R.Loeffelbein's OFFBEAT GOLF COLUMN: "Paper and Pencil Golf"

     Golf addicts often find time on their hands, like waiting out the weather in a hotel room, trapped in an airport lounge or even awaiting call to tee off. As a former community recreation director I was often called upon to innovate new games for waste-times like these. I did a three-handed pinochle game once and now I have a paper-and-pencil golf game for players who can't get onto the golf course.
     The game's tools are simple: five dice and an unused score card, or any piece of paper that can be marked up to simulate one, and a pencil or pen. Roll the five dice for high count to determine players' order of play.
     A game consists of 18 turns for each player, one turn per hole. Lowest total for 18 holes is the winner.
     Two different methods are used to score, one applying to holes 1 through 6 and the other for 7 through 18.
     Holes 1 through 6 cannot be scored until the dice have been rolled enough times so the number of the hole has shown on three of them. At each roll the number 1's can be held out from following rolls until three of them have been rolled. The number of rolls it takes to get three 1's is the roller's score for that hole. If it takes five rolls, you score a five for that hole.
     This same process goes on for holes 2 through 6.
     Holes 7 through 18 are scored by counting the number of rolls needed for the dice to show the number of the hole being played. For example, to hole out number 7 you could roll a 6 and a 1 on the first roll, for a birdie, or two 2's on the first roll and a 3 on the second roll, for a score of 2, etc. If a 7 total is not reached in ten rolls, mark a 10 as your score for that hole and pass the dice to the next player..
     Players may roll for any hole not already played during each turn, and do not have to tell the other players what hole they are playing until all rolls have been completed. However, the scores they make must be marked in the correct spots for a given hole on a given turn. For example, if the player ends up claiming a nine on four rolls, his score of 4 must be placed for the #9 hole. Limit again is 10 rolls. Add up scores for 18 holes. Low count wins.

    Now, if this is too complicated for anyone, I suggest they skip the game and go straight to the 19th hole!
    

R. Loeffelbein's WHATCHAMA COLUMN: "Did You Really Think the Dumb Blonde Jokes Were Dead?"

     The man is driving along a highway and sees a rabbit jumping across the road in front of his car. He swerves to avoid hitting it but, as rabbits are prone to do, it reverses right in front of the car and is hit.
     The driver, a sensitive man and an animal lover, stops the car and pulls over to see what has happened to the rabbit. To his dismay, the rabbit is clearly dead. The driver tears up he feels so bad about this accident.
     A beautiful blonde woman, driving down the same road, sees the man's tearful demeanor and pulls her car over, steps out and asks him what is wrong.
     "I feel terrible," he explains. "I couldn't avoid hitting this rabbit," which he indicates by pointing.
     "Don't worry," the blonde tells him before running to her car and pulling out a spray can. Then she walks over to the limp body of the rabbit, bends down and sprays it.
     The rabbit jumps up, waves a paw at the two of them and hops on down the highway. When it is ten feet away it stops, turns around and waves again. Hopping down the road another ten feet, he stops, turns and waves again. It repeats this sequence again and again until it's out of sight.
     The man is tanding there, astonished. He asks the blonde, "What the heck is in that can?"
     The blonde turns the can so he can read the label, "Hair Spray. Restores life to dead hair and adds a permanent wave."

April Foolish!

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R. Loeffelbein's WHATCHAMA COLUMN: "Classic April Fools"

     The only April Fools I saw this year was on TV's America's Home Videos. Is this an annual hi-jinks that has gone passe on us? That would be a total shame.
     At 92 I can still remember the first one my 9-year old buddy and I pulled. I'm sure you won't think much of it, but, at the time, we had a great laugh at how clever we were. We phoned a neighborhood grocery where our families shopped and we knew the owner and his clerks. We asked the phone answerer, "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" He answered, "Of course." And we gave him the zinger, "Well, let him out now." And we hung up and giggled wildly at the supposed consternation at the other end of the phone.
     Today this probably needs more explanation. You see, Prince Albert was - and still may be, for all I know - a popular pipe tobacco marketed in pocket-fitting tin canisters..
     The end of this story played out differently from what we expected, though. Next time in the store the clerk told me had recognized my voice and, already having heard this same April foolishness several times that day as well as on previous April Fool's Days, he just went along with it so callers like us wouldn't be disappointed.
     Reader's Digest helped curb my disappointment in this lack this year. The magazine printed four classic April Fool gags from past years, all showing fine imagination, as well as the fact that a great many people are still pretty darn gullible.
     The magazine printed one of my all-time favorites, one I used in a column way back in 1997. Burger King had a big ad published about the new Whopper they were featuring, designed especially for left-handers. And the BK shops nationwide sold thousands of them! A straight-faced explanation of the difference to me was, "We've rotated the ingredients 180 degrees."
     My favorite from the previous year was taken so seriously that angry constituents actually forced then-Senator Edward Kennedy's office to officially deny the rumor that he was sponsoring a bill "to ban drinking while using the Internet".
     In year 2000 it was the British tabloid, the Daily Mail, that had the classic. The extolled a line of socks that "sucked body fat out of sweating feet", with this excess fat stored within the material so exercisers could then just dispose of the sox and fat.
     But the gag that showed the true gullibility of the populace came from the Swiss Tourism Board in 2000. They reported that members of the Swiss Association of Mountain Climbers scaled their Alps regularly to scrub and polish them. A video allegedly showing the cleaners at work was so popular that scores of people took the online test to see if they qualified to join the cleaning team!