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Here's a true story that you might find interesting. All my life I've been something of a wit, and have very often succumbed to the temptation to make some comical or satirical remark or even tell a joke that straddled the line between what's proper and what's improper. It's just the way I am: I love laughter and will do just about anything to incite it.

One day at work, many, many years ago, I told a joke to my colleagues that went like this: A woman has just given birth to a baby. The doctor comes into the room and says, "Ma'am, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that your baby is nothing but a giant eye." The woman starts up and cries, "Oh my God! What's the bad news?" To which the doctor replies, "The bad news is, it's blind."

Now, I got some chuckles over that, but for some strange reason a very bad feeling came over me after I had told that joke. It was a very subjective thing; just a feeling that somehow the joke wasn't right.

About three weeks later my wife gave birth to a stillborn baby that was horribly deformed.

So even though I like to joke as much as ever I did those forty years ago, I'm a bit more circumspect about it. Just a bit, mind you!