John Wayne
John Wayne
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John Wayne Stole My Joke
by Ron Coleman
Years ago when I was in my twenties I worked for Western Union Telegraph Company as a teletype operator. The one thing I hated about the job was when I had to deliver singing telegrams. This was usually done by telephone and I was not especially proud of my singing voice.
I was working for the telegraph office in Hayward, California and we had a regular customer who was a bit eccentric. We'll call her Mrs. M. Mrs. M would call in and dictate long, rambling, non-sensical telegrams to the Pope, the President, her Congressman, and anybody else who happened to annoy her. These telegrams went on sometimes for several pages and didn't make a lot of sense. The girls in our office hated to take these telegrams from her because she was sometimes a little abusive with them as well. But she was one of our better customers. The telegrams were charged by the word and her telegrams would sometimes run over $100. As I said she was a little eccentric, but she was also wealthy.
I didn't mind talking to her and the girls in the office hated it, so I made them a deal. If they would handle any singing telegrams we got, I would handle the calls from Mrs. M.
Years later I was working as a backlot timekeeper for Paramount Pictures. I told some of my co-workers about this experience and they found it quite amusing. As we started joking about it, we came up with a funny joke based on my experiences. The joke got told and was soon passed on all around the movie studio lot.
A few more years later after I had left my job at Paramount, I was watching a program on TV and John Wayne was a guest star. He did something I had never seen him do before -- he told a joke. To my surprise, it was the joke my friends and I had created years earlier.
Although I met a lot of stars when I worked at Paramount, I never had the honor of meeting John Wayne. I was very flattered, though, to see that he liked my joke. Here, for your enjoyment, is the joke that John Wayne stole from me and my friends:
A woman was sitting in her home when she heard a knock on the door. She got up and found a telegraph delivery man at her doorway. As he was explaining he had a telegram for her, she got very excited.
"Oh boy, sing it to me!" she exclaimed.
"Oh ma'am, I couldn't do that," the delivery man replied.
"Don't be bashful," she said. "Please sing it to me! I insist!"
"Well, okay" he said. And he burst out into song:
"La, da, ta, da, da, da! Your sister Rose is dead."
About the Author
Ron Coleman has been a freelance cartoonist and writer for over 40 years. His work has appeared in hundreds of magazines, newspapers, books and on the internet. Samples of his work can be seen at his website:
http://www.colemantoons.com
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