"During bomb drills, we students were told..." - Quote by Dave Barry
During bomb drills, we students were told to crouch under our desks. Apparently the desks used in classrooms in the fifties were made of an exceptionally missile-resistant variety of wood. During the Cold War years I often wondered why it never occurred to our defense planners to protect the entire nation from nuclear attack by simply covering it, from sea to shining sea, with a huge Strategic Classroom Desk.
More by Dave Barry
“He's a boating enthusiast, although that phrase seems too weak to describe the level of his interest, kind of like describing someone as a heroin fancier.”
“Here in the news media, our focus is on speed. When we get hold of some new and possibly inaccurate information, our highest priority is to get it to you, the public, before our competitors do. If the news media owned airlines, there would be a lot less concern about how many planes crashed, and a lot more concern about whose plane hit the ground first.”
“Murphy's golden rule: Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.”
More on Humor
“I travel with a boom box. When I get on a plane, I stuff the power cord for the boom box into the battery compartment. From an outsider's point of view, it looks like I've got it all wrong.”
“I've gained a few pounds around the middle. The only lower body garments I own that still fit me comfortably are towels.”
“A man without a mustache is a man without a soul.”
More on History
“It seems as if an age of genius must be succeeded by an age of endeavour; riot and extravagance by cleanliness and hard work.”
“The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin.”
“All the people who fought for freedom were my heroes. I mean, that was the sort of story I liked reading... freedom struggles and so on.”