Making Laughter Count

When was the last time someone made you laugh so hard you still remember everything about the experience? I got a message from an old friend last night telling me that I was the guy who used to make him laugh that way when we were in school. He then proceeds to tell me that I have been keeping that side of me hidden as I have used this column to get others to know about the things I think about most.


Of course, knowing how I over think things tenfold I decided to find out what was so funny about me. I was hoping it was not my looks, as I think I have held up pretty well over the test of time. Fundamentally, the only thing wrong with me right now is I have to watch my sugar intake, my knees are a mess, and my left testicle is just a little lower than my right. Other than those two things, I feel pretty good about how I look. My hair is real with the Grecian Formula that I have used since I was twenty. I just lost some weight and my eyes are getting a wee bit worse, but I feel pretty good about the overall package. If I could get the hair to stay on my head and stop growing where it is not supposed to I will be alright.

I know I cannot tell a joke to save my life. With all the thoughts that go on in my head I cannot for the life of me remember the punch line of jokes that I hear. The only one I remember easily is one that my grandfather told me. He told me once that there were three guys that went into a bar….oh geez, I forgot that one too. It is not the joke telling I guess.

Maybe I tell good stories when I am at a party. Everyone loves to hear a funny story now and then. The way I tell a story at times can be a bit funny and intriguing. Most of the time my stories turn to heated debates about politics, life, science, or current events, so I can pretty much rule this out too.

I am a bit baffled then here and I am really trying to figure this out. Am I more concerned that I am not living up to my potential as a standup comedian as my friends says or have I just not put a finger on it yet?

I know one of my best traits is that I have a lot of passion for making people feel good about themselves. I love to make people laugh and I certainly love to listen to others even though I am a bit long winded at times. I am a good listener and I do like to inject an opinion as I listen to someone now and then. Even though I do realize opinions are like buttholes and everyone has one. (Hey I used butthole because their might be someone eighteen or younger reading this).

It is a bit heart wrenching to me that someone needs me to brighten their day. Why in the world would anyone need little ole me to give them the only real laugh that they will have in a day? Is it that people are too afraid to not be politically correct. I know I am a huge proponent of locker room humor. I find the shock factor in a dialogue with someone to be embarrassing at first, but a guaranteed winner when it comes to making a person laugh. When you shock someone it opens up even the most straight arrow person. Comments like, “How are your onions today”, to your mom (onions are boobies people) always gets the biggest laugh out of my mom. I said it was shock factor that makes it funny, didn’t I? Telling a person who is a bit on the older side that they look “hot today” is another surefire way to crack a smile out of someone. It works and it is so worth saying it when it has the right result.

I have never been afraid to go the extra mile to make someone laugh. Children have always been comfortable around me because I can get down to their level. My philosophy is if you out silly the child and you will get a smile. Children just want to see an adult act a bit “goofy” once in awhile to see that adults know how to have fun too.

I guess that I make my friend laugh because I am who I am. I do not deviate from being the person I am. I grew up with a smile on my face, I tend to be a bit immature at times in a good way, and most importantly I stay true to my beliefs in that I do not take myself seriously. Maybe I just have a naturally funny vibe about me that reaches out to people or maybe people laugh at me instead of with me. Either way, I will take making someone laugh every time.

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End Degrading Mascots

I put on a Florida State hat last night as I headed to the gym and I started to think a bit about the Florida state Mascot, the Seminole. The NCAA, fed up with what it considers "hostile" and "abusive" American Indian nicknames, the NCAA shut those words and images out of postseason tournaments, a move that left some school officials angry and threatening legal action. American colleges threatening legal action over a Mascot.


The NCAA has stated, any school with a nickname or logo considered racially or ethnically "hostile" or "abusive" by the NCAA would be prohibited from using them in postseason events. Mascots will not be allowed to perform at tournament games, and band members and cheerleaders will also be barred from using American Indians on their uniforms. The ban began in 2008. Major college football teams are not subject to the ban because there is no official NCAA tournament.

