A grandfather in High Shoals, North Carolina, thought about quitting Powerball. His wife talked him out of it. He then won $250,000 with the family birthdays he always plays. When he called her with the news, she told him not to lie.

A woman asked a store clerk for an alarm clock. She wanted it to wake the girl and not the family.

— from More Toasts, 1922, retold. Got one worse than that? Hit reply.

Small pool, large goose, zero regrets.

Seen something funnier? Reply with a picture you took — a dog in a hat, a sign gone wrong, whatever made you laugh this week.

October 15, 1964: Craig Breedlove drove the jet-powered Spirit of America across the Bonneville Salt Flats, a flat white desert in Utah. His 526 mph run was the first over 500. The old record was 434 mph, set ten days earlier. On the return run the braking parachute failed. The car skidded five miles, ran through telephone poles, and stopped in a pond. Breedlove climbed out wet and unhurt.

Also today: In 1956, IBM released the first manual for FORTRAN, a language for writing computer programs. The manual arrived six months before the compiler, the tool that makes the language run. Instructions came first.

In April 1964, how many of the top five songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 were by the Beatles?

A) Two
B) Three
C) Four
D) All five

Answer’s at the very bottom. Try it first. 👀

Mike Carranza was a letter carrier in Frontenac, Missouri, near St. Louis, for 41 years. Before he retired, he put one more letter in every mailbox on his route. It told his neighbors he was retiring at the end of the month.

The neighbors wrote back with balloons and handmade signs. A crowd was waiting when his truck turned onto the street. He was known for stopping the truck to toss treats to the dogs on his route. Resident Sarah Oberman said, “He knows which dog will grab the other one.”

That is more than 10,000 workdays on one route, at about 250 a year. “First of all, he greets you well. Like you are his best friend,” said neighbor Tricia Phillipe.

Keep smiling,
The Distraction Desk

D — All five. That week the Beatles had 12 songs on the whole Hot 100, from number one down to number 79.

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