Arizona Humor

rizona Humor Superstition Trail Ride

A young man named Brady was one of the wranglers on a week-long trail ride that I made through the Superstition Mountains last April. He was quite a horseman, but on the ground he seemed a bit uncoordinated.

One evening the outfitter asked Brady to hang a lantern by the tarp that shaded the kitchen.

At breakfast the next morning, the outfitter announced the lantern would have to be moved. Because it gave plenty of light, someone asked why. "Well," said the outfitter, "last night three people ran into the lighted lantern, and two of them was Brady."

Refueling Stop

While traveling through Arizona on vacation several years ago, we stopped in Globe to gas up our Winnebago. The whole family, including six children, piled out and headed for pop machines and rest rooms.

Except our youngest son, Jim, our six year old who answered to the name Winkie. He headed for the office. Winkie collected road maps and made obtaining one his first priority at gas station stops.

But eventually we finished filling the gas tank and were on the road again. We had gone about 15 miles when we saw a sign that said, Winkleman 20 Miles.Suddenly we realized Winkie was not with us. A few minutes later we were back at the gas station, and there, sitting beside the pumps, was a very sullenlooking boy.

After our hugs and apologies, Winkie looked up at me with the map tucked under his arm and said, "That gas man told me this was a nice place to grow up."

The Wrong Accent

While teaching elementary school on the Navajo reservation, I was visited by a friend's mother who had a thick German accent.

Shortly after her departure we fell into the habit of saying "Ya, ya," in friendly mimicry.

I absentmindedly uttered this a few times in my classroom, and noticed that when I did some of the Navajo children would grimace and make sidelong glances at each other's hair.

Later the custodian informed me that ya in Navajo means "head lice."

Unexpected Language

When my wife and I pulled off the highway near Holbrook for a bite of lunch, we did not expect to encounter the French language.

After we'd studied the menu, my wife asked the waitress, "What's the soup du jour?"

"Just a minute," she replied, tucking her pencil behind her ear, "and I'll ask the cook."

A moment later she came back to our table and said, "It's the soup of the day."

God's Country

As a Trailways bus driver, I once overheard a passenger from back East ask as we left Lordsburg, New Mexico, bound for Tucson: "I wonder why this town got the name Lordsburg?"

Another passenger, an oldtimer evidently from Arizona, responded, "It's been said that only God would have anything to do with this dry country. But just wait until you get to Arizona, and you'll really see God's country."

"You mean," said the Easterner, "God is the only one who'll have anything to do with Arizona, too?"

Stepping Up in Class

Smoky and Slim had come to Phoenix from the Lazy Y right after payday. Usually when in Phoenix the boys ate at Joe's Place, but this day they were seated in Pierre's, drawn by a compelling interest in finding out how the "other half" lives.

Menu in hand, Smoky observed that he couldn't make much out of the restaurant's bill of fare, which contained such things as hors d'oeuvres, frog legs, escargot, and caviar.

Slim, more a man of the world (he had traveled as far as Fort Worth), was helping Smoky with his order.

"You can't go wrong with the frog legs, snails, and fish eggs," Slim said, "but I'd draw the line at those horse doovers."

Love and Commitment

Seated at a truck stop on Interstate 40, I couldn't help overhearing this conversation at the next table: She: "You're always telling me you love me. Yet every time the idea of marriage comes up you change the subject. Why are you so afraid of commitment?"

He: "Honey, just take a look at that plate of ham and eggs you're eating. The chicken was involved. The pig was committed."

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