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With Spring in the air, or as we call this time of year in Minnesota, “Sorta-Summer”, my kids end up wearing their winter clothes while outside, but it’s much warmer indoors. So, whenever they come home, they don’t just shed their coats and winter pants when they enter the doorway… there is a clothing explosion!
“We’re home!” BOOM!! (coats fly behind the sofa, there’s a tasseled beanie impaled into to the wall).
It’s truly frightening. And then, later, not a single one of my kids can find any of their winter-wear in order to go back outside.
“I can’t find my left boot!”
“It’s here in the refrigerator. How did it get in the fridge?”
I think this happens due to physics. Think about it – it takes the kids about ten minutes to get dressed and prepare to go outside. That’s a lot of clothed-up energy being stored within those layers of sweaters and coats for a long, long time. So, when all that energy finally explodes at our entryway, you don’t want to be nearby.
This also explains why the lost-and-found at their school is the largest flea market known to man. Their poor teachers witness these clothing explosions multiple times a day times thirty students!
Next, my friend Karen Bankhead joins the show from beautiful Redondo Beach, CA. Her “friend” Etta Mae Mumphries – the black Forrest Gump – has a lot to say about everybody these days. She’s pitching a movie – a sequel to Straight Outta Compton that she’s calling Straight Outta Kaiser. It’s a cliffhanger centered around Kaiser Permanente Hospital.
But, it’s hard for a senior-citizen-of-color to date these days, so Etta Mae has taken to online dating. According to Etta Mae, she’s been waiting to exhale for so long, she just calls it asthma. But, she’s trusting that God will provide and doing all she can to keep a great attitude – even her blood type is B-positive. And, if you’d like to “be positive” like Etta Mae, check out her website!
Next, Comedian Nazareth calls into the show. My days are always brighter whenever I get to hear his voice. He performs all over these days – clubs, colleges, churches…even prisons. He’s Nazareth, my favorite comedian out of Kuwait!
He actually was originally from Israel, then his family moved to Kuwait when he was three-years-old. So, he went from kosher Israel, where the Jews do not eat pork to kosher Kuwait where Muslims don’t eat pork. So, out of rebellion, he started smoking ham at age nineteen. Regrettably, this led to doing harder things like smoking Canadian Bacon before too long. Before he knew it, he was foraging for bacon bits in dark alleys.
At one point, he was trying to smoke a pig… but then the pigs showed up (the cops). That’s when he learned to do it Hawaiian style and cook it underground. This is what drew him to America! Thank God for our American freedom of religion and Nazareth’s Christian faith… he can now eat a bacon cheeseburger and still go to heaven!
He actually loved America since he was ten-years-old, so when it came time for college, his parents sent him to the University of Toledo. Why Toledo? Because every time his parents saw Americans getting off their tour buses, they assumed there must be lots of Christians in the Ohio town since each person would look around and exclaim, “Holy Toledo!”
As I said, these days, Nazareth is making people laugh all over the world. Recently, he visited a Wounded Warriors hospital in Germany. He had no idea how he could entertain the troops he might meet, but he just kept praying that God would use him. The first guy he met had just lost his leg in Afghanistan. Nazareth didn’t know what to say, other than, “Where are you from? What will you do next?”
The soldier answered that he was from Chicago, but that he wanted to go back to the battlefield and fight alongside his brothers-in-arms. All Nazareth could think of as a reply was, “Well, that’s good, because at least in Afghanistan you know who is shooting at you. If you were to go back to Chicago, you’d never know. It could be the gangs, it could be the cops, it could be the politicians or an ex-girlfriend… you never know who is packing there!”
No matter where he is, or who he is speaking to, Nazareth is constantly spreading a message of hope! You can join him by visiting LaughterForAll.org