Category: Commentary

People often ask for the secret behind my more than fifty years of marital bliss. While there are many important factors that have kept our love alive and ticking, I have to say that laughter is the glue that keeps it all together. My husband and I joke with one another all day, everyday. We enjoy humor from lighthearted to incredibly dark. We find something to laugh about everywhere that we go. It is our antidote for the realities of daily life that sometimes have the power to tear relationships apart. Sometimes we laugh so hard that our bellies move and our eyes water. Always we feel energized and ready to cope with whatever happens to be stressing us in the moment after the release of our anxieties into a round of good fun. 

My husband, Mike, “checks” on his ninety-three year old father each day by scanning his email account for the daily jokes that his father sends without fail. When I hear a big guffaw coming from Mike I too am assured that our Papa is okay, at least for now. Sometimes I also run into the next room to find out what was so hilariously funny and the laughter begins again. We only worry if those jewels of humor do not come. It’s always a sign that something is amiss.

There are family jokes that we treasure for decades. Humor runs deep among our relations. One of my brothers is so masterful in his delivery of funny lines that he might well have had a career as a comedian. Much of his commentary is quite original and satirical. He has a gift that has kept all of us holding our sides with glee from the time he was quite young. It appears that his grandson has the same gift of making the ordinary exceptionally hilarious. 

I too have a very funny grandson. On a cross country trip from Texas to California he kept us entertained with his stealth commentaries that made us lose our composure and laugh like hyenas. His gift is an ability to see the funny side of our human natures. Like most of the great comedians he selects his words carefully and uses his face to express just the right twinkle of the eye. He has an impishness that defines the masterful telling of jokes. 

My students invariably uncovered the truth that I am a sucker for humor. They constantly tested my reserve with actions and remarks that caused my lips to quiver and my eyes to give away my delight in the jokes they snuck into my lessons. Ultimately they understood that I would eventually cave and let the truth of my joy emerge from my whole being. I suppose that sharing amusing moments together was the real glue that kept my students engaged in my lessons. It made me human and reachable rather than being some high and mighty mathematics guru armed with sometimes unnerving formulae. 

The one form of humor that I despise is a weak effort to be mean and bully someone. If the official occasion is meant to be a roast of an individual who is in reality revered by the crowd, I have no problem. Those things can be absolutely hilarious as the performers jab at the individual who has willingly agreed to be honored in such a way. There is a long tradition of such humor in my own family with cousins and brothers lovingly and hilariously pointing out each others most joke worthy ways of interacting with the world. My unrelenting chattiness has long been the topic of family jokes as well as the moment when I accepted a dance with my very gallant cousin with the words,”better than nothing.” 

Rather than feeling hurt or slighted by our inside jokes, we laugh with knowing joy. Unfortunately our tendency to roast one another for the purpose of keeping it real has not always been appreciated by folks who have married into the family. We have had to learn when it is safe to joke around and when such things cause hurt and hard feelings. Sadly many of our very best family satirists and comedians have died and we are in the hopes that some of our younger members gifted with humor will carry on the long tradition of laughing at life and its challenges. 

One of the things I loved the most about President Barack Obama was his delight in the funny side of life, even when such moments were directed at him. I identified with his use of jest in sometimes dark and challenging moments. I too have used laughter to accompany through some of my most anxious times. I have been known to have doctors and nurses howling with delight just before I went under the influence of anesthesia before a surgery. Of course I was nervous, but I wanted to lighten my mood and theirs by bringing a bit of merriment into the room. 

I mostly tend to be the audience for humor rather than the creator of jokes. I’d love to be the subject of a roast sometime. I’d ask my brother to be the master of ceremonies and I would invite a couple of my funniest friends as well as a few of my former students who made me laugh every time they entered my classroom. I have no doubt that they would find many ways to roast me alive and that I would be aching from chuckling so hard at their jabs. 

I wish that everyone appreciated the value of really good humor. We grumble and cry and get angry a great deal these days when a bit of good old fashioned joking around would be good for us all. We still have lots of funny people in our midst and they know how to make us laugh only if we are willing to understand that they are commenting on our foibles in the good faith that we will be able to step back and smile at the ironies of life. I hope with all of my heart that we never become so stuffy that we shut down the funny men and women around us. I can’t think of any better way to solve many of our problems than with a good roasting of us all. It’s when we are able to laugh that we are most ready to come together., and we really do need to come together sooner rather than later. 

