Fluffy Topics, LaughFest and the Nature of Humor

First a brief message from the elephant in the room before I move on to the "fluff" going on inside my head…rather, trying to go on inside my head. Fluff is running around up there looking for room to grow and spill out onto my computer screen. But after all that’s happened since the school shootings in Parkland, Florida it’s a real struggle. The elephant will get this and the next paragraph of rage and then I shall be a good little blogger and get off the soap box. Those of us who’ve been tuned into the national debate since 14 kids and 3 teachers lost their lives to a military-style assault rifle in the hands of a troubled teen don’t need to hear any more, and those who’ve been tuned out from what’s been going on since Valentine’s Day---Well, bless your heart, but I can’t do that. 

Okay. Rant on: I’m sick of the gun toting conspiracy theorists and alt-right “news” sources---even the president's son---spreading rumors that the students from Parkland are “crisis actors” and the shooting rampage itself is a false flag, meaning a staged play so the government can come take our guns away. Sorry, if you’re paranoia enough to believe that, then maybe you shouldn’t own guns! And certainly you shouldn’t own enough of them to hold off the Drug Cartel in your backyard! And I’m sick of people mocking, criticizing and dismissing those incredible kids who got baptized-by-fire into the realm of activism. It’s despicable! That’s just two of the side-car debates going on now along with the idea the president is pushing of arming our teachers. Jeez, what could possibility go wrong with that scenario? Rant off as soon as I say that lawmakers better get their balls back from the NRA and pass some sensible and meaningful gun control laws if they want to stay in office because the Never Again Movement is going to be a force to reckon with.

Fluff. What is it? I’m glad you asked. It’s the kind of topic bloggers search for---often in vain---when trying to write something that won’t offend anyone but won’t be as boring as brushing our teeth. Oh, we may say we’re writing for ourselves and it doesn’t matter if no one reads what we write but don’t believe it for a minute. Many of us bloggers live to find like-minded cyber friends or at least cyber friends who can engage in fair and respectful disagreements. We live to compare notes on what makes us laugh and cry, feel proud or insecure---what we think about as we navigate through our world. Fluff like that keeps the personal blogs community turning. By the way, if you’re a blogger never mix up the meaning of lifestyle blogs and personal blogs. I’ve made the mistake of using the terms interchangeable and that doesn’t fly in blog indexes. A personal blog is digital storytelling based on the blog author’s daily life and experiences. And lifestyle blogs are based on a person’s interests in a particular topic like the food, fashion, downsizing or whatever-floats-your-boat.

Raise your hand if you’re still reading. Good. A few of you are still following my rambling and as a reward I’ll tell you a joke: “Why do seagulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over a bay, they would be bagels.” Our annual Gilda’s Club LaughFest starts soon so I’m getting ready to see two weeks’ worth of local media coverage. If I was a drive-downtown-after-dark kind of person I’d check out some of the 30 events spread out over the festival featuring various genres of comedy and performers. My heartthrob, Travor Noah, would be first on my list. Maria Bamford, Bert Kreisher, “Weird All” Yankovic and others whose names I’ve never heard will also be doing stand-up acts, improv, humor workshops and family friendly comedy. Even an exhibit of humorous portraits will be in town. 

My days of going to comedy clubs dwindled out after bell-bottoms went out of fashion. (I still miss bell-bottoms!) But won’t you agree that our humor also changes as we age? When we were kids we thought knock-knock jokes were the cat’s meow. I spent my entire childhood and teen years laughing for reasons I couldn’t explain. Then came the era of long-playing comedy records and sitting around on Saturday nights listening to records like Inside Shelley Berman and The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, The Smothers Brothers, Lenny Bruce, Redd Foxx and George Carlin---those were some of the most popular vinyls when comedy ​33 1⁄3 rpms were the in thing. I even remember the Bill Cosby record with him joking about slipping ‘Spanish Fly’ (an aphrodisiac) into women’s drinks. I remember thinking, why is that funny? Well, who’s laughing now, Bill?

Most humor gets dated or maybe it’s just that we get jaded as we age. The world we were born into is certainly not the same one we’ll be leaving behind one day. And for that reason maybe we don’t need to fear dementia as much as we need to embrace it. That’s a joke in case you couldn’t tell. Dark humor walks a fine line between laughter and tears. ©

A Man of Strong Opinions

Anyone who knew my husband knows he could be a stubborn and opinionated man. Nothing demonstrates that point more than his relationship with the NRA. He hated that organization with a passion even though he’d been a life member since as far back as I can remember. He remained a member until after his death when I finally wrote and told them to cancel the magazines that have been coming to the house for decades as part of his lifetime, non-refundable membership package. At the time Don became a life member, the NRA was more about riffles, marksmanship and hunting and a whole lot less about political activism as it has evolved into today. And even though each magazine delivered would go immediately in the trash with a few choice swear words, Don wouldn’t let me cancel them because it cost the NRA money to keep him on their mailing list and that was money, Don decided, they couldn’t spend on lobbyists. I’ve often wondered how many other life members of their four million members strong organization felt the same way.

