*** “Make sure you wash your hands before your piano lesson,” I reminded my eight-year-old son. "They're probably dirty from soccer practice.""Don't have to, Mom," he reassured me. "Today I'm practicing in E Flat Minor. They're black keys."****** One day in artillery instruction, a colonel came to inspect our class. First up was Private O'Hara. The colonel got in his face and asked him what reading he had on his 105 mm. howitzer. "Two- nine-oh-seven, sir," was the reply."Soldier," said the colonel, "don't you know you never say 'oh' in the artillery? You say 'zero.' What's your name, soldier?"******** For my grandfather's 80th birthday, we had a huge family celebration and even managed to get a photo announcement printed in the local paper. "That was a nice shot," I commented."It's my passport picture," he revealed."Really?" I stared in complete amazement at my homebody grandpa. "Where did you go?" "Walgreen’s," he replied. ********* One evening I was commenting on my bad exercise habits and tight clothes. Whenever I criticize myself, my four-year-old daughter always has something charming to say.Using a new word this time, she smiled and said, "Oh, no, Mommy! You look fabulous!******** The topic of our seventh-grade science class was Dolly, the sheep cloned in Scotland several years back. We discussed how scientists removed the nucleus from the sheep egg cell and replaced it with the nucleus from the parent cell. The students were fascinated, one in particular. "This is amazing," he said. "I had no idea sheep laid eggs."