his act by putting a slice of bologney in each one of his shoes. That way he'd feel funny. These days, I like Jef Dunham and John Mulaney. Those are the guys that make me laugh. My brother Dave, is fourteen years older than I am. What we did mostly when we were together was laugh somehow We would make each other laugh, and that hasn't changed. I recently poured through a bunch of old snapshots from the fifties and sixties, and there are several pictures of me and my brother just laughing our heads off. Also, my brother and I sound alike at least on the phone. I've told the story here about how I answered the phone one day when we lived in Garden City after recently moving from Detroit, Michigan, and it was our aunt Mildred calling from Ohio. I simply said hello, and Mildred says, is this David in Detroit? I said, no, this is Jim in Garden City. So she hung up. She called back and was really steamed about the whole thing. Mildred wasn't known for her sense of humor, but we all thought it was hysterical. Sometimes you just can't take life too seriously. When my radiation on cologist told me I had to have thirty proton radiation treatments for parodic gland cancer on the side of my face, I said, wouldn't it be easier and cheaper if I just stuck my head in the microwave. The answer to that was no. By the way, I volunteered once a week at the Orlando Health Cancer Institute, the same place where I had my treatments. I worked with a great bunch of people in the guest services area, but I probably drive them all a little crazy with my dadisms. People need to come up to the desk to have their valet parking validated, and invariably someone will come up to me and ask if I can validate them. So of course I take the queue and say, you're a wonderful person and you'll do great things in life. Some laugh, others just look at me strange. I like walking into a medical office, going up to the registration desk and saying I have an appointment. The lady behind the desk will say which doctor, and I'll say, no, I think he's an MPT. But don't pump get it which doctor MD? Again? If I have to explain them, they're no good. Movies played a big part in all this too. Mel Brooks is a hero of mine with blazing saddles. Ask the end of that suit, Young Frankenstein, he vuzz my boyfriend, and space balls funny, he doesn't look drueish. And the Airplane movies had an impact to I just want to say good luck, We're all counting on you. And then there were the TV sitcoms All in the Family, Get Smart, Hogan's heroes, Red Skelton, Carol Burnet, and the list goes on and on. My father loved Hogan's heroes. He went out and bought our very first color television set just so that he could watch HOGI, as he called him, in color. So my father and I bonded over that show, and my brother and I bonded over Get Smart, another mel Brooks collaboration. Missed it by that much. I mentioned earlier about the volunteer thing I do at the Orlando Health Cancer Institute once a week. I really don't like talking about it much because I don't want people to think that I'm doing it for self aggrandizement. But when someone asked me why I do it, I usually tell them that since I spend one hundred and twenty thousand dollars on cancer treatment, I thought it only fitting that I come back and work for them for free. Wait a minute, I really do it to give myself perspective. I've mentioned before about the boatload of silly little side effects that my cancer treatment has left me to deal with. But spend a day at the Cancer Institute, and I realized that my pitdly little things I whine about are nothing compared to what some are going through. I love it when someone comes out after their last radiation or chemotherapy treatment all smiles, clutching a certificate of completion in their hand after ringing the bell, a tradition at most hospitals. You ring the bell when your course of treatment is done. There's a plaque mounted on the wall next to a bell that reads, ring this bell three times. Well, it's told to clearly say my treatment is done, this course is run, and I am on my way. My wife went through radiation treatments for breast cancer, and my daughter went through both chemo and radiation treatments, so they're familiar with ringing the bell. I got to ring that bell myself in June of twenty twenty three, So been there, done that. We'll live in the world that can be rough, depressing, and chaotic at times. Watch the evening news once in a while and you'll see what I mean. And social media is getting bad most of the time. I hate reading stuff on Facebook. It's either hate filled political junk or propaganda from one political party or another. Also, people tend to use Facebook to regurgitate every little thought that pops up in their heads, and that's a horrible mistake. In most cases, I wind up hiding, ignoring, and unfriending the haters. My mother used to always say, if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all, So I try to restrict my posts to nice things. You can't win a political argument on Facebook. All you do is wind up polarizing your friends. So instead I'll stick to the eye rolling dadisms. So there I am in the middle social media negativity and depressing health news coming at me from one side, and I rolling anecdotes and jokes to lighten things up on the other. Given the choice between the two, I think I can tolerate the eye rolls and the groans and dish out my version of dadisms. I'm jimpulping and that's my view from the Middle. In the next episode, do you know the best way to get someone's attention? Tell them they have cancer the C word. Next on My View from the Middle. Have a story to tell about being in the middle, let us know. Email Jim at my View from the Middle dot com. That's Jim at My View from the Middle dot com.