"Visitors to my home ask about the saxophone mounted in a shadow box in my living room," says Dale Marks, of Baton Rouge.
"It all started with a night of partying with my wife. It ended with me pulling out my sax from high school band to play some music.
"The next Christmas she had the sax mounted in such a way that I could never take it out again.
"Guess some people don’t appreciate music."
Food for thought
"Can you handle a couple more food-related stories?," asks Gail Stephenson, of Baton Rouge:
"Regarding the squirrel monkeys missing from Zoosiana in Broussard, my husband Joe says the police should be on the lookout for some Cajuns who are preparing 'turmonken' for their Mardi Gras meal.
"Your headline of potatoes as vegetables reminded me of this story:
"Son Scott went through a vegetarian phase when he was in college. He said for many of the girls he knew, a 'starter vegetarian meal' was an order of Cane's fries with extra sauce for dipping."
Choose one
Our series on smoking brought this contribution on how to quit from Richard Mink:
"Back around 1970, when I was discharged from active duty with the Navy, I was a heavy smoker.
"I started in my junior year of high school. Got to be two packs of Camels a day.
"About a year after arriving at my parents house in Normal, Illinois (home of Illinois State University), I realized it was a very bad habit: fingers always yellow, bad breath, headliner in car turning brown, etc.
"But what really got that 23-year-old to stop smoking was when he realized he could afford to buy more beer with the cash saved by not buying tobacco.
"I haven’t smoked for 51 years — except for some 'funny' cigarettes when I was getting my MBA at Tulane in the mid-’70s. But we won’t talk about that, will we?"
That's OK — just so you didn't inhale.
Triple threat
Our mention of typing got this addition from Terry Phillips, of Kenner:
"During World War II, somewhere in Europe, my mom, Inger Phillips, was assigned to type certain classified documents from German to English.
"Not only was she able to type around 100 words per minute, she told me that when reading each German word, she would think of what the translation was in Danish (she's from Denmark), then typed the Danish translation into English. What a feat that was!"
Lucky typist
"One more story about typing," says Don Pekarek, of Slidell:
"In 1957 the typing class was filled with nice-looking girls. So I took the class, and actually learned to type.
"That same year I joined the Marine Corps. Because of my typing proficiency, I was placed in a job involving secret documents that had to be typed with no errors.
"Fast forward to 1961. Because of my secret clearance and typing skill, I was recalled to active duty for the Berlin Crisis.
"Although just married for 67 days, and having no real valuable skills, President Kennedy sent me to France to, I guess, type away.
"This is not a 'no good deed goes unpunished' story however, because Uncle Sam paid for me to go to graduate school when I returned.
"And, best of all, one of those girls in that typing class became my wife for 61 years."
Special People Dept.
Buddy and Suzi Ball, of Donaldsonville, celebrated their 61st anniversary Saturday, Feb. 4.
What old joke?
I have often been accused of using very old jokes. Here is some pretty solid evidence that my accusers are correct:
Elliott Raisen, of Metairie, says, "I am 95 years old. Thanks for the memory. I heard the 'flukie' joke (from Algie Petrere in the Friday column) when I was a teenager in New York."