My grandfather used to laugh at his seemingly bad luck when it came to making money. He once proclaimed that if he had bought and sold all of his real estate investments at just the right time he would have been a millionaire. Instead he tended to purchase high and sell low. At the time of this death his savings were depleted and he lived in a rented room. Nonetheless, he was an exceptionally happy man who had lived a long and very interesting life. 

My husband has a friend who might be counted as a modern day version of my grandfather. This man has had so many inventive ideas that seemed outrageous at the time, that it would be difficult to name and count them all. Sadly he was never able to convince people of the potential of his creative mind and so it was left to others to ultimately bring the innovations he imagined into the world. 

I recall sitting with my husband’s friend attempting to be polite and not roll my eyes in disbelief as he described business ventures that he was certain would be his golden ticket to prosperity. Long before streaming or DVRs he envisioned a machine that would allow households to record their favorite television programs even when they were not home. With great excitement he spoke of how such a machine would revolutionize television viewing. No longer would individuals have to be at home at a certain time to catch their favorite programs. The days of deciding which of two conflicting series to watch would be over. Best of all people would be able to keep and watch their favorite shows over and over again. 

I suppose that I was never meant to be an inventor because I thought that his idea was absurd. I could not imagine the necessity of such a machine under any circumstances. I politely told him that most people like me are not concerned about seeing every single episode of a show and we certainly would never want to watch a program more than one time. I was not able to share his enthusiasm for such an idea and neither was anyone else in his circle of friends, so his concept died on the vine, at least for him. I would regret my lack of foresight as time went on and I realized that he had been at the forefront of innovation in a time long before anyone was talking about such things. 

The same man once asked if we would like to join him in purchasing a machine that would transform plain t-shirts into message boards of sort. He spoke of making the front of a shirt a kind of canvas for images or sayings much like athletic jerseys. Once again I found his idea to be at best a one time rage after which it would undoubtedly go away along with hula hoops and disco. When I now see all of the printed t-shirts on humans from nearly every part of the world, I lower my head in a kind of shame that was I unable to see our friend’s grasp of the future.

T-shirts have become the billboards of the world. They immediately identify nameless people as witty, political, supporters of certain causes or teams. They tell us where someone has traveled or would like to travel. They provide us with a glimpse of how a person thinks and believes. They are the grist of political campaigns and the stage of a quick joke. They celebrate holidays and victories and sometimes even mark personal milestones of life. Who could have possibly predicted the popularity of personalized t-shirts other than our very inventive friend and others like him?

I personally now own a large collection of shirts with messages. Most of them are from universities that I have visited or evidence of my support for sports teams. A few represent my travels and some just have witticisms or quotes that appeal to me. They are made so well that it takes years to wear them out, but I always feel a tinge of sadness when I must let them go. I suppose that if I were so inclined I might turn my favorites into a quilted throw like many have done with their dearest old t-shirts. Some of those creations are not just lovely and useful but serve as sweet memories as well. 

One of my teachers once commented that there are people who create wondrous things and those who simply appreciate their efforts. I suppose that I somehow do not have the capacity to drum up ideas for products that will change the course of the world. I did not invest in Apple stock like my brothers did when it was selling for practically nothing. I saw the company as a flash in the pan that would soon be gone. Still, I can greatly appreciate my bothers’ foresight and I celebrate the success of their small investment.

I create in different ways that bring me joy, but not much fame or monetary gain. I convey information to my many students that will hopefully bring them opportunities to live happy and successful lives. I write my little blogs as a kind of vanity project and delight when I reach someone’s heart or mind. I am a great appreciator of those who take an idea and improve the world with it. I have learned not to be so quick to criticize someone who is thinking out of the box. In fact I now boast a favorite t-shirt that proclaims, “Think Outside (No box required)”

One of the service clubs at a high school where I worked held a bake sale once a week. The students convinced me to volunteer to make something special for the cause each Wednesday. I wasn’t particularly creative and I had very little time, so I usually just purchased a box of brownie mix or a refrigerated roll of chocolate chip cookies and called it day. While none of the cookies were ever left behind, the brownies were definitely the hit and way easier to make than anything else. My contribution was well meaning but never particularly outstanding.

