Day 16 of our 31 Letters Literacy Project is all about FUNNY.

Kids love to read FUNNY stories.  Kids especially love FUNNY stories about people they know.  Crank up your FUNNY FACTOR today… think back to a FUNNY thing that happened to you when you were a kid.  Write about it in a letter!  Letters allow kids to read and re-read… laugh and re-laugh!

Today’s LETTER topic is inspired by a poem we bumped into back on Day 16 of 365 Days of Literacy for Kids, a VERY FUNNY POEM:

Last night I dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere,
they were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my bed.

They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears,
there were chickens, chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see…
when I woke today, I noticed
there were eggs on top of me.

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Can you remember a moment in your childhood that made you LAUGH?!  Write about it in a LETTER and get that letter in the MAIL!

Here is my letter to my grandkids today:

March 16, 2011

Dear ___________________,

Hi, my little darlings!  Have you ever had something FUNNY happen to you?

A FUNNY thing happened to me while doing a Tarzan kind-of swing across a little water hole… well, more like a swamp, when I was 12 years old.

I had moved to Rhode Island from New Hampshire in late August 1965, and had just met some girls my age in my new neighborhood.  There were maybe 5 or 6 of them, and they invited me to head to a water hole kind-of-thing in the woods near my home.  It wasn’t far away… just across the street and a couple of minutes into the woods.  I DID ask my Mom if I could go.  My Mom wasn’t all that excited about me trudging through woods to a “pond” in a new place, but the other girls’ mothers were OK with it and my Mom wanted me to feel comfortable in my new neighborhood.

(Just to be clear, I would have said NO to my kids and I’d say NO to you, too… but back when I was young, kids played in the woods, we rode our bikes far from home, we stayed outside at night in the dark… and we ALWAYS played in GROUPS of kids.  It was really awesome back then.)

Anyway, I was wearing a new pair of shorts that day.  They were what we called madras… a plaid like this:

I LOVED those shorts.  My Mom had bought them for me just before we moved.  Kids were not allowed to wear shorts to school, so I wanted to wear them as much as I could before school started.

So, I headed into the woods in my new madras shorts with my new friends.  The water hole turned out to be just that… a water hole. It wasn’t big or deep or wide.  But it was a hole.  It was a hole with about a foot of water, surrounded with big, shady trees.  The banks of the hole were about 4 feet high.

The first thing I spotted was a big rope with knots tied in it.  The rope was secured to the branch of a big tree.  The branch hung right over the hole.  One of the girls’ Dad had made the Tarzan rope swing and hung it in the tree.

I was so excited to be there, to try the Tarzan rope… all with my new friends.  The first girl backed a few feet from the rope, then ran to it, grabbed it and held onto the knots with her hands and feet as she swung right across that water hole and hopped off on the other side.  Everyone clapped and cheered.  Then the next girl did it.  And the next, and so on.

Then it was my turn.

I backed up, ran to the rope, grabbed it with my hands and heard a loud ripping sound.  The sound distracted me and I missed the knot for my hands.  I slipped down to the feet knot.  Then I slipped right off the rope.  Into the water hole.  SPLASH.

I was up to my knees in swamp water.  And the ripping sound?  My new madras shorts.  I think when I jumped onto the rope, I did it with such force that the seam ripped right up the back.

There was such quiet for a second or two, and then we all began to laugh.  I laughed so hard that I could hardly crawl up the bank of that water hole.  The girls came to my rescue and pulled me up the muddy bank.  I was wet, covered with mud and my new madras shorts were a mess.

But I had the best time.  We kept right on being Tarzan’s Jane all afternoon.  Even in my ripped shorts.  And these girls became my friends that day.

I didn’t end up in the water hole again.  (A couple of the other girls did, though!)  I had figured out how to maneuver that rope swing.  And the madras shorts?  Detergent and my Mom’s sewing machine made them as good as new!

I still laugh when I think of how funny I must have looked slipping off that rope in my ripped madras shorts.  And the best lesson I learned is that I COULD LAUGH AT MYSELF.  It made all the difference that day!

Love forever and ever,

Grandma Couto

P.S.  I had lots of fun on that Tarzan swing, even after that day.  I’m wondering if it’s still there!  Now wouldn’t THAT be funny?!

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MAIL TIDBIT of the DAY: A first-class postage stamp cost a whopping 5 cents in 1965!