Past Winners

For Martin Luther King Day, I asked my fifth graders how they’d make the world a better place.

One said, “I’d make potato skins a main dish rather than an appetizer.”

I’m now in high school, so when I ran into my third-grade teacher, I doubted she would remember me.

“Hi, Miss Butcher,” I said.

“Hi, Eddie,” she replied.

“So you do remember me?” I asked.

“Sure. You don’t always leave a good impression, but you definitely leave a lasting one.”

We visited our newly married daughter, who was preparing her first Thanksgiving dinner. I noticed the turkey thawing in the kitchen sink with a dish drainer inverted over the bird. I asked why a drainer covered the turkey.

Our daughter turned to my wife and said, “Mom, you always did it that way.”

“Yes,” my wife replied, “but you don’t have a cat!”

At a restaurant one night, the man at the next table was pulling out all the stops to impress his underwhelmed date.

He crowned a lengthy list of lifetime achievements by stating, “At least I can say I have been a Hollywood movie producer.”

The woman nodded. “I’ll make a note of that: ‘has-been movie producer.'”