Mixed Bits

Funny: How Jack Handey would like to be remembered

“We are gathered here, way far in the future, for the funeral of Jack Handey, the world’s oldest man. He died suddenly in bed, according to his wife, Miss France.

No one is really sure how old Jack was, but some think he may have been born as long ago as the twentieth century. He passed away after a long, courageous battle with honky-tonkin’ and alley-cattin’.

Even though Jack was incredibly old, he was amazingly healthy right up to the end. He attributed this to performing his funny cowboy dance for friends, relatives, and people waiting for buses. All agreed it was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen, and not at all stupid or annoying.

Jack’s death has thrown the whole world into mourning, and not in a fakey, sarcastic way. He was admired by people of all ages and stripes, and by all animals, including zebras. Even monsters liked him. He had his playful side and his serious side, but ninety-nine per cent of the time he had his “normal” side.

He started out life as a baby but worked his way up to an adult. But even when he was a full-grown adult he never forgot that he was a baby. His philosophy of life was a simple one. “I’m-a no look-a for trouble, because-a trouble, she’s-a no good,” he would often say, in his beloved fake Italian accent. He was quick with a laugh, but just as quick to point at what he was laughing at. Children loved him, but not in the way his teen-age niece claimed. He was always thinking of ways of helping people, and was wondering how he might do some of those things when he died.

Jack was an expert in so many fields, it’s hard to say what he was best at: the arts, the sciences, or the businesses. If you talked to him at a party, you couldn’t tell; he seemed to know it all. He has been compared to Captain James Cook, and not just because he was severely beaten by some Hawaiians, and to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and not just because he liked to be driven around in a jeep.

As hard as it is to believe, he never sold a single painting during his lifetime, or even painted one. Some of the greatest advances in architecture, medicine, and theatre were not opposed by him, and he did little to sabotage them…”

The whole piece in the New Yorker