A city couple was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary at a nice party. Friends marvelled at the fact that two people could stay together that long. One friend asked the husband, “Elmer, how in the world did you and your wife stay together for 50 years? What’s your secret?”

“Well,” says Elmer, “we both like to go out on occasion; for example, we eat out every week, on Tuesday and Saturday. We go to this great little Italian restaurant. My wife goes on Tuesday, and I go on Saturday.”

Then there was the couple living on a farm, celebrating their 50th anniversary. “Jeb,” asked another farmer, “how in the world did you manage to stay married this long without major combat?”

“Well, sir,” began Jeb the farmer, “it’s like this: When we married, I owned this little farm, a gun, and an old horse. I walked the horse ten miles to town to get married. Walked her ’cause it was hot, and she was so old. So my bride and I get hitched, and I put her on the old mare, and I start to lead the old mare back to my farm, ten miles away. And boy, was it hot!

“Couple miles out of town, that old horse stumbles and falls, throws my bride in her pretty white gown right down to the ground. I pick up my bride. Then I pull the horse up, look her in the eye, and I says, ‘That’s once.’

“We move on, and a mile or so later, the old horse falls again, gets my bride all hurt and bruised and dusty. I pick ‘em both up, look the horse in the eye, and tell ‘er: ‘That’s twice.’

“Would you believe, not a mile later, that dumb old mare falls again! My bride is dirty, hot, hurt, and fumin’. That horse is just layin’ on the ground. I look her in the eye, and I say, ‘That’s three times! Then I shoot her in the head!

“Derned if my bride didn’t start screamin’ and hollerin’ at me, and scoldin’ me….. So I look my bride in the eye, and I says, ‘That’s once!’

“Ain’t never heard another coarse word from that woman in 50 years.”