I recall being about 5th grade age and learning some of the names of the bones in the body. Big whoop, right? But then we got to the 'humerus' and discovered it had nothing to do with Topo Gigio and Ed Sullivan and everything to do with that prominent knob we call an elbow.
Walking through the house and smacking my elbow on some immovable object (like a marble countertop), my arm immediately reacted to the assault by doing what it does best. . .cutting and running like the coward that it is.
Tingly and strange nerve impulses raced along in a slalom of who gets to jangle her nerve endings first and I found myself wondering just why we call this episode with our elbow 'hitting our funny bone'.
Seldom is this actually amusing. And if you can remember laughing about it, then it had to have been someone else's arm that was tingly.
Having thought about that during the duration of my absent nerve responses, I wondered why it is that we laugh at misfortune unless it happens to us. Car wrecks, people breaking their trampolines mid-jump, diving boards snapping during a spring and people being hit in sensitive areas by projectiles seem to bring out the juvenile laughter in us all - again, unless it is us that is suffering. Then the people who are laughing are just being cruel.
What classifies funny?
Who gets to decide?
A classic line from Henny Youngman, a comedian of bygone days, was "Take my wife . . . please!", to which the audience would laugh both knowingly and appreciatively. Try saying that the next time you are MC'ing some seventh grade beauty walk or Cub Scout bake sale. I promise the crickets you hear chirping along in the silence won't even laugh. It's just too stale and too corny for our 'sophisticated palate'.
But some things never grow old. The commonalities of humor as it involves personal actions seems to be a neverending wellspring of humor that outlasts time. After all, stupid people exist in every generation. Who knows? You just might be one of them.
For several years, Redneck Humor was, by far, the number one source of fresh material. Everyone laughed along because we all could picture someone we knew who fit the bill. Madison Avenue couldn't even prevent a snicker, because even in their world was someone who was a Bubba. The only distinction between their Bubba and the ones around here was the fact that the ones hereabouts are actually willing to laugh at themselves. Yankee Bubbas get all defensive and mad like no one should point out their redneckiness to anyone else.
Some kinds of jokes are only funny in context. I can't imagine kids in this day and age thinking humor from the 1950's to be all that funny. They can't relate to it personally.
I guess that is why we tend to take our humor whereever we can find it. Everyone can relate to some element of our personal journey and we just have to find that common thread . . . and pull it.
By the way, did you hear the one about . . .
November 10, 2007
November 9, 2007
Gentlemen, start your engines!
Our house sits near an elementary school. The road to said school passes directly in front of our home and we get to watch the daily parade of harried Moms and Dads dropping off their progeny at the doors of learning then rush off to their own day of fun filled dragon slaying. And all of this is accomplished at 15 miles per hour.
Normally, the people who go up and down this particular street are here for specific reasons that are decent and respectable. Kids to school, visiting Grandma at the old folks home across the street, attending the nice church across the street or because they live in one of the neighborhoods that connects via side streets to the 'main drag' running in front of my mailbox.
Decent and respectable. And well under the speed limit.
However, there are others. . .
One of the principle others is a teenage boy, who, if he isn't careful won't make it past his teens. He gets off work at the Taco Bell around 11 or so and comes home with his extra rumbly muffler and the heavy boom boom boom of his stereo system (which is worth more than the car and it's fuzzy dice are combined!).
We FEEL his approach. It's like getting a zap from the defibrillator as his car comes down the road. You can feel the heavy bass tingle of the boom boom boom vibrating right up through your...well, you get the idea.
By the time he reaches the first driveway to the old folks home, he meets up with boom boom #2, who equals both the volume and intensity of boom boom #1. There is some middle of the road chit chat. Then apparently invisible to the naked adult eye, the gauntlet is thrown down and the race begins.
Tires spin, smoke pours from the burning rubber and the peel out leaves dark and obvious marks on the asphalt as they careen westward toward the usually deserted stretch of our road that heads out into the county (a road which, for some inexplicable reason, has been given a DIFFERENT NAME once it passes out of the intersection!).
I have called the police - not because I am a spoilsport (I have been known to peel out and lay some rubber myself) but because at that hour of the night, I have no desire to be ringside at Talledega for the speed trials. And it happens right in front of my house!!! Vroom, vroom.
Trust me. The thrill is gone.