My mother was well known for bringing her chocolate cakes to church bake sales. Hers were always moist and tasty, but what really made them wonderful was the butter cream icing that she made from scratch. I could have eaten a bowl of it without the cake. She usually added whole pecans to the top of the cake and altogether it was a tasty delight. I remember times when someone would grab her cake and purchase it before she even had a chance to set it down. On one occasion the cake she had made got bumped and started falling apart. From the perspective of beauty it was a mess, but a regular customer of her specialty purchased it anyway, insisting that it was going to taste fabulous no matter how it looked. 

My grandmother made strawberry shortcake from scratch. It consisted of very thin layers of yellow cake divided by homemade whipped cream and fresh strawberries from her garden. In all of my life I have never tasted a more delightful dessert. I’m not alone in this regard either. People would come from all around hoping that she would make one of those fabulous cakes for them. She always baked one whenever we came to visit which we still remember with Pavlovian delight. Once in awhile she substituted one of her berry pies. Those were a very close second to the cake. As with the cake everything in the pie was made from scratch including the berries that she grew in her garden. My mouth waters just thinking of how good both of the her signature desserts always were. 

Grandma believed in using everything. She never threw out food. When she made too much dough she would grab some apples or peaches or berries or whatever was available at the moment and create fried pies. Those ruined me for the fried pies at the grocery store or fast food restaurants. Grandma’s were literally gourmet quality with a light and flaky crust encircling a filling that was like nectar from heaven. 

My mother used to make fudge every single Christmas. It was unlike any I have ever encountered. It did not use marshmallow cream. Instead it was more like Mexican candy but very chocolatey. It never lasted long because people always ate more than one piece. We never thought to ask her for the recipe and now we have found than none of the instructions that we find for fudge come even remotely close to hers. Our family has been on a quest for years to discover how she must have made it. We will know when we find it because he taste is so unique. Thus far we have struck out.

Mama also made the best pecans pies ever. Again I never thought to ask her for her recipe, but my brother did and his are as good as hers ever were. I laugh because I found out that she used the directions on the bottle of light Karo syrup but made alterations here and there that were her own ideas. She used twice as many pecans as the recipe called for and made double the number of pies from a single set of instructions. The result was less of the gooey filling and more of the crispy pecan flavor. Trust me when I say that they were spectacular. 

I suppose that I should have taken after my grandmother and mother when it came to baking, but I never had the time to create things from scratch. My cakes come from mixes and my pies come from the freezer section of the grocery store. Once a year I make pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving but I use frozen crust and the recipe on the side of the pumpkin can. I only go all out for Christmas when all of my cookies are created with love from my favorite recipes. I have to admit that they are wonderful, but I try not to make too many because they have added a pound here and pound there to my girth with each passing year.

My Aunt Valeria made the best carrot cake that I have ever experienced. She grated the carrots by hand and when the cake was done she crowned it with an amazing cream cheese based frosting. Those cakes were so time consuming to make that she only prepared them for very special occasions. She made at least three of them just for me and after much cajoling on my part even revealed her secret recipe. It was a treasure that I kept safe like I would have done with a bar of gold. Sadly, it somehow got lost and since she is now gone from the earth I will never again be able to recreate it. I can’t even begin to explain how sad that makes me.

The art of baking is a skill that I have never quite perfected. Perhaps I’m too impatient. I move around like a crazed rabbit and always seem to fill my hours with other things that I must do. I can’t keep still long enough to do proper baking, but I do so appreciate those who have the knack and the willingness to create those stunning desserts. For now I’ll just be happy with my Oreo cookies and a box of quick banana bread. it’s probably the best that I am ever going to be willing or able to do. 

Red is a daring color. It reminds me of royalty, roses, Christmas, valentines, cardinals that come to play in my yard, happy faces after a walk along the beach in summer or a hike through the mountains in winter. It is one of my favorite colors to wear because it enhances my lips, my fingers, my toes and the sallow tones of my pale skin. Red is one of nature’s most wonderful hues that brightens even the dreariest of days. It is striking and cheerful and bold, but should never be overdone. All it takes is a hint of red here and there to catch the eye and stand out in the midst of the more commonplace neutral shades. When used properly it is magnificent. When overdone or in the wrong shade it can ruin an otherwise perfect canvas.

