I grew up in Pasadena, California, and I told my first joke
at the Sunday dinner table to my family and friends at age 10:
“Hours of happiness, months of pain, out comes little Mary Jane.”
Everybody laughed heartily at the joke—partially at the
fact that I didn’t understand it. My two
older sisters went off to college that same year, and when
they returned on holidays, the family always had joke
sessions around the dinner table. Both sisters married men
who enjoyed humor also, so during family get-togethers,
the storytelling was always the fun part. One of my vocations from 1978 to 1985 was taking surfers
and their girlfriends on 3- to 5-day surf trips to Todos
Santos Island, off Ensenada, Baja California. After guests
ate the dinner that I had prepared, we would gather
around the campfire. I would entertain my guests with
jokes and island surf stories. Today, Todos Santos is one of the most renowned islands
in the world for Big Surf. Ten years ago, I began sending 16-page booklets of humor
every Christmas to family and friends. This is the 11th year
of this tradition, so I decided to include the first 10
booklets, along with many new pages of laughter. To my
dismay, not everyone has a sense of humor—but you can
guess that all of my family and friends do.
