“Laughter Is Good for the Body, Mind, and Spirit!” by Joan Y. Edwards
There are comedians who make money being funny. Some of my happiest moments of relief are when I have been able to laugh at myself. Many times it is because I realized the part irony played in this trick I played on myself. Laughter is good for the body, mind, and spirit. I try to remember that when life plays its tricks on me.
For instance, the summer after my 30th year of teaching, 30 years of checking stacks and stacks of papers of every subject imaginable for elementary school: Reading, Math, Spelling, Language, Writing, Science, Social Studies, and Handwriting, In the early years, I taught art, music, and physical education, but the county hired special teachers for those subjects at this particular moment in time.
That summer I got a job with Kelly Services answering phones. I said to myself, “If I get a job answering phones during the summer, I won’t have to check papers.
in 1993, Kelly Services sent me to work near the airport with Piedmont Airlines who was merging with US Airways at that time. Each week they trained different Piedmont Airline Flight Attendants to use the new protocol in serving on the US Airways planes. At the end of the week, they gave each attendant a written test. My job was to order a cake for the end of training celebration and…dun to dun…to check their test papers.
What? But my plan was perfect. Sometimes you make plans and it turns out a little different. My Choice: Get upset or roll with the punches. I tried to look at the bright side. I loved answering phones. I liked interacting with the people. I liked ordering the cakes. And their test papers were grids: they had colored in circles and an answer key to place over the test paper to see if they got the answers right. No reading of long paragraphs. No checking of long division to see where a student made the error. Plus, it was only once a week. Hip Hip Hooray!
What makes you laugh? Jokes, situations, surprises? The irony that plays tricks on you in life? Unexpected comparisons? What is your favorite cartoon?
Please leave a comment and share with me what makes you laugh.
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Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards, Author
Copyright © 2009-2024 Joan Y. Edwards
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Here are some of my favorite resources that make me laugh.
- .”What’s So Funny: The Science of Why We Laugh:” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-so-funny-the-science-of-why-we-laugh/
- The Odds /Laughter Alley by Bill Harvey ( Behold Comics)
https://www.beholdcomics.com - Peanuts by Charlie Schulz
https://screenrant.com/best-peanuts-charlie-brown-comic-strips/ - Blondie by Chic Young
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Dagwood with his sandwich from the comic strip, “Blondie” by Chic Young in Wikipedia. By Grand Comics Database - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20888925
- Calvin and Hobbs by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Watterson
That’s a great story, JOan. I would have liked ordering the cake too!! (Hope you got to eat a piece)
Dear Carol,
Thank you for telling me the story about checking papers was a great story. Glad you would have liked ordering cakes, too. Chocolate, vanilla, yellow, different colored icing. Now I’m getting hungry! Love you.
Never Give Up
Joan
Cake! I’m there. Marking papers, not so much. Your story made me smile.
Dear Melanie,
Thank you for writing! Yay, that you were like me and would enjoy ordering cakes. Also, that you wouldn’t like to check pspers, either. So happy this story made you smile!!!
Never Give Up
Joan
Joan, you know I am a grumpy old man with no sense of humor, so I refuse to laugh. But people laugh at my words, proving that THEY have a sense of humor.
The vagaries of the English language amuse even me, though. If a screwdriver drives screws, what does a hammer do to a ham? There are thousands of these delicacies, and you don’t even need to murder a pig for one.
Dear Bob,
Thank you very much for writing. You are so funny! That’s the way to make people laugh. Tell them you never laugh and then pose lots of reasons for the opposite. Thanks for making me laugh this morning. I hope you have a great day realizing how valuable your opinion is in our world.
Never Give Up
Joan