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Leave 'Em Laughing
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12782 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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3 / 1987 |
2,504 Words |
| Author
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Stanton Delaplane
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"We would like to have you make a humorous speech of 15 minutes duration," stated a letter that arrived in my mail this morning.
This is a serious morning. The heater has blown again - the hot water heater. The one that blows water all over the floor.
Nothing humorous there. The heater man looks serious when he mentions the price of a replacement.
If anybody should laugh at this, I would belt him across the room.
I do not make humorous speeches. I work with a typewriter not a microphone. If you play the saxophone, it doesn't mean you can coax heavenly chords from a piano.
The idea of standing on two feet and being funny frightens me. I would be tragic behind a podium.
In fact I do not know what humor is. I read a lot of books about it but cannot lay hands on it.
A thing called "a sense of humor" was one of the curiosities of our times, Professor. Everybody was laughing to beat the band.
The very worst thing you could say about someone was: "He had no sense of humor."
You could beat your grandma. You could covet your neighbor's ox or his maid servant. You could join nudist colonies or run for public office. But you had to have a sense of humor.
It was a terrible trial to live in our times, Professor. What with all the jokes going around.
Some of my most lugubrious hours were spent listening to what comedians call the one-two-three buildup.
"So the bartender comes around for the THIRD time. And he says, 'What'll it be?' And for the THIRD time the customer says, 'Raspberry soda for me and a bucket of martinis for my horse.' So finally…"
I do not understand why these stories got funnier when you did the straight line three times. But that is the way we ran our sense of humor, Professor.
The man who failed to laugh was scratched.
The people who said things said: "No sense of humor." And out in the alley went the bum.
Well, the reason I write this all down for you future historians is this: It looks like we are swinging away form the jokes.
It is likely in a few years that a man who tells a joke will be avoided like typhoid.
The psychiatrists have put the knock on jokes, Professor. And if there is anything worse than not having a sense of humor, it is having a head mechanic
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