I remember being invited to a going away party for a friend who was sadly moving away from our group. The host of the gathering had just remodeled an older home with stunning success. All of the walls in every room were gray with white trim. They served as a canvas for his furnishings and artwork. There was a coherent theme of using a sparse but stunning shock of red throughout the house. In one room there might be bright red pillows along with a huge modern painting with a slash of the same hue. In another room the red might show up in dinnerware or a rug. There was just enough and not too much to be incredibly cohesive and striking. He had used red the way it should always be presented. 

A woman can be stunning in a red dress, but the effect fades if she also paints her nails and her lips a bright red then adds red shoes and a scarlet purse. On the other hand if she does a mani/pedi in red then that should blend with her clothing rather than match it exactly. Too much red looks cheap, but red used in just the right way is breathtaking. 

I am a lover of all of the old Alfred Hitchcock movies. In fact, I own a collection of CDs that I often take in our trailer when we go on trips in the winter when the evenings become too cold to stay outside. While I love them all, I have always been fascinated with Vertigo, a classic thriller in which the lead character attempts to transform a woman from ordinary to elegant. The first thing he does is soften the color of her hair and remove the excess of red from her wardrobe and makeup. The result is miraculous and even as a girl I marveled at how red can be either beautiful or ugly depending on how it is used.

Red also comes in many different hues. There are some that seem to have hints of yellow and others with a dash of blue. My own skin will die if there is even a smidgen of yellow but shine beautifully with the bluish reds. We older women have to be very careful with colors because our skin is not as vibrant as it was in our youth. Choosing what goes best with our skin tones is more important than picking something that delights us. 

Long ago my mother advised me to choose classic fashions rather than trendy pieces. She insisted that it was best to choose items that compliment the hair, skin and body type of the wearer rather than attempting to fit in with the most current ways of doing things. For me that means wearing neutral tones accented with what I call the jewel tones of red, royal blue, deep turquoise and burgundy. I adore a lovely green but it is very difficult to find a shade that does not make me appear to be ill. The right red, on the other hand, is easy to obtain and it does wonders for the way I look as well as my disposition. 

I often wonder what it is about us humans that we quite naturally have tendencies to decorate ourselves and the world around us. We might just as well have kept everything in our lives utilitarian but even in ancient civilizations humans attempted to go beyond the basic need for clothing and shelter with colors and creations of the imagination. It is as though it is instinctive to want to express ourselves and our surroundings with more than just the neutral shades of nature. We look at the birds and the butterflies and transform ourselves with the colors of their feathers and wings. 

There is a red cardinal figurine in my sitting room that once belonged to my husband’s Aunt Elsie, a most delightful woman who took me under her wing when I was still a very young bride almost overcome by all of my new relatives. She knew to invite me to work with her in her kitchen where we were able to talk without all of the noise of the twittering crowd waiting in the living room for one of her feasts. She welcomed me by confiding that she was so very happy that her nephew had found someone like me with whom to spend his life. I loved her deeply from that moment and the bright red of that bird that once sat in her living room catches my eye every single day and reminds me of my good fortune in spending time with her. 

Red is the color of our life blood. It is one of our most treasured hues. I for one love it and plan to display it in my home and on myself, but I’ve decided never to get a red car no matter how cute one is. Studies show that people in red cars get stopped for speeding more often than any other color. I don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but with my sometimes heavy foot I won’t take any chances on standing out. I’ll just admire those zippy red sports cars from afar and get my fix of red in small of brilliant doses.

Chewing gum has caused a lot of trouble in my lifetime. It has encased my shoe like a spiderweb, almost always when the footwear was fairly new. I’ve had to remove a knot of gum from my little girl’s long curly hair. I’ve found so much of gum under the desks in my classrooms that I have often wondered how many years it has been hanging there turning into stony fossils each with a story of its own. I’ve unwittingly sat on a stray piece of gum and ruined a perfectly good pair of slacks. I’ve probably spent as much time instructing students to spit gum into the trashcan as I have teaching the quadratic formula. I’ve gone bonkers listening to someone smack and pop their gum and I’ve been guilty of putting a my own well chewed hunk of gum on the bedpost overnight. What I’ve always tried to figure out is who invented this gooey stuff and why did they do it?