The only way newcomers tend to notice American Indians is from the growth of casinos on tribal lands. I don't list gambling among the top thousand admirable human activities, but I won't demand American Indians stop running gambling joints until Trump and Bally and municipalities do.

My real question is, what do we do about these demeaning nicknames that College and Pro Sports Teams use these days? I cannot twist my sentences enough to refer to "the team from Cleveland called the Indians" and "the team from Atlanta called the Braves" I do not respect the the owners, the league, or the fans for allowing these teams to degrade a race of people.

I should ask “all persons of color," as Americans call anybody not totally Caucasian, what they think about when they go to a game with offensive Mascots.

Instead, I ask: How do we feel? We the fans. We the consumers. In Atlanta, not only do they trot out the cartoon image of the Braves, but the fans perform a chant with a chopping motion, which would be idiotic even if it did not have racist implications.

When I see Atlanta fans performing the chop, I want to ask an old liberal from the 1960s what she thinks of stereotypes of American Indians. But Jane Fonda was married to old Ted Turner, and she doesn't do protest anymore.

If you stop to think about it, it really is offensive to take a people whose religion, whose love of the land, whose suffering, is intrinsically mixed with race, and turn them into mascots. These conditions go back to earlier times, like the 1948 World Series, when white people didn't have to think about this stuff. But now we do.

Middle-of-the-road America (code phrase for white America) wakes up one morning and discovers, gee, jurors may have been in-fluenced by their own racial identity in the O.J. Simpson trial. How disturbing. Or Middle America discovers, gee, nearly half a million black American men are convening in Washington, and a man named Farrakhan, why, he sounds angry. How disturbing. Then anybody who can afford a ticket goes to the ball park and performs some stupid chop and wears a ball cap with a grinning American Indian on it. The choppers don't get it.

Is it reasonable to ask these two ball clubs to change their names? Universities like Stanford and St. John's actually did, and others have agonized over it. But at Florida State University, Chief Seminole -- bare-chested warrior on horseback, wielding a spear -- leads the football team onto the field. That college always trots out some real Seminoles who say they are not offended by the use of a warrior as a mascot for smash-mouth, roid-rage, beefed-up alleged student-athletes.

Plus, Daniel Synder who currently owns the professional football team in the American capital isn't about to give up the trappings and income of the Washington Redskins.

There is a glorious heritage in these teams -- Sammy Baugh, Bobby Mitchell, Henry Aaron, Mike Garcia. We won't see these nicknames changed in the short run. But I suggest that fans refrain from buying any souvenir with those degrading symbols. Some marketing executive just might get it.
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Stop the Madness

Burglary is one of the biggest violations done to a family. The feeling that your own private home can have someone in your underwear draw gives me the creeps. I hear the excuses all of the time, it is the economy that is causing the upswing in break-ins. Maybe that is true, but I don’t see in the paper that there are not any break-ins when the economy is good. Going into another person’s home and taking their possessions is vile, nothing more or nothing less.


Look what happened last week in the state of New Hampshire. Four teenagers were charged in connection with the a murder of a young mother and slicing the throat of her ten year old daughter, early last Sunday morning along an isolated dirt road in Mont Vernon, a town of about 2,000.

The New Hampshire Department of Justice identified the victim as 42-year-old Kimberly Cates. The medical examiner determined that she died from multiple sharp injuries to the head, torso, left arm, and left leg. The victim's 10-year-old daughter sustained serious knife injuries that required hours of surgery.

Four teenagers went on a killing spree for fun apparently like a Wes Craven horror movie. What for? I ask myself every minute since I heard of this gruesome display of inhumanity. Why would another human being do that to a mother and her child for fun? These boys were raised middle class and were in Boy Scouts, school plays, and one was a handyman at a Mormon Church, who was about to go on a Mormon Mission. Four boys led astray by something or someone. Will we ever know the real reason this happened? I doubt it and with that said, there is nothing we can do to stop people from turning to the dark side of life, and that is a very sad reminder of just how fragile we all are.

