Personal synchronicity: less than half an hour before I saw this, somebody sent me (via Facebook, not by either e-mail or fax) a joke which, because of its political nature, can’t be repeated here.

But it doesn’t have to be, because the point of this post is that I told him I’d been hearing variations of that joke for decades, and my first was

An airplane was going down. On board were Henry Kissinger, a priest and a hippie. The pilot comes back to the passenger area and says “This plane is going down , there are three parachutes, and I’m taking one!” and jumps out of the door.

Henry Kissinger says “I am ze smartest man in ze world und I need to live,” grabs a parachute and jumps out.

The priest says to the hippie, “My son, I have lived a long life and am one with God, please take the last parachute that you may live.”

The hippie turns back to the priest and says “Don’t sweat it, pops, the smartest man in the world just jumped out of an airplane with my backpack.”

Does anybody know of a variation earlier than this one?