There's one joke I will always remember. I told this joke when I was 9 years old. Seven members of my family were driving back from a Sunday afternoon visit to a relative's home which was about an hour's drive. To make the time pass, someone suggested we have a "joke contest", to see who knows the funniest joke. My mother, a devout Southern Baptist, admonished everyone that the jokes must, of course, be "clean." This was the very early 1960's and we were in our big old green Pontiac 4-door. My parents and my 12-year old sister were in the front seat, my aunt, uncle, a cousin, and myself were in the back seat. This was years before seat belts. Everybody but my dad (who was driving) were telling lame "knock-knock" jokes and other really pitiful and corny jokes, and such. I kept saying "I have a joke, I have a joke" but being the youngest meant I was generally ignored. Finally my mom said "OK, let Stevie tell his joke. Go ahead." I told this joke:
"You know how to catch a polar bear?"
The reply: "No. How do you catch a polar bear", said everyone with a sigh and great ennui.
Me: "Well, you get a saw and bag of dried peas. Then you go up to the North Pole where polar bears live. You find a good spot and saw a round hole in the ice and sprinkle just a few of the peas around the hole. Then you go hide behind a snow drift and wait. When a polar bear finally comes up to take a pea, you kick him in the ice-hole!"
Everyone in the car, except for my mother, burst into howls of laughter. My father actually swerved the car a little. Even my 12 year old sister and my 14 year old cousin were laughing uproariously. I was very proud of myself for having obviously won the contest, hands down. Well, my mom did not see it this way. She got angry (as best should during the howls of laughter from everybody but her) and tried to admonish me as best she could while I was out of arm's reach in back seat. But this is not even the funniest thing. I protested that I had held to the "letter of law" and the joke wasn't "dirty". My mom's reply was "It had PEE in it....!!!". I retorted "P - E - A, mom, not P - E - E." She then shouted "I don't care what kind of PEE it was ....." She never finished this sentence as my father and uncle burst into another round of loud laughter at this admonition which also set off the rest of the audience into another round of laughter, which drowned and diluted anything she should say. Needless to say, my mother terminated the "contest" immediately and warned that I was in some trouble. However, I guess majority opinion quashed any future retribution because all I got was "the look" from my mom for the rest of the day, but no real punishment was delivered to me.
She did ask me "where did you hear that joke?" When I told her the name of the classmate that told it to me she replied "I'm not surprised." That's because the origin of the joke was a boy who was 11 years old but in the same class as me, i.e. he had failed first and second grade before moving on to third grade. He was considered something of a "juvenile delinquent", even then. All us 9-year boys thought he was really cool, though.