A recent post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog got me to thinking about what makes me laugh. Jack posted this bit from Steven Wright – “Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time… I think I’ve forgotten this before.”
I remember really liking Wright’s humor and his ability to deliver it deadpan. Here are examples of some of his best routines – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ciHpT4WuM
I grew up on a different kind of humor, the monologues and routines of Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Red Skelton come to mind. Of course there was also George Burns, who used deadpan delivery and Groucho Marks, who off-hand and sarcastic remarks I found funny. One of the earlier wordsmithing comics that I remember was George Carlen, who could take a single word or theme and turn it into a whole routine. George suffered through the period in TV where the sensors restricted what he could say or at least what we could see of what he said. Here’s some of his best routines.
I especially like comedians who play with words or whose humor forces one to think about what was just said and consider why we thought that was funny.
Some people prefer physical comedy, with prat falls or other visual things that tickle our funny bone. All of the early, silent film humor was based upon visual humor, since we couldn’t hear any funny lines. The Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello,and Martin and Lewis were more modern comedic teams that still relied quite a bit on the visual aspect in their humor. On the Carol Burnet Show, the humor of Tim Conway really came through when he was portraying the little old man shuffling as fast as he could from place to place. He always broke up Harvey Korman with that routine. Me, too.
Here are some of Tim’s best routines from that show – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me-BOWwtm2Q
I think we all need a little humor in our lives. Being too serious all of the time is a sure formula for health problems. Laughter allows us to break the tension of everyday life and, just for those few moments, get back to the innocence that we had as children. So find something that makes you laugh and take some time each day to go there and let go – laugh.
What makes you laugh?
Posted by Norm Werner 










have discovered later in life that there are two different interpretations of who wins when the wishbone breaks. At our house, it was the short piece that the rules declared was the winner and the loser could hang their piece on a doorknob. In other houses it was apparently the longer piece that won.
house. In the summer months, a watermelon often served as dessert and we had fun spitting seeds to see who could launch them the furthest. The fall usually meant pumpkin pies and the occasional mincemeat pie or a shoofly pie (my dad was Pennsylvania Dutch, so that was a favorite of his). If all else failed, mom would just shift the canned fruit salad from the salad course to the dessert course.
mom)? Can you remember back before pizzas were available everywhere? What was your favorite “take out” family meal back then? Do you recall what it was like for the whole family to gather for dinner and not have a TV going or everyone looking at their phones?
the national level it’s about large scale disasters or foreign wars (trade wars or shooting wars) or plane crashes or other bad news.
How does one focus on the good? It begins by resolving to look for the good – in situations and in people. There are many situations that are real or perceived setbacks in life – things that didn’t go as planned or as hoped. It is too easy to just see the bad in those situations and get down on life or on yourself. However, if you look hard enough there is good in even those situations, usually to be found in what didn’t happen or in the knowledge that you have gained.
know who has visible tattoos or maybe a nose ring or perhaps just purple colored hair. Picture that and get a feel for your immediate reaction. Was it “Oh, wow, that’s so cool. I want to get to know this person better” or did you have a defensive reaction that caused you to shrink back from meeting that person? How will you be able to find the good in that person if you can’t even bring yourself to meet them and look for it?
in all things and in all people today.” At least you will start out the day looking for the good. You may have to remind yourself several times during the day and maybe even remember that “at least nobody died” when you have a setback; but, I’m pretty sure that you’ll find some good in the things that occur and the people that you meet if you focus upon it. And that’s a good thing.
divide, where compromise, which could lead to contentment, is considered failure. The two political parties have abandoned any search for a middle ground on most issues and seek only to win, to beat the other side. We saw that locally this past week were the scrum to choose a successor to the late L. Brooks Paterson turned nasty and completely partisan from the get-go.
carry with it the baggage that the current parties have accumulated of late. It would also allow those who are uncomfortable with the extreme on both sides to fins anew home that perhaps with which they could become content. I suspect that quite a few who call themselves Republicans or Democrats would welcome a party with less strident positions on the issues and one which relied more on common sense than the political litmus tests that the current parties use on issues.
unhappy with yourself if you didn’t give it your best shot. If you made your best effort, but that fell short of winning, you can still feel good about yourself. In sports, even competitive athletes are often happy if they achieve a person best – they know that they did the best that they can for that event or race. Maybe you can look at the events in your life the same way. If you’ve achieved your person best, be happy, celebrate your achievement, use that experience to plan way to do better next time. Stop and smell the violets. Find contentment.
Wondering is often connected with wandering, which, I guess, is natural, since the mind often also wanders when it wonders. That brings to mind that old saying “All who wander are not lost”. Neither are those who wonder. Yet some do not spend much time wondering, because they mistakenly think that they already know. Their minds are made up; which is sometimes called beliefs and sometimes called prejudices. I found a great quote that covers that – “I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.” (Gerry Spence)
beginning of wisdom.” Eventually the tendency to wonder will always bring you full circle back to wondering about yourself. It may take some time, as Saint Augustine said – “Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”
When you do get back to considering the questions of why and how and for what purpose about yourself, it doesn’t take too long before you wander into wondering about God. There’s a web site for that too –
One can get caught up in wandering in wonder and never get anything done. Craig D. Lounsbrough put it well when he said – “I wonder what life would have been like if I would have taken all that time I spent wondering what life would have been like, and instead used that time to make it what I wanted it to be like.”
nation. I organize the 4th of July Parade in my home town of Milford, Michigan. I march, as a veteran, in the Memorial Day parade and I work as a volunteer in the Christmas Parade, which always takes place Thanksgiving weekend. We don’t have a parade for Veteran’s Day. We also have parades for the start of Little League Baseball, and the local high school homecoming. Obviously, we love traditions in Milford.
The parades that we have in Milford mean that Main Street is shut down for s few hours and a crowd gathers to watch. The biggest parade, by far is our Memorial Day parade, which draws a crowd of several thousand to watch and which has almost 1,000 vets marching. The Christmas Parade features the arrival of Santa Claus to Milford for the Christmas Season. The Independence Day parade usually draws a big crowd to watch, too.
are causing the decline in church attendance effects the parade on the 4th – people are just too busy with other things to do.
life to pause and take a moment to just enjoy a shared celebration of thankfulness for things like the birth of our nation or those who served our country. We have become so wrapped up in ME that we don’t have time to celebrate the things that make us WE. I am not sure whether this is an indicator of, or a cause of, the state of unrest, distrust and hatefulness across the nation that seems to be reflected in nightly news stories.
events of the past will once again remind us that we have more in common than the differences that want to drive us apart. We stop to celebrate the events that were put in motion by those seeking the freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is still a work in process, as Jack said; but it is worth pausing and having a parade.
minds by the rules that we are taught about how we are to act, if we want to be an adult; although I’m not sure why we ever thought that was such a great idea.
them imagined or self-imposed. The companionship and camaraderie of play is replaced by the competition and stress of career advancement, making a living and getting ahead. Selfishness replaces sharing and anger and revenge displace forgiveness in our lives. Our imagination is replace by ambition and drive.
The revelation that we don’t have to “act your age” can come at any time in life. It occurs when we stop taking everything so seriously and “stop to smell the roses” – to just enjoy being alive.
saying “not my will, but thy will be done.” Once you have arrived at that point, the next step towards, “Let’s go play”, comes much easier, happiness comes much easier,
contentment comes much easier. God would much rather see us having fun and playing than being worried and serious all of the time.