I started asking myself besides Obama’s healthcare and Nobel award, what has dominated the news as of late? Kidnappings of children, parents locking their children in closets, it is a world that has gone astray. I am not one to think life is like the Miracle on 34th Street all the time, but I am a firm believer that one must not just appreciate each other, we protect each other and each other’s children and families

How did we get to a point where people do not respect a human life? When did we start adding metal detectors to middle schools? Think back to the Wyatt Earp days, guns were more plentiful and school age children did not go into schools and start shooting up the school house. I would like to blame this on television and video games, but I do not see it. I used to see the broken down home as the problem, however NH got rid of that.

As an educator I have seen the eyes of the younger generation and I do not like what I see. I do not see the love and respect I once did even ten years ago. I remember as a child looking up to my parents, my teachers, the clergy and just about everyone who was an authority figure. Authority figures were just that authority figures. They made us feel safe and I believe that is where the disconnect is right now. I do not believe for one second that our families feel safe anymore. Authority figures have lost their way as tough love and tough discipline is a thing of the past.

We can not yell at a student anymore or we can not get tough on the ball field without worrying about losing our jobs. Mind you I am not condoning harming a child with discipline, but I feel discipline breeds safety and we need to get that back, the sooner the better.

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Cooking for Relaxation

I love to cook almost as much as I enjoy watching football, and well folks that is a lot. I even bought a house that has five ovens in it, as a matter a fact, because cooking is not just a big passion of mine it is an event.


When I cook, I get a great sense of relaxation as I create my masterpieces. Well they are masterpieces to me. Every meal I make is done with a certain purpose. Cooking for family and friends is one of the most important things in life to me. It is just not about the food, it is about pleasing my family and friends. I want people to be pleased to come over to my home and taste a great meal.

I am an individual who like to please. Pleasing people is one thing, but pleasing people with cooking is another. When I was a child my family had our best times at the dinner table. Whether it was my father or mother cooking each meal was always a thing of beauty. Great meals made happy children.

Some of the recipes I have made over the last year were hits and some were huge misses, but I will try and try again to get it right. As long as you try, half of the battle has been won.

Cooking doesn't have to be a scary endeavor, that it can actually serve as a means of alleviating stress or anxiety, two things I'm feeling a lot of these days. I can understand why people are scared to cook, especially if they haven't spent much time doing anything in the kitchen other than eating or cleaning up after a meal. Thinking back, I can remember the questions that would run through my head as I was learning how to read and break down recipes How much is a pinch? How do you know when to turn something over? How do organize yourself so all of the food finishes cooking at the same time? Over time, I became more comfortable in the kitchen, and now, I use cooking as a way to relax and unwind.

We've all been there. We get excited about a recipe that sounds delicious on paper (or on the screen), but after attempting to make it in our own kitchens, the dish falls flat and we're left with something that disappointingly did not meet our expectations. However, just because a recipe doesn't work out the first time doesn't mean it's a lost cause. The first time I attempted to make Beef Stew, the wrong ingredients were part of the recipe. Sure, the stew tasted okay, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted. So, I tried it again, tweaking the ingredients a bit here and a bit there and wound up with a dish that I loved. In fact, I loved it so much that I recommended it to friends and they enjoyed it, as well. Not every dish is going to be a winner the first time out of the gate, but if you persevere and try again after taking some time to think about how you can change the recipe to make it better, you might surprise yourself.

I have always wondered if my meals were worth the time I spent cooking it. Time after time I feel that I have done a great job, but I get so nervous that the meal is not any good, I study the faces of the people I cook for to see if I have gotten it right. When people go for seconds and thirds I feel like I have done a good job, Mission accomplished.

So, the next time you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed out, get in the kitchen and cook something! Better yet, get in the kitchen with family or friends and share the experience with them. Turn the preparation of the meal into a social occasion and enjoy the food together. Good food tastes even better when you share it with good company.

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