All Things Barry!

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From Barry Farber's Best Jokes "There must be some mistake" (the definitive version)

We go now to the Public Affairs Office of Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where the colonel in charge is on the phone with a woman with a very aristocratic accent, who has called from the Charleston area and, after bragging almost incessantly about the refined, courtly and elite girls’ finishing school where she very proudly serves as headmistress, finally gets to her point.

“Colonel,” she importunes, “In early June our school is staging our graduation exercises and it’s quite the posh affair.  The Lieutenant Governor and the Second Lady of South Carolina will be in attendance.  We would be most appreciative if you would kindly dispatch sixty-two of your finest, handsomest soldiers to escort the graduating class at the cotillion.  It’s a highly prestigious and desirable honor to be invited to participate and I do hope you realize that, Colonel.

“All your young men should be no shorter than six-foot-one, cleanly crew-cut and decked out in those splendid summer dress uniforms of yours.  Each will escort his graduating girl, march her arm-in-arm down the aisle, and kiss her gently on the cheek as he releases her to walk through the arch while the orchestra plays the ‘March’ from ‘Aida’.”

“I see nothing impossible here, Ma’am,” said the colonel. “We’ll be pleased and honored to accommodate you. Just give us the date and the details and Fort Jackson will help you bathe in the glory.”

“Oh, marvelous, absolutely marvelous,” she gushed. “We do so much appreciate your cooperation.  And there’s just one more little thing, Colonel. As these girls are all from very aristocratic, upper-class Southern families, please -- no Jews!  Can you assure me that, Colonel?”

“Absolutely, Ma’am,” affirmed the colonel. “I understand perfectly!”

And all the sisters were fair and all the brothers were valiant – until the day of the graduation.  And even the first part of that graduation day went well.  No problem appeared to afflict the high ground of South Carolina aristocracy.

The khaki bus from Fort Jackson pulled up to the impressive white-colonnaded façade of the school’s administration building.  Out stepped sixty-two strikingly handsome, immaculately spit-and-polished young soldiers, led by their sergeant.  Each and every one stood at least six-foot-one, clean-shaven, with close-cropped hair and with perfect posture. Each one was impeccably attired in a perfectly-creased summer dress uniform, with shoes so shiny they were hard to look at without squinting. Each one looked as if he had stepped off a recruiting poster.

And every single one was black – African-American!

Up they marched to the main entrance and the sergeant rang the bell.  The headmistress with the haughty accent took one look at the visitors and immediately almost lapsed into mild cardiac arrest.

“Who…who…who are you?” she managed to stammer.

“We’re your U. S. Army escorts from Fort Jackson, Ma’am,” explained the broadly smiling African-American sergeant.

“Oh, dear me,” she gasped.  “There must be some mistake!”

“Oh, no Ma’am,” confidently assured the sergeant.  

“Colonel Ginsberg doesn’t make mistakes!”

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