Jul. 11, 2002 - 21:22 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Funnybone

I guess all these years I should have kept a log book similar to one they had in the power plant where I once worked. I started out as an auxiliary operator and would enter anything in our log that would be pertinent to the next man on shift.

Now in my case, I am the next man on shift. It is a mess when I try to remember what year something happened or what age I was then. Those events are not neatly filed in sequential slots. In fact not filed at all. Sometimes they just come tumbling out without being cued.

I can't really remember when it started, guess I had started elementary school by then. It lasted pretty well through my high school years. It was a happy blending of humor and companionship maybe.

Sometimes we would be in a place where we were supposed to be quiet and behave and at a glance would have to stifle ourselves to keep from bursting with laughter and getting in Dutch. But not necessarily always so. It was if a giggle ghost was present and prodding us to laugh at the silliest things and sometimes over nothing at all except that it was time to go 'ape'.

Whatever the reason I do remember that it was strong medicine, very beneficial. During those times we dare not even meet the other person's eyes. If we did the hilarity would well up, burst out and shower the world. Such unadulterated joy. Joy just because it was there to be had.

Sometimes it had a diplomatic effect too. It would strike from above and hit two of us boys who were on the verge of fisticuffs and change a perilous situation into one of the happiest of moments.

It was long before I learned the effects of alcoholic silliness. But before then maybe similar and it was contagious at times. Very similar to the prank we would do in school where beforehand the biggest part of the class would agree to periodically yawn. Not in unison, just a yawn here and a yawn there fairly often. It wouldn't be long before the teacher's jaws would clench to keep from yawning. Those times there was great danger of spontaneous silly laughter which would have spoiled it all.

That sort of thing returned when I was in my sixties, still working and attending those super boring, mandatory, repetitive meetings that nobody high or low really paid any real attention to. On the way up to the meeting someone would crack a good joke and again my mouth would be tied in knots trying to keep from laughing out loud -- that was in an area and time that there was no laughing aloud. Oh, well. Big danger I guess was the possibility that some person or persons would feel they were the subject of our merriment.

Anyway, like the cat getting my tongue, smartassery would strike my Funnybone . . . . . . .

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