Though there’s no way to prove it without a time machine, I think I started telling jokes in first grade. I was driven to it, since there was nothing else funny to be had within the Petrova school’s hallowed halls.

By second grade I knew enough jokes, puns, riddles and word play to keep myself amused for hours, and to even amuse some of my fellow prisoners. As for trying to make the teacher’s laugh? I knew better than to even give it the ole grade school try.

Unlike everything else I started as a kid, my joke telling stayed with me and, depending on who I’m with at the time, has become either my best asset or my worst flaw. But either way, it (and I) never takes a break.

Q: When is a door not a door?

A: When it’s ajar.

In second grade I understood Life’s Essential Truth. It is making people laugh makes them feel good, and as a result, two things happen: One, they relax. And two, if they’re laughing, they’re not scowling, snarling or snapping, or doing anything to mess up either my psyche or my corpus. Thus making people laugh became my raison d’etre, sine qua non, and several other states of existence better described in foreign languages.

Did you hear about the butcher who back into a meat grinder and got a little behind in his work? By my mid-teens I had my joke-telling chops down and could swap jokes with the best of them — including grown-ups (that is, MALE grown-ups: Back in those more innocent times, I thought only men liked jokes, that women and girls were too refined for such a base activity.)

And so it went with my joke-telling — through high school, college, the Navy, work, till today, and hopefully into tomorrow … and beyond.

I’m reading a book on the history of glue and can’t put it down.

The interesting thing about jokes is how we used to learn new ones, which was from other people. And where did those folks learn them? From other folks as they came into town (but who knows from where). So Jones would hear a new joke; he’d tell Smith, who in turn would tell Jackson, who then … etc. As I recall, I heard a new joke about every two weeks. Essentially, jokes flowed into town like water from an artesian spring. But about 15 years ago the spring ran dry.

The drought was caused by cell phones, social media, Instagram and the like. People stopped telling each other jokes because they pretty much stopped talking to each other. They may text, message, Instagram, or even send messages by ESP, but they almost never actually talk in depth. A perfect example (and not a unique one): In Nori’s yesterday there were three people sitting at the table next to me, and in front of each one was a laptop and a cellphone. I’m sure you can figure out how much actual talking to each other took place.

So if the conversation we ancients used to know is kaput, and joke telling along with it, will people telling jokes to each other ever come back? It may … but only through the effort of someone possessing the power and persistence of one of the Greek gods — Hercules or Prometheus, for example.

And this raises three questions.

One, does such a person even exist?

Two, if he does, where does he live?

And three, even if we found him, would he be willing to take on such a daunting mission?

The answer to the first question is Yes. The answer to to the second one is My Home Town. And the answer to the third one is Yes.

And this brings up a fourth and most important question, namely who is he?

I’ll keep you in suspense no longer: It is li’l ole me!

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Bean.

Bean who?

Bean there, done that.

That’s right, folks, joke telling may be circling the drain, but I’m not gonna let it go down. In fact, I’m gonna make it alive and well — at least for one glorious day a mere six months hence.

And how, you ask, will I do that?

Ultimately, I won’t do anything … but my fellow townies will at Winter Carnival 2025’s newest event, The Chucklehead Hoedown.

Which raises yet another question: What, pray tell, is The Chucklehead Hoedown?

TCH will be half open mike and half wannabe Vaudeville. It’ll be held SL’s premier stage, the Garagery, and will be open to anyone who wants to try their hand at being a born-again Henny Youngman.

It’ll be a round robin of joke-telling, so every participant will get introduced and tell their joke. Then the next person will do the same, and so on till everyone has told one joke. After the thunderous applause dies down, there’ll be a second round, and this will continue till we run out of either jokes or time.

People will be able to sign up, both ahead of time and the day of the event. Specific details will be forthcoming when I figure them out.

The admission fee will be perishable food items, and all performers will get one free mocktail, complements of himself, himself — Big Daddy Harris.

You hear about the hipster who wouldn’t drink his coffee because it just wasn’t cool enough?

I’ll be the MC, aided by my partner in crime, Bruce “Screw Loose” Young, and there’ll be sporadic musical fanfare from the golden horn of Steve “The Shtarke in a Parka” Erman.

Some specific vital details about the Hoedown:

This is an exclusively joke-telling event, and it’ll feature only clean jokes. If you’ don’t know if a joke is appropriate, it probably isn’t. But don’t sweat it — the world (especially the internet is chockful of clean, and funny, jokes.

Furthermore, this will be a venue for jokes only, which can include the classic build-to-a-punchline jokes, puns, riddles and knock-knocks. It is NOT the place for stand-up, improv, personal anecdote, or shaggy dog stories.

Finally, all jokes should be a minute or less. When it comes to comedy, like almost all performance, less is more.

More info will be given as we get closer to Carnival.

And let’s keep in mind The Chucklehead Hoedown’s motto, which is … “Where yuks are better than bucks!”