While out for my morning walk, I picked up a plastic thingie beside the road. It had a green dial and glowed like that mysterious element that brought Superman to his knees. I first thought I’d found a fancy wristwatch, or, more likely, one of those counters that tell rich kids how far they’ve walked or pedaled that day.
When I got it home, I noticed that it exuded a pungent, acrid odor. It smelled like cheap perfume. Or expensive perfume, which smells even worse. My wife, Marsha, sniffed the thing and said it had probably gone through the wash because it stank like laundry detergent.
With enlightenment only a click away, I posted a picture of it on Facebook. Within minutes several people reported that it was a tiny air-freshener that you hang in your car. Sure enough, on the website for this product I read, “A light, uplifting scent inspired by nature’s freshest elements, like a grassy meadow misted in early morning dewy freshness.”
I laughed.
If you have ever smelled one of those things and can read “early morning dewy freshness” without laughing, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din, because the thought of anyone wanting to sport about in a pickup that stinks of laundry detergent makes me laugh.
Fortunately, life is full of silly things that make us laugh, because laughing is good for whatever ails you. Years ago, I learned that the people who plan huge conventions often kicked off the two or three days with a humorous storyteller. There is a mysterious something about group laughter that brings people closer together. We have read that laughter makes people more receptive to learning. And it somewhat mitigates the discomfort in hearing bad news. Have you attended a funeral over the past year that was not punctuated by laughter?
At a newspaper meeting in New York City, I once heard Mort Walker say that he couldn’t attend a funeral without getting three humorous “Beetle Bailey” panels out of it. The opportunity to laugh is all about you. Can you read a newspaper or turn on the television without seeing something that makes you laugh?
You might have recently read that a former governor of Virginia, a handsome man who was at one time under consideration to be the running mate of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was found guilty of conspiracy, bribery and extortion.
As he left the courtroom, he reportedly said, “My trust remains in the Lord,” which made a few of us wonder if Jim Bakker had been this man’s Sunday school teacher. We read that this ex-governor fought bitterly with his wife, and more than one wag has suggested that they would make great cellmates.
Was it in the early ’60s that a very ill Norman Cousins shut himself up in a hotel room and watched Marx Brothers movies so he could laugh? Ten minutes of belly laughter rewarded him with two hours of peaceful sleep. Given up on by doctors, the writer and editor somehow survived and lived for years. Laughing obviously strengthens the immune system, which fights disease.
Although Cousins thought the movies were funny, some people might not have cared for them at all. No two people are exactly alike, and a movie or story that 298 people find hilarious will offend perhaps two others for very valid private reasons.
Some people laugh at everything. Others find it difficult to laugh. In 1953 I told my mother that a man I admired said the most hilarious things but never cracked a smile. My mother said, “He has bad teeth.”
Each age group appreciates its own type of humor. Babies laugh at peek-a-boo. Some dry stories that make seniors roar with laughter will produce only blank stares from an under-40 audience – probably because the stories might require some thought. Younger people laugh at sexually explicit stories that cause old folks to get up and leave. When you are pushing 80, there are some things you don’t laugh about.
My wife, Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, is probably not the only silent sufferer who has heard her husband tell his shopworn funny stories over and over to anyone who will listen. But I am still able to say something that will make the love of my life laugh out loud anytime I want. It is a rather simple recipe, and any husband who has been married for 20 or 30 years is welcome to try it – with his own wife.
I put my hands on Marsha’s shoulders, gaze lovingly into her eyes and whisper, “I am the boss in this house.”
The humble Farmer can be seen on Community Television in and near Portland and visited at his website:
www.thehumblefarmer.com/MainePrivateRadio.html
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