My grandson told me that he didn’t want me to retire from teaching. It’s enough to make a grandmother’s heart flutter.
I wanted to think his sentiment came from my taking him to school occasionally. In those few minutes we would share our latest riddles. He likes jokes of all kinds. My limited supply, like “what tree fits in your hand? A PALM tree,” comes from a package of small paper cups.
He searches for more complicated ones like his latest. “What’s the difference between a snail and a matterbaby?” Of course, I asked, “What’s a matterbaby?” He smiled and responded, “I don’t know; what’s a matter with you, Baby?” Then he laughed out loud because he knew he had tricked me.
I really think in my heart of hearts, he knows that he will miss those rare times when one of my sixth period journalism students walked over to the school next door, checked him out for me, and brought him back to class. In those few minutes before someone picked him up from my classroom, the staffers taught him to draw a variety of animals. He will miss their attention.
However, even if I had not retired, those arrangements would have ended. The logistics would not have worked because I would have been in the new High school facility a long way from his present school; and as a second grader, he’s been promoted to a new school.
According to Dr. Torrence, legendary UGA researcher on creativity, a sense of humor, the ability not only to see humor, but to create it as well, is one measure of creative talent. I’ve always loved to laugh, but when I go beyond a simple riddle, I am one of those folks who can never remember the punch line and my timing is awful. Great writers always utilize comic relief in their great tragedies. Writing funny isn’t any easier for me than remembering jokes. I also admire those folks who can take a pratfall, trip over their own two feet, stand up, take a bow, and fall again just for the laughs. However, whenever I fall, I try hard not to repeat the blunder again.
Long time White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in her book, Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President, quotes in her foreword from Edward Bennett Williams’ Humor and the President. “Humor is indispensable to democracy. It is the ingredient lacking in all dictatorships...It is the element that permits us to laugh at ourselves and with each other whether we be political friends or foes.”
Humor is political. We either like ourselves enough to laugh at human foibles, including our own, or we try to bolster our own self image by making fun of others.
Thomas observes that more recent presidents have used self deprecating humor, making fun of themselves, in order to make themselves appear more human. However, have you noticed that the people who only laugh at the mistakes of others in an attempt to put them down, are often supersensitive when people laugh at them? And while some people may need to step down a rung or two, there’s a fine line between good humor and cruelty.
Fathers have many lessons to teach their children: how to make Dagwood sandwiches, how to determine which risks to take safely, how to love unconditionally. However, no lesson is more important to teach by example than how to laugh at oneself yet be kind to others. Both lessons make us human.
Have a happy, humorous Father’s Day.
2002
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