• As president, George Washington earned $25,000 annually. Washington refused to make a profit from the public and made sure his expenses were slightly higher than his salary.
• John Adams was the longest living president. He lived to be 90 years and 9 months.
• James Madison was the smallest president at 5-foot-4-inches and weighing a mere 100 pounds.
• During the Battle of Trent, James Monroe was wounded and lived the remainder of his life with a musket ball in his shoulder.
• At the age of 14, John Quincy Adams was an interpreter and secretary to the U.S. Envoy to Russia. Adams also had a habit of skinny dipping in the Potomac River each morning. A reporter, Anne Royall, followed him one morning and sat on his clothes until he granted her an interview. Adams did answer her questions, standing chin-deep in the river.
• Andrew Jackson's parents were immigrants from Ireland. He was the only president to pay off the national debt.
• Martin Van Buren limited the workday to 10 hours on federal projects. His father ran a tavern in New York where the family lived.
• Sedated only by brandy, James Knox Polk survived gall bladder when he was 17. His father had to hold him down during surgery. Polk had difficulties reading until he was 18 years old.
• Zachary Taylor didn't vote in any election until he was 62 years old. His favorite horse, "Whitney," roamed the White House lawn.
• Franklin Pierce tried unsuccessfully to buy Cuba from Spain.
• Chester Alan Arthur suffered from Bright's disease, a kidney ailment. The public was never told.
• John Tyler fathered 15 children, more than any other president.
• The Gettysburg Address took little more than a minute to read.
• Ulysses Simpson Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant but changed his name because he disliked his initials, "H.U.G."
• William Howard Taft was the first president to throw an opening pitch at a baseball game.
• Jimmy Carter studied nuclear physics at Annapolis.
• George Herbert Walker Bush was sworn in using the same bible George Washington had used more than 200 years before.
• Ronald Reagan saved 77 people from drowning as a lifeguard.
  *** Information for "Presidential Trivia" was gathered from Grolier's Encyclopedia, Encarta Encyclopedia and the official White House Web site.

REALLY BAD MUSICIAN JOKES

How do you get a singer's eyes to sparkle? Put a flashlight in his ear.

How can you tell when a singer is at the door? He knocks but he never comes in.

How many folk singers does it take to change a light bulb? 5... One to change the bulb and 4 to write songs about the old one.

How many singers does it take to screw in a light-bulb?: One! she simply holds it up and the world revolves around him/her!

A musician dies and goes to heaven, and St. Peter is there to greet him. The musician says, "St. Pete, are any gigs up here? Any bands I can get into?" St. Pete says, "Yeah, we've got the greatest rock 'n roll band anywhere, we've got Jimi Hendrix on guitar, John Bonham on drums, Phil Lynott on bass... you know, all the greats..." The musician says, "Great! This band will kick ass!" St. Pete says, "Well, there is ONE little catch... You see, God's got this girlfriend..."

How do you tell when your lead singer is at the door? He can't find the key, and doesn't know when to come in.

What's the inscription on dead blues-singers' tombstones? I didn't wake up this morning...

A jazz pianist is doing a gig with a singer. Before the first number, he says to her, "I want you to do the first four bars in E flat, the second four in A flat, and the last eight in 3/4 time." The singer looks at him and says, "How do you expect me to do that?" "You did it last night," he answers.

What's the difference between a dead snake and a dead accordion player in the middle of the road? The snake was going to a gig.

What is the definition of perfect pitch? When someone tosses a banjo in the dumpster and it lands on an accordion!!

What's the difference between an accordion and a trampoline? You don't have to take off your shoes before you jump on an accordion.

What do you call a musician without a girlfriend? Homeless.

What's the difference between a musician and a 14" pizza? A 14" pizza can feed a family of 4.

What's brown and found on a piano bench? Beethoven's last movement.

How do you get a harmonica player off your porch? Pay for the pizza.

What is the difference between a sax solo and a lawn mower? The lawn mower is less repetitive.

How many Soundmen does it take to screw in a light bulb? None, Soundmen don't do lights.

What happens if you play country music backwards? You sober up, get a job, and your wife comes back.

What do you call a guy with no arms or legs who can play 5 musical instruments? Stump the band.

There's a five pound note on the floor. Which of a thrash guitarist, a drummer who keeps good time and a drummer who keeps bad time picks it up? The drummer who keeps bad time. The other drummer doesn't exist and the thrash guitarist doesn't care about notes anyway.

How many roadies does it take to change a light bulb? One Two, One Two, One Two...

How many punk-rock musicians does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to screw in the bulb and the other to smash the old one one his forehead.

Why did the punk rocker cross the road? Because he stapled himself to the chicken.

Hey, buddy, how late does the band play? Oh, about half a beat behind the drummer.

What do you say to an Jazz graduate with a job? I'll have a hamburger, please.

What's the difference between a singer-songwriter and a savings bond? Eventually the savings bond will mature and earn some money.

A BIZARRE DEATH

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS president, Dr. Don Harper Mills, astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story:

On March 23, 1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to that effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "A person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide." That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.

The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Mister Opus. When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B.

When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was his long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore, the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun, threateningly loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was in fact Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.