Nightly repetitions of this event during the summer months in particular are a bit jarring since they invite friends. Especially jarring when you are trying to compel a teenage boy to GO TO BED! Even those who aren't able to do so desire to express their 'need for speed'. It's a testosterone thing.
As built in and hardwired as being male is to their anatomy, the testosterone rush of slipping past an adversary while behind the wheel of a muscle car is a powereful rush that cannot be denied. While some would say that it's all in good fun, my worry is not just tonight, but all those nights potentially to come . . .
Can they keep this just a surface game? Will they be able to just have fun and walk away?
Because I am a mother now, the thoughts that race past the pace car in my mind have more to do with injury, insurance and inability to negotiate a sharp turn at high speeds. Those things NEVER crossed my mind when I was a kid or even when I was in my 20's.
They cross it now.
And they make regularly scheduled command performances as well as fabulous vacation pitstops better known as guilt trips.
But I remember well slamming the hammer down, watching the needle climb into the red zone and grinning like a possum when I left someone in the dust.
While I know that maturity and wisdom do not come to everyone at the same time or to everyone period, I know that some things never seem to lose their appeal. That's why NASCAR is such a big hairy deal in the South.
Even grandmas with beehive hairdo's want to blow past some geezer straddling the center line on their way to Piggly Wiggly. The most tame and gentle Deacon at the Baptist church secretly wishes that he could be the one to turn pretty boy Jeff Gordon into a pile of goo at the finish line when he roars past to claim the checkered flag for himself.
I get it.
That's why I try to let the good times roll... right up till midnight. After that, just call me 'Marion the Librarian'.
Even the most die hard race fan needs some sleep. In my dreams I can actually win at Talledega Superspeedway. Even if I'm a girl.
Take that Danica Patrick!
Normally, the people who go up and down this particular street are here for specific reasons that are decent and respectable. Kids to school, visiting Grandma at the old folks home across the street, attending the nice church across the street or because they live in one of the neighborhoods that connects via side streets to the 'main drag' running in front of my mailbox.
Decent and respectable. And well under the speed limit.
However, there are others. . .
One of the principle others is a teenage boy, who, if he isn't careful won't make it past his teens. He gets off work at the Taco Bell around 11 or so and comes home with his extra rumbly muffler and the heavy boom boom boom of his stereo system (which is worth more than the car and it's fuzzy dice are combined!).
We FEEL his approach. It's like getting a zap from the defibrillator as his car comes down the road. You can feel the heavy bass tingle of the boom boom boom vibrating right up through your...well, you get the idea.
By the time he reaches the first driveway to the old folks home, he meets up with boom boom #2, who equals both the volume and intensity of boom boom #1. There is some middle of the road chit chat. Then apparently invisible to the naked adult eye, the gauntlet is thrown down and the race begins.
Tires spin, smoke pours from the burning rubber and the peel out leaves dark and obvious marks on the asphalt as they careen westward toward the usually deserted stretch of our road that heads out into the county (a road which, for some inexplicable reason, has been given a DIFFERENT NAME once it passes out of the intersection!).
I have called the police - not because I am a spoilsport (I have been known to peel out and lay some rubber myself) but because at that hour of the night, I have no desire to be ringside at Talledega for the speed trials. And it happens right in front of my house!!! Vroom, vroom.
Trust me. The thrill is gone.
Nightly repetitions of this event during the summer months in particular are a bit jarring since they invite friends. Especially jarring when you are trying to compel a teenage boy to GO TO BED! Even those who aren't able to do so desire to express their 'need for speed'. It's a testosterone thing.
As built in and hardwired as being male is to their anatomy, the testosterone rush of slipping past an adversary while behind the wheel of a muscle car is a powereful rush that cannot be denied. While some would say that it's all in good fun, my worry is not just tonight, but all those nights potentially to come . . .
Can they keep this just a surface game? Will they be able to just have fun and walk away?
Because I am a mother now, the thoughts that race past the pace car in my mind have more to do with injury, insurance and inability to negotiate a sharp turn at high speeds. Those things NEVER crossed my mind when I was a kid or even when I was in my 20's.
They cross it now.
And they make regularly scheduled command performances as well as fabulous vacation pitstops better known as guilt trips.
But I remember well slamming the hammer down, watching the needle climb into the red zone and grinning like a possum when I left someone in the dust.
While I know that maturity and wisdom do not come to everyone at the same time or to everyone period, I know that some things never seem to lose their appeal. That's why NASCAR is such a big hairy deal in the South.
