Don’t you just love a good laugh? Proverbs 17:22 says, “A merry heart does good as medicine.”
My friend at church, we’ll call her Candace Hughes, says prayer and humor are what keep her alive. I agree with that and I love being around her because she will share that humor with you. The following is a joke that she made up about the names of her family that she shared with all of us at church and made us laugh a lot.
She said: “My last name is Hughes, I have no relationship with Howard. My maiden name is Lewis, I am not related to Jerry. We have a JP Morgan in our family. Not the money one. And they say, “What’s in a name?”
I loved! I’m still laughing about it.
Last week when I went to see Dana Davis, who has cut my hair for about five years, she told me a story that also made me realize the value of laughter. First, she told me that she and her husband were preparing to move to Port Saint Lucie, Florida.
He said that he would live about 30 minutes from the beach and that he would trade the pine trees for palm trees.
I told her that I hated to see her go but that it was all very exciting to me and that I was very happy for her.
So she told me this story. She said that when she told a lady that she was leaving, this lady cried. Dana said that she had cut her hair for 30 years. Dana tried to comfort her by telling her that she would miss her too, but that there were plenty of good hairdressers in Gastonia who could do her hair and keep her beautiful.
But then the lady said something like, “Yes, but I’ve always enjoyed my visits here with you. It always made me happy to come see you. You always made me laugh.”
When I reflect on my life, I think the happiest memories are times spent with friends and loved ones laughing and sometimes it’s about the simplest and silliest things.
I took my son Joseph and his friend Mitchell to Holiday World (an amusement park in Indiana like Carowinds here) when they were about 6 years old. They saw some birds of some sort walking through the park that had been tagged with a red band around one of their legs.
For some reason Joseph and Mitchell found that funny and the rest of the day they walked around saying about those birds, “I caught you red-handed.” After a while, I got caught up in their nonsense and laughed with them, not really knowing what I was laughing at.
Oh, and that reminds me of another bird story. Joseph’s aunt, Kathy, gave him a bird feeder one year that we set up on the patio just outside the front door. We loved watching the birds gather around her and we especially thought we were blessed when a dove flew by. We felt like it was a good omen or something.
So one day we were visiting a friend and this guy we knew was there telling us that he had been pigeon hunting that morning. Joseph and I were alarmed and asked, “You’re not talking about those cute little pigeons we enjoy looking at in the front yard, are you? He said, “No, those are city pigeons. I only hunt the county pigeons.
Of course, the only difference is that one is within the city limits and the other is not. However, we loved his response and after that, whenever we saw a pigeon, we always had fun laughing and wondering if it was a city pigeon or a county pigeon.
So my point is that laughter is a great gift that we never forget and keep on giving. Let’s give it often!
Rick Dominy, who loves to catch people red-handed laughing at his stories, is a resident of Gaston County and can be reached at 704-675-4862 or [email protected]
