The routine news of the week, what’s going on around town and with our families and bigger things like the $18 trillion national debt or the current woes of the last-place San Francisco Giants always go down better with a little humor on the side.
The littlest things in life, just like the most monumentally sad, glad or treacherous ones are made better when they are not hardened by staunch seriousness. An upside down frown can go a long way to making even gloomy times better.
That’s why the Sunday newspapers still have comic strips and most preachers love telling jokes in the middle of their sermons. If you’re Bruce Bochy, the manager of a last place baseball team, you better find something to laugh about. Quick. Our president in the White House could use a sense of humor about now, too. After all, he seems to be the subject of most comedians jokes these days, but he doesn’t seem to have an inkling of a sense of humor. And, that seems unhealthy.
Don’t we all mark our days and memories with favorite funny stories? What’s your favorite comic strip, Doonesbury or Garfield? Can there be an American story without Peanuts and “Good ol’ Charlie Brown?” Or 30 years of the TV Simpsons family?
Sonoma County has a rich history of comics, including Santa Rosa native Robert Ripley’s “Believe it or Not” and Peanuts’ creator Charles Schulz, who lived here almost all his professional life until his death in 2000. Both men penned the most popular newspaper comics of their time, with Ripley making world tours and Peanuts appearing in 2,600 newspapers. Sonoma County is also home to Stephan Pastis and the popular “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip. And, before him was Phil Frank and his “Farley” strip that used talking animals to make fun of serious humans.
Do you get the feeling we might be in trouble these days for possessing a collective lack of humor?
During the height of anti-war protests and Vietnam War killings in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon appeared on TV’s Laugh-In to make fun of himself and his stiff personality (“Sock it to me.”) Today, when Saturday Night Live does an Alec Baldwin skit about Trump, instead of letting it go or smiling, Trump sends out an angry tweet.
One of Trump’s predecessors, Harry Truman, said “Any man who has had the job I’ve had and didn’t have a sense of humor wouldn’t still be here.”
We could offer lots of advice to Trump, but we’ll stick to one: Lighten up, Donald.
As for the rest of us, we need to do what Dr. Seuss tells us. “Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.”
Isn’t that what our Charles Schulz was trying to help us with whenever he had Snoopy sighing to himself about his empty dog bowl?
It’s a scientific fact that giggling strengthens all our muscles, stimulates our vital organs and prolongs life. There has been some very serious debates among religions whether God has a sense of humor or not. What do you think? TV host Stephen Colbert says, “If Jesus doesn’t have a sense of humor, I am in huge trouble.”
Well, are we in trouble or not? Surely, even a ton of humor won’t calm our North Korea nuclear fears or make our next Highway 101 traffic jam somehow pleasant. How can a joke be the answer to losing a loved one to a terrible disease or misfortune?
It’s true; not everything is funny. Then again, a good laugh is a sign of sanity and having no sense of humor is the ultimate madness.