Even grandmas with beehive hairdo's want to blow past some geezer straddling the center line on their way to Piggly Wiggly. The most tame and gentle Deacon at the Baptist church secretly wishes that he could be the one to turn pretty boy Jeff Gordon into a pile of goo at the finish line when he roars past to claim the checkered flag for himself.
I get it.
That's why I try to let the good times roll... right up till midnight. After that, just call me 'Marion the Librarian'.
Even the most die hard race fan needs some sleep. In my dreams I can actually win at Talledega Superspeedway. Even if I'm a girl.
Take that Danica Patrick!
November 6, 2007
Got bread, milk & eggs?
With the announcement that the grocery stores and gasoline quick marts have been anticipating, the panic stricken and ill-prepared are hitting the road in droves to pick up bread, milk and eggs.
The local purveyor of panic (better known as Dan the Weatherman) is feeding the masses the horrible news that the temperatures will be rolling down below freezing and setting the balmy South into a frenzy of shopping and unnecessary purchases.
Why is it that people clean out the milk, bread and eggs? Will they be dining on a steady diet of French Toast during a power outage to remind them of the good old days of the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette shouted 'let them eat toast!"?
Or do they plan on making poached eggs on toast covered with a delicate Hollandaise sauce (better known to my brother as 'yellow scum')?
Egg nog? With toast?
Toast points in milk with a soft served egg?
While I see that there are lots of choices for these basic items, I have to tell you point blank that there are so many other foods that can be set aside for a chilly day that don't require a gourmet kitchen.
All of the south knows that those little barbecued beans with sliced hot dogs comes in little pop top cans that you just dive in and eat them up.
And you don't have to worry about your milk if you put chocolate in it and warm it up. Actually, it is a well known fact that hot chocolate can make even the coldest temperatures feel far removed.
Really good hot chocolate is a science. Any idiot (okay MOST idiots) can open the little packet of hot chocolate mix with the nice little yodeling girl on the box. But crafting a creamy, delicious little sip of heaven requires real effort.
From choosing the proper fat content of the milk, decision of whether to add a touch of cream or to use dry creamer, the amount of cocoa powder versus chocolate drink mix and the variables of added nuttiness, vanillin, or other aromatic and flavorful options proves that hot chocolate, REAL hot chocolate, is best left to the professionals.
Finding the balance between flavor and temperature is a course in and of itself, as is the debate about whether adding marshmallows to your mug is a little slice of heaven or bordering on blasphemy. Either way, I believe that the weathermen of the world have sorely missed an opportunity to boost the sales of cocoa products worldwide.
Sure, we may need the milk and bread and eggs that the reckless purchase from store shelves like wildebeests on the savannah, but what we WANT is the chocolate.
Next time your local newscaster is spreading the tale of woe as temperatures fall into the wintertime of life, remind yourself that while you have needs that must be fulfilled, you also have a chocolate want that makes being shut inside on those unnecessarily cold days and nights a pleasure instead of a drugery.
I think I'll slip into the kitchen and make some rich and creamy hot chocolate right now. Mmmmm!
The local purveyor of panic (better known as Dan the Weatherman) is feeding the masses the horrible news that the temperatures will be rolling down below freezing and setting the balmy South into a frenzy of shopping and unnecessary purchases.
Why is it that people clean out the milk, bread and eggs? Will they be dining on a steady diet of French Toast during a power outage to remind them of the good old days of the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette shouted 'let them eat toast!"?
Or do they plan on making poached eggs on toast covered with a delicate Hollandaise sauce (better known to my brother as 'yellow scum')?
Egg nog? With toast?
Toast points in milk with a soft served egg?
While I see that there are lots of choices for these basic items, I have to tell you point blank that there are so many other foods that can be set aside for a chilly day that don't require a gourmet kitchen.
All of the south knows that those little barbecued beans with sliced hot dogs comes in little pop top cans that you just dive in and eat them up.
And you don't have to worry about your milk if you put chocolate in it and warm it up. Actually, it is a well known fact that hot chocolate can make even the coldest temperatures feel far removed.
Really good hot chocolate is a science. Any idiot (okay MOST idiots) can open the little packet of hot chocolate mix with the nice little yodeling girl on the box. But crafting a creamy, delicious little sip of heaven requires real effort.
