This Old House by Stuart Hamblin

This is an old song by Stuart Hamblin, he wrote/sang this song back in 1954- sixty years ago. I always enjoyed this song- hope you do too and hope it brings back memories. Maybe it is a sign we are getting old or maybe things do not change as much as we think? I also posted a bit of history of Stuart Hamblin for you who did not know him or heard of him. And below that- jokes that were posted on Facebook with this link.

Stuart Hamblen

Back in the 50’s there was a well know radio host/comedian/song writer in Hollywood named Stuart Hamblen who was noted for his drinking, womanizing, parting, etc. One of his bigger hits at the time was “I won’t go hunting with you Jake, but I’ll go chasing women.”

One day, along came a young preacher holding a tent revival. Hamblen had him on his radio show presumably to poke fun at him. In order to gather more material for his show Hamblen showed up at one of the revival meetings. Early in the service the preacher announced, “There is one man in the audience who is a big fake.” There were probably other who thought the same thing, but Hamblen was convinced that he was the one the preacher was talking about (some would call that conviction) but he was having none of that.

Still the words continued to haunt him until a couple of nights later he showed up drunk at the preacher’s hotel door around 2 am demanding that the preacher pray for him. But the preacher refused, saying “This is between you and God and I’m not going to get in the middle of it.” He did invite Stuart in and they talked until about 5 am at which point Stuart dropped to his knees and with tears, cried out to God. But that is not the end of the story.

Stuart quit drinking, quit chasing women, quite everything that was “fun”. Soon he began to lose favor with the Hollywood crowd. He was ultimately fired by the radio station when he refused to accept a beer company as a sponsor.

Hard times were upon him. He tried writing a couple of “Christian” songs but the only one that had much success was “This old House”, written for his friend Rosemary Clooney. As he continued to struggle, a long time friend named John took him aside and told him, “All your troubles started when you “got religion”. Was it worth it all?” Stuart answered simply, “Yes.” Then his friend asked, “You liked your booze so much, don’t you ever miss it?” And his answer was, “No.” John then said, “I don’t understand how you could give it up so easily.” And Stuart’s response was, “It’s no big secret. All things are possible with God.” To this John said “That’s a catchy phrase. You should write a song about it.”

And as they say, ”The rest is history.”

The song Carl Stuart Hamblen wrote was “It is no Secret.”

It is no secret what God can do.

What He’s done for others, He’ll do for you.

With arms wide open, He’ll welcome you.

It is no secret, what God can do.

By the way, the friend was John Wayne. And the young preacher who refused to pray for Stuart Hamblen? That was Billy Graham.  



As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on 405. Please be careful!" "Shucks," said Herman, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!"


An elderly couple was attending church services, about halfway through she leaned over and said, "I just silently passed some gas, what do you think I should do?" He replied "Put a new battery in your hearing aide."

Elderly gentleman approached the post office clerk and asked if the would please help him by writing the address on his post card. The Clerk was happy to be of service- and after he finished writing the requested address- he asked if there was anything else he could do for the gentleman. “There is one more thing.” the elderly man requested,”could you please also write, “P.S. Excuse the sloppy hand writing.”

Hear about the boardmember who thinks there won’t be women in heaven? He claims he reading Rev. 8:1 as: “ And there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour.”