My father was a teacher for close to 30 years---which is to say he knew a little about working a crucial, demanding, rewarding job at a salary that ranked just above Circus Peanuts and just below Chopped Liver. He spent the first half of his career in the Iowa school system ( Independence, IA) and taught his final years in Pinedale, Wyoming, where he was the resident sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade Science teacher.

He also knew a little bit about cheese.

If you had known my father you might have said about him "he was a shy, quiet man, with a sense of humor that sneaked up on you". You would have been correct. He was definitely a quiet man (that is, when he wasn't singing); the newspaper headlines that reported his death called him "Gentle Giant".

Recently my sister sent me a document that compiled 30-40 of my father's daily attendance notes to the main office at his school. At the time, Pinedale's population was around 900 (1000 if you counted all the nervous sheep). Hardly a metropolis. A graduating class would have, perhaps, 40-50 kids; a typical classroom for first period, 15 or 16 students. The daily attendance sheets served a dual purpose:

1. An attendance count.

2. A report on how many of the kids would be doing lunch at the school lunchroom (one that serviced grades 1-12).

On most days, my father saw fit to spice up things a notch above the ordinary, a degree or two past mundane (and more than a click or two into cheesy). I decided to share a few lactose gems from the daily sheets:

Eleven for banana cream pie at the Ptomain Room. Side orders of Salmonella.

Ten for lunch at the Eclipse Room. After dinner we have arranged a guided tour of the kitchen grease traps.

Seven will brunch today at the Yum Yum Room, overlooking Pinedale's scenic parking meter.

Sixteen for lunch at the Steamed Clam Room. Q: How do you steam a clam? A: Tell him his mother wears Army boots.

Four orders for the #3 special* at the Bison Room overlooking scenic downtown Pinedale's cattle ramp. *Note: the #3 special of buffalo broth and potato chips is NOT to be confused with the #4 regular consisting of buffalo chips and potato broth.

Nine lunches at the school cafeteria......in Casper.

Seven for lunch at The Trough where the motto is: "Food just like Mom used to make (only she didn't s**t in it).

These notes became legendary, or at least infamous. You have to understand, it wasn't just that my dad didn't wear a lampshade, he didn't even go to the office party. He was a great teacher, and for the most part he was all business (when I had him in school, I had to call him "Mr. Guthrie"). Tough but fair, most would say--the kind of teacher that you might have felt at the time was a little hard on you, but one you would later remember differently.

When he died, we received cards from former students and former students' parents that all said essentially the same thing: Mr. Guthrie was a teacher that made a difference. At his public service, the elementary school choir sang Wind Beneath My Wings; teachers, administrators, and students all spoke.

Looking at these little quips, hand-written on the original attendance sheets, I knew they weren't hilarious---they were never going to end up in a Bill Cosby routine---but when taken in the context of a mostly-serious Science teacher---coming from a father who wasn't much on walking outside the lines of conventionalism---they warmed my heart.

You see, I was the guy to get up and crack off the latest joke in front of the crowd; forever hamming it up in front of the 8mm home movie camera. Turns out my father loved a good comedy too, and appreciated a lot of the same things I found funny. Years into adulthood, we would both laugh at Saturday Night Live. There were times he would even laugh at my brother and me when we let loose with our goofy antics, home from college for the holidays.

But I didn't always see him that way. There was one glimpse, however, much earlier in my life---when I was ten or eleven; a small clue that later helped me realize how much the two of us really had in common.

In one of my recent blogs I mentioned a stack of albums that I was allowed to take into my room and listen to on my crappy little turntable. What I didn't mention is that there were a couple of comedy albums in that pile, one of which was George Carlin's second album, FM & AM. I'm not sure if you are a Carlin fan or not (or if you are like me and think his stuff has gotten a little angry and political over the years), but if you want to hear him when he was at his best---almost totally clean and old school funny---this is the album.

I would laugh until the tears flowed and my gut felt like it was going to collapse unto itself. My crappy turntable was always set to pick the needle up and play that record again and again, the 1970's version of repeat. It never occurred to me then---beyond the boyish curiosity that my dad had such a cool album---what a sense of humor he must have had at his core.

So in tribute to my father's jeweled, if not cheese-free, sense of humor, and to all you poets out there, I will finish with a poem from one of Jeff Guthrie's favorite routines; a track entitled The Hair Piece, from the aforementioned album:

I'm aware some stare at my hair.
In fact, to be fair,
Some really despair of my hair.
But I don't care,
Cause they're not aware,
Nor are they debonaire.
In fact, they're just square.

They see hair down to there,
Say, "Beware" and go off on a tear!
I say, "No fair!"
A head that's bare is really nowhere.

So be like a bear, be fair with your hair!
Show it you care.
Wear it to there.
Or to there.
Or to there, if you dare!

My wife bought some hair at a fair, to use as a spare.
Did I care?
Au contraire!
Spare hair is fair!
In fact, hair can be rare.

Fred Astaire got no hair,
Nor does a chair,
Nor nor a chocolate eclair,
And where is the hair on a pear?
Nowhere, mon frere!

So now that I've shared this affair of the hair,
I'm going to repair to my lair and use Nair,
Do you care?