"Today is a day that will live in infamy," President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared in 1941.
He was speaking of the surprise attack on the U.S. Naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The day, Dec. 7, and the event it commemorates has special significance for me, as well.
For on and around the annual commemoration of the attacks that brought the United States into World War II, I've been telling a joke that my long-deceased veteran father taught me. For most of my 44 years, I've cracked myself up with the joke, which I always imagined to be a real side-splitter.
But in recent years, I've realized that the audience for the joke, just like the audience for those innumerable "Hitler's Secrets" shows on the History Channel, has dwindled. So have the laughs whenever I approach a group of young people and ask, "Did you hear the one about the guy who was half-black and half-Japanese⢠Yeah, every Dec. 7, he attacks Pearl Bailey."
In the 1970s, when I told this to my junior high school teachers, you could hear their laughter over the roar of a prop-driven torpedo bomber.
For most of the 1980s, the joke was a hit at family gatherings where I could count on running into at least a couple aunts and uncles old enough to remember Pearl Bailey.
But like most people who mistakenly think they're funny, I hadn't noticed that most of the people interested in musty old World War II jokes are now enjoying Bob Hope's performances in the afterlife.
Not that the mortality of the World War II generation has stopped me.
Just last week, I visited the motorcycle dealership where my wife works, and unfurled this stinker of a two-liner to her staff. The mostly 20-something men just sort of shuffled when they heard the punch line, most of them suddenly developing a deep interest in the tops of their shoes.
In a vain attempt to make me feel less like Sarah Silverman at an FCC hearing, one of them piped up.
"Yeah, Pearl Harbor. That's that Ben Affleck flick where he shoots down those planes, right⢠Dude, that was one cool movie," he offered weakly.
Actually, "Pearl Harbor" the movie was just as corny and outdated as my favorite joke. According to most critics, it was received about as well.
So from this day forward, I'm officially retiring my Pearl Bailey joke. World War II had enough bombs.
