“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” ? Victor Hugo
I love to laugh. As I get older I find myself grasping to keep hold, to grasp at those straws of hilarity, which were much more common when I was younger.
I used to have actual laughing fits; one was particularly memorable. My mother was bringing my prim and proper great-aunt on a road trip from New Jersey to Massachