It is obvious that we are now in a humorless era. Nobody is laughing, even when people who slip on the ice. It is dangerous to bring up a new idea because it would be divisive. I’ll bet if the Republicans came out for sex, the Democrats would be against it. Or vice versa. When nobody was looking, they would both be doing it.

Of course, they are all laughing in Montana, demeaning North Dakota by changing all of the Polish and Norwegian jokes into North Dakota jokes. They have mountains and we have none.

When Dave Barry was in Grand Forks, he noticed that the Valley is very flat. He said there wasn’t much to see and you could see it for 100 miles. Which is partly true – it’s so flat around Grand Forks a person can’t even throw up.

The recent special session of the legislature passed a law against teaching anything about what white people did to black people in history. It passed easily because there was not a single black person in the legislature.

My cousin was in the running for the Ambassadorship in Saudi Arabia. When word got to Washington that he was planning to take a 2-year supply of whiskey and his pet pig, they scratched him from the list of Biden contributors and sent his $10 campaign contribution back.

Facebook seems to have a few atheists who don’t believe in the hereafter. Won’t they be surprised when they step into eternity and there isn’t anyone to meet them? A couple thousand years of counting stars will get as boring as Hell.

As you age, you pick up a lot of wisdom you would have missed had you not aged. Aged means that there is more in the rear-view mirror than in the headlights.

One advantage of old age is that there are always more younger women. The disadvantage is that it all becomes academic.

For the elderly, there is never a day when tomorrow couldn’t be worse. When you are young, a broken hip is healed in a week or two, but when you are old you can forget about saving the last dance for anybody.

I also found that lutefisk is not as bad as it smells. It’s worse.

Our neighborhood philosopher says that if you live every day as your last, you will eventually be right.

I have found that when I move something to a better place I don’t remember where I put it. More often than not, I find myself looking in the refrigerator for the hammer. It was moved to a better place.

If you find you can do something well, don’t do it because everybody will want you to do it. The best way to escape from a boring job is to do it poorly and you will end up in the mailroom.

Sixty-two years ago, I helped write the emergency plan (known as Civil Defense) to defend North Dakota when the Russians came. To be honest, I don’t think they’re coming.

One thing we don’t see on the political scene is compromise. It has become a bad word, even though God was willing to compromise with Abraham over Sodom and Gomorrah. Unfortunately, both towns had small fire departments and everything went up in smoke.

I think the world had better jokes, but I wasn’t there so I borrowed this one: Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach him to fish and he will sit in his boat and drink beer all day.

Lloyd Omdahl is a former lieutenant governor of North Dakota and former political science professor at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.