Don’s falling out with the NRA started in earnest back in ‘80s when the organization put up a strong opposition against the Brady Bill regarding background checks for purchasing firearms, and that falling out grew over the years as the NRA got more and more political. The fact that the NRA won’t compromise on keeping high powered assault weapons off the streets of America was something Don despised the most and “screw their second amendment argument!” Reasonable men know that our Founding Fathers never envisioned weapons like we have today. Reasonable men could compromise. Don was a reasonable man…. at least to those of us who knew and loved him.

Being a man of strong opinions was one of the most memorable, frustrating, admired, and endearing qualities of Don’s all rolled into one. You always knew where you stood with him and he enjoyed a good debate. He was well read and rarely forgot anything he’d ever seen, heard or read which made him an interesting person and I used him as my personal, walking encyclopedia. The fact that one of his oldest and dearest friends in this world holds political opinions in direct opposition to what Don held attests to the fact that Don could disagree without being disagreeable. But he also knew when to soften the harshest of his opinions by using humor and he knew when to say nothing if he was talking to someone too militant for a respectful exchange. In the latter case, Don would often take out his checkbook and make a donation to an organization fighting to preserve whatever it was the militant person was ranting against. He worked with a few militant Right-to-Lifer's, for example, so Planned Parenthood got a lot of checks after one of them would lecture Don. If he couldn’t win someone over with words, he’d let his money do the talking.

Some of the organizations who will miss his support include: The Sierra Club, The Southern Poverty Law Center, Doctors Without Borders, The Clinton Foundation, The Humane Society, The Civil Liberties Union, The Alliance for the Separation of Church and State, The Salvation Army, The National Democratic Committee, Planned Parenthood, Habitats for Humanity, the local soup kitchen and mission serving the homeless, The National Organization for Women, and The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. ©

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Carl Jung

“Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional”.
Max Lucade

Selling off the Past

This month was the beginning of a very long road I must travel---selling off the past. First Don’s ’78 Vette went up for sale, then this week his gun collection. I didn’t plan on this collection going so soon after his passing but a police officer friend of ours told me about an annual gun auction in March so I got my act together and got them consigned to the sale. I was happy for the way it turned out. Don would have been pleased with the prices his commemorative riffles brought. He’d always said they were the worst investment he ever made because you couldn’t shoot them, couldn’t display them and couldn’t throw the boxes away. Now they are someone else’s “bad” investment. But it seemed strangely fitting that the riffle Don came to dislike for political reasons---his John Wayne commemorative---was one of the highest bid guns at the entire auction. He would have loved taking so much money from a presumed Republican NRA member.

This week I also sold our 2012 Traverse with the wheelchair lift. It only had 12,000 miles but it brought too many memories with it where ever I’d go and with the money I got from the sale of the guns plus the Traverse, I’m buying a new Malibu next week. No more car payments! What’s not to be like about this change in my life? Still, it’s bitter sweet. To move forward, I have to leave bits and pieces of Don’s and my past behind. It’s all part of that circle of grief pain the experts say you have to move through while trying not to stall or stop at any point.

Next on the list to go up for sale is Don’s electric wheelchair. It’s not even nine months old but I’m told it’s going to be a hard sell and that first year of depreciation is at 50%. Why? Because most people get their wheelchairs through their insurance companies or Medicare so the pool of buyers just isn’t there. We bought the chair out of pocket last summer because Don didn’t qualify for a new chair until later this summer and I didn’t want him to have to wait that long for an electric wheelchair he could take down the nature trails close by. With his manual chair we never got too far away from the parking lot before we’d both run out of energy. Oh, well, I can only hope who ever buys the wheelchair will be as happy with the freedom it gives him or her as Don was. The look on his face the first time he drove that chair around the parking lot at the Amigo dealership is something I dearly wish I had captured in a photo.

I was lousy at photo documenting the highlights of our lives. Don was a little better than me before his stroke but not as militant about it as a friend of ours who spends every wedding, party and holiday behind the lens of a camera. I always thought it was better to actually take part in events rather than to document them from the sidelines. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we should have taken more pictures. But I did inherit a sizable collection of photos of all the cars, trucks and heavy equipment Don owned over his life time and had driven when he was in the reserves. If I thought the humor of making a memorial wall of those photos wasn’t so obscure, I’d do one like other widows do with photographs of their spouses, candle shelf below and all. That’s the kind of joke Don would have gotten right off, but without his laughter at an “altar of lost vehicles” everyone else would just think I’m getting weird in my old age. Selling off the past is not going to be that “dashing and bold adventure” my fortune cookie tonight promised is in my future but it sure is taking me to the dark humor side of life. ©