LAUGHTER

                                                          

I remember so well my dad and his brothers and sisters getting together in what could only be described as a forever-ongoing family roast. Although they differed a lot in their religious views and political views, whenever the family got together all of that was pushed to the background by their humor. In short they loved to laugh and they didn’t mind being laughed at either. My father had the uncanny ability to keep somewhere in his frontal lobe, within easy recall, a list of jokes that would be the envy of Johnny Carson. I used to tell people, “Dad had a million jokes and I heard them all a million times.” The irony of it all was they seemed funnier every time he told them and he always laughed the hardest.

At the time I thought all of this family goofiness was my dads attempt to be an entertainer. But as the years went on and I became more in tuned with his wit, I noticed how so many times dad would use this humor to defuse situations that had gotten out of hand. In short he just wanted everyone to get along. As the years have gone by, I have noticed how some of dads humorous spirit in his descendants, has turned to rancor. Apparently it’s not something that stays in your D.N.A or if it is, it’s being bred out of it.

Years ago humor was appreciated much more then it is today. If you went to a movie you always got your spirits lifted by the Bowery Boys, The Three Stooges, The little Rascals, followed by a cartoon. Who could forget Tweety and Sylvester, the Roadrunner and the Fox or that swashbuckling Pepe le pew the romantic skunk? Television had its humor too. People like Jack Benny, Red Skelton, and a whole cast of characters that didn’t have to be filthy to be funny. Carol Brunette had one of the funniest casts anyone ever put together in a television show and even today it beats anything modern day television now has to offer. Was all of the good humor just used up? I don’t think so. I think they just quit trying.

We’ve lost our ability to laugh. We would rather engage in conflicting and often inflammatory views of what goes on in this troubled world to each other. We love to blame someone else for every bad thing that happens because for some reason in our seriously mixed up minds, that seems to make it all right. We no longer want to just correct someone-- we want to humiliate him or her. What is so troubling about this is, the more we live like this, the more depression and sadness there is in our world. And the more people are depressed and sad; the more they turn to alcohol and drugs to make them happy and we all know the consequences of that.

There is a man in our church who loves to laugh. I don’t know him that well but I do know life has not always been a bed of daises for him and his wife. Yet his group of friends seems to grow as he has had this Pied Piper effect on people with his humor. I have occasionally stayed on the sidelines and watched as he talks with people and noticed how he always leaves them laughing. Lately I’ve made an effort to know him better, simply because well-- he’s my kind of guy. I too like to be personable with people and especially with those who like a good laugh.