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Scots Pines, Islandmore
'Many people never stop to realise that a tree is a living thing, not that different from a tall, leafy dog that has roots and is very quiet.'
If George Burns was the master of the spoken one-liner, then Jack Handey is the master of the written. Here is another of his tree observations:
'If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.'
Jack Handey's comedic writing career took off in 1975 when Steve Martin introduced him to the producer of Saturday Night Live, and in fact he and Martin have collaborated many times since. As I say, he is not a stand-up - he writes for a living, his bestselling work being Deep Thoughts (and the series it spawned), first published by National Lampoon in 1984. The Berkely Publishing edition can still be bought from Amazon affiliates here.
For no very good reason, I may drop in a Jack Handey obseravtion now and then, but for the record, this is one of my favourites:
'When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror, like his passengers.'
If I say that Handey lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, anyone who knows me will understand how I first came across him..