From choosing the proper fat content of the milk, decision of whether to add a touch of cream or to use dry creamer, the amount of cocoa powder versus chocolate drink mix and the variables of added nuttiness, vanillin, or other aromatic and flavorful options proves that hot chocolate, REAL hot chocolate, is best left to the professionals.
Finding the balance between flavor and temperature is a course in and of itself, as is the debate about whether adding marshmallows to your mug is a little slice of heaven or bordering on blasphemy. Either way, I believe that the weathermen of the world have sorely missed an opportunity to boost the sales of cocoa products worldwide.
Sure, we may need the milk and bread and eggs that the reckless purchase from store shelves like wildebeests on the savannah, but what we WANT is the chocolate.
Next time your local newscaster is spreading the tale of woe as temperatures fall into the wintertime of life, remind yourself that while you have needs that must be fulfilled, you also have a chocolate want that makes being shut inside on those unnecessarily cold days and nights a pleasure instead of a drugery.
I think I'll slip into the kitchen and make some rich and creamy hot chocolate right now. Mmmmm!
November 5, 2007
Catching up
There is nothing so nice as finding a friend who has wandered out of your life and by a miraculous circumstance wanders back in.
This has been such a weekend for me.
Often, people are well meaning in saying they will keep in touch, but the reality is that they don't have an emotional investment anymore. That's called life. We tend to be seasonal visitors in the gardens of one another's hearts.
Most of the time that is a fairly satisfactory arrangement. A long phone call, exchanged email addresses and a time to catch up on the who, what, when, where and why of life is sufficient to make things good.
But, we all need a friend and confidant who is more than just an occassional guest in our lives. Whether that need for the companionship and easy familiarity of one another's company is found in a logical way or by letting your heart lead you, there are special times in which you find someone who can own a piece of your heart and it doesn't even hurt when they take ownership over that special place.
Carefully cultivating a relationship that is built of both commonalities and differences requires the sowing of seeds. Our seeds of thought and action that make each day a time to grow more and learn more in the friendship.
I had the opportunity to attend a women's conference this weekend with my best friend. We had a blast! Coming away from the event with a well of understanding and love from God was a wonderful gift in and of itself.
But having that cherished time spent not only with God, but with one of his most special children made it even that much more cherished.
We tend to be a disposable society most of the time. I can literally count on a few fingers the women who own a piece of my heart. Each is for a reason as individual as they are. And no two of them are alike in most things. But they all have one quality that makes them special to me.
They have shown themselves to be all-weather friends. Anybody can come to the summer garden and have a nice time. Real friends are the ones who make a bleak winter bright as a July picnic day.
If you have a few friends who mean the world to you, TELL THEM.
NOW.
I MEAN IT - STOP READING AND TELL THEM! You can always see what insanity is going on for them and it somehow makes whatever you are dealing with a bit lighter by just sharing with each other.
This has been such a weekend for me.
Often, people are well meaning in saying they will keep in touch, but the reality is that they don't have an emotional investment anymore. That's called life. We tend to be seasonal visitors in the gardens of one another's hearts.
Most of the time that is a fairly satisfactory arrangement. A long phone call, exchanged email addresses and a time to catch up on the who, what, when, where and why of life is sufficient to make things good.
But, we all need a friend and confidant who is more than just an occassional guest in our lives. Whether that need for the companionship and easy familiarity of one another's company is found in a logical way or by letting your heart lead you, there are special times in which you find someone who can own a piece of your heart and it doesn't even hurt when they take ownership over that special place.
Carefully cultivating a relationship that is built of both commonalities and differences requires the sowing of seeds. Our seeds of thought and action that make each day a time to grow more and learn more in the friendship.
I had the opportunity to attend a women's conference this weekend with my best friend. We had a blast! Coming away from the event with a well of understanding and love from God was a wonderful gift in and of itself.
But having that cherished time spent not only with God, but with one of his most special children made it even that much more cherished.
We tend to be a disposable society most of the time. I can literally count on a few fingers the women who own a piece of my heart. Each is for a reason as individual as they are. And no two of them are alike in most things. But they all have one quality that makes them special to me.
They have shown themselves to be all-weather friends. Anybody can come to the summer garden and have a nice time. Real friends are the ones who make a bleak winter bright as a July picnic day.
If you have a few friends who mean the world to you, TELL THEM.
NOW.
I MEAN IT - STOP READING AND TELL THEM! You can always see what insanity is going on for them and it somehow makes whatever you are dealing with a bit lighter by just sharing with each other.
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