An infamous foe of the Texas revolution, Santa Anna, is often credited with being the first to bring gum to the United States. In fact, after his fall at the Battle of San Jacinto followed by other failures he was exiled from Mexico and ended up in New York City where he often chewed a gooey substance called chicle that came from a native tree in Mexico. His secretary, Thomas Adams, was fascinated by his boss’s habit and came up with the idea of mixing licorice with the rubbery substance to create Black Jack gum which became a sensation at the end of the nineteenth century. Oddly enough Adams first tried to make rubber out of chicle but when that failed he thought of Santa Anna’s habit of chomping continually on the naturally rubbery substance and realized that there might be money to be made mass producing a product that eventually came to be known as gum. 

I remember having a teacher who chided students who tried to sneak their gum chewing into the classroom by insisting that it was well past time for them to be over the kind of oral fixation that babies and toddlers often have. I always thought that his comments were a bit hypocritical given that he smoked while teaching back in the days when such things were still acceptable. I suspect that we humans indeed have a kind of primitive instinct to chew or gnaw or suck on things.

I thought one of my daughters would never give up sucking her thumb. I worried that she would be bullied in school if she did not find a way to quit her habit. The clock was ticking and I was using all kinds of alternatives and psychology to keep her from continuing the habit that I feared would make her the brunt of insults and bullying. Miraculously she simply quit one day just before she was scheduled to begin kindergarten. She never even looked back nor did she have an unusual attachment to putting things in her mouth. She just went cold turkey and that was the end of that. 

I’ve seen people chew on their fingers or suck on their hair. I was one of those kids who put teeth marks in my pencils. Whenever I felt anxious about my schoolwork I found myself unconsciously putting the end of my writing instrument inside my mouth while I contemplated strategies for solving the problems. I suppose that there is something instinctual about using our mouths as a kind of anxiety blocker, so gum was no doubt a more preferable way of satisfying that inclination than chewing on a stick or biting lips or smoking a cigarette or a pipe. Santa Anna and Thomas Adams somehow tapped into our need to soothe ourselves, but I can’t imagine why licorice was his flavor of choice. 

Of course now every grocery store check out lane is filled with a huge variety of gum of every conceivable flavor and type. Those products have unwittingly destroyed property and items of clothing in businesses, schools and homes across the land. Who has not experience the joy of becoming encased in a weblike goo simply by walking on the pavement on a hot summer day?Virtually every mom keeps peanut butter on hand not just for the favorite sandwiches of kids, but to use as a remediation when a chunk of gum ends up wrapped around every strand of long hair. We could probably glue together a stone wall with all of the chewed up gum that has been tossed without thought of the damage it might do. Never mind the general irritation that it sometimes creates.

Have you ever been in the presence of someone furiously chewing and snapping gum? The cringe worthiness of such an encounter can be as horrible as the sound of fingernails scratching across a blackboard. For those of you too young to know what that is, I can assure you that it causes an uncomfortable sensation that wracks the nerves. In such instances I have to look away or leave because otherwise I might suddenly switch to teacher mode and order the individual to spit out the gum or face the consequences.

I admit that gum has its soothing features and I enjoy a smack or two now and again. I’m not totally against its use but I sure wish that someone had thought about rules for disposing of it that everyone would agree to follow. We don’t spit food on the ground or attempt to hide bits of it on furniture, so how to did we come to think it was a good idea to dispose of gum by tossing it wherever we happen to be? Enjoy that chiclet wherever you are, just stop the damage to our world that gum has caused for over a hundred years. Remember there is some poor soul working with a putty knife and a garbage can every moment of every day attempting to clean up the mess. Have a heart. Think before you roll that gum into a little ball and toss it thoughtlessly where it will wait to attack someone’s shoe or clothing or hair. Think of it as being as dangerous as a match and walk it over to a proper container where it will do no harm. It’s the right thing to do.