One day I was talking with my grandson, Casey, and he wanted me to tell him the world’s worst joke. I asked him why the world’s worst joke, and he said he thought it would be funny. I told him I didn’t know any jokes, world’s worst or otherwise, but that I would try to think of some.

That started me thinking about what I thought of humor, what tickled my funny bone. I do love puns, the most sophisticated of art forms that invariably draw groans and the rolling of eyes by people who love to hate them. I love a choice play on words. I love the way a word can be used in a maniacal twist on its normal usage, lending a special meaning through subtle subterfuge, causing delight by sheer surprise as it unfolds in rampant silliness, as something you don’t see coming until it smacks you right between your mind and an outrageous idea. It seems to me that for a book like this jokes should include repetition of a theme to go along with the pun – say a series of funny things juxtaposed, not necessarily repetitive in the specific point made in any given joke, but a recognizable thread woven through each brief play on words.

I don’t recall exactly the machinations my mind went through in this muddling process, but I remember the first joke that came to me that, as it turned out, set the theme and the mode of transportation: Question: “Why did the cow want to go to Hollywood?” Answer: “She wanted to be in the moo-vies.” There it was! The theme, cows – the thread, the cow’s voice.

Then began a time of delicious pleasure delighting grandson Casey and grand-daughter Venice with these play on words one or two at a time until there were some 10-12 of them. They loved them, and as one humor-challenged it was a treat for me to entertain my grandchildren. At the time I didn’t think to write them down, so by the time I got around to setting them to pen and paper, or as my grandchildren would say, fingers to keyboard, I’d forgotten most of them. How- ever, once I got rolling I believe that I picked most of them up as I pulled together this string of word plays.

This book of “The World’s 101 Worst Cow Jokes” was put together in a joint effort by grandchildren Casey, Venice, Xander, Teiya, and me. The puns are mine, and they worked on the diagrams, pictures and artwork mainly, but were helpful in other ways because they enjoyed drawing the images and thankfully chuckled over the puns that went into the overall production.

For those who cherish laughter, we hope these pages will “pun-ish” you with at least a chuckle or two, if not elicit a pained “Arrgh…!” in deference to this, the highest of art forms – Enjoy…!

~ Eugene, OR ~ Summer 2013