Laughing in the Face of Danger

When my Grandpa Andy made his grandchildren sandwiches we sat around the dining counter in the Long Ships Motel and he would remind us that we *had* to eat our crusts or we would have to go downstairs and have our teeth sharpened. 

Here's the thing about Grandpa Andy, more than 60% of the time he had a unique twinkle in his eye,  a smile playing at the corner of his mouth that made you confident that he was joking around with you.

Early in the morning when we went to visit him in St. Petersburg, he'd wake everyone early with a showman's tone: "It's a beautiful day on Tampa Bay!  Who's ready to go fishing?  (or)  Who's ready to go to the flea market? (or, infamously) Who's ready to go on a run?"

The answer to whichever option was presented was always a vigorous and immediate yes.  Grandpa Andy made everything fun.  There were adventures and hilarities around every corner.  And Grandma Marge wasn't much different.  One afternoon I was riding around Lansing, Michigan with her, lost beyond comprehension.   I was very young and it was a bit disconcerting to be a child and with an adult that was emphatically lost.  It was an era before there were mobile phones or mapping devices.  Even finding a phone booth in a strange city wasn't much of a solution when you were as lost as we were. 

The thing is, though, I actually didn't feel any anxiety.  I had a sense that a situation like this *could* be disconcerting for someone.  But not if you were lost with Grandma Marge. 

She found the entire thing to be hilarious.   She was laughing so hard and so relentlessly that we eventually had to pull over to calm the laughter a little bit.

When my kids were young I one day invented an outrageous tale about have been a professional dodgeball player.  My professional name on the circuit was Black Thunder and at one point I was good enough that I spent a year travelling around the country and was ultimately invited to the national championship.  They were so mortified with embarrassment and delighted with horror that I kept spinning this tall tale for more than an hour.  The more they doubted the more detail I provided.  Once they were actually sure it was all true and dreading the day that their friends found out how their father had embarrassed them?   I told them that it was all just a tall tale. 

This had the effect of making them both doubt and delight in every outrageous thing I told them.  If they didn't finish cleaning their room?  I would chop off their heads.

No You Won't!

We'll have to see.

The crazy thing is that my Black Thunder story only went on for about an hour.  Grandpa Andy's tooth-filing threat?  It continued for years! Maybe a decade.
So when Grandpa Andy told you he was going to sharpen your teeth in the basement you KNEW that he was joking with you.  He had that smile and that twinkle, so he had to be joking with you?  Didn't he?

He explained that crust naturally sharpened your teeth so no teeth - sharpening would need to be done.  He went on to tell us that he had heard that some children weren't eating their crusts because their parents weren't making them.  These children had teeth that had gotten so soft that they could barely chew.

You eat your crusts, don't you Daniel?  And my youngest brother would nod with assurance.  Of course he would eat his crust.

He told us that our cousin Toby had NOT eaten his crust one day and had to have his teeth sharpened.  We said, no it wasn't true.  He assured us that it was.

Another time he brought up a strange tool that looked straight out of a torture chamber.  This was the teeth sharpener, he said, we could have our teeth filed on this.

And once our cousin Toby even vouched for the outrageous apocraphyl story. 

I think we were all in on it.  The joke that is.  We found it hilarious and outrageous because it was Grandpa Andy.  The other thing is that we were never 100% sure if it was even a joke. 

That this shared feeling of a (maybe) inside joke could be extended for so long?  Is a perfect kind of humor, though, isn't it?

It produces a perpetual chuckle and some real earnest joking around by everyone.

This feeling - the feeling of being joined together through laughter, through silliness, through ridiculousness, through witty banter, through subtle jokes, through terrible dad-jokes.  This is one my things of value.

Every meeting I'm in, every class I teach, every friendly get together I attend and every family holiday should be - it's my goal at least - a time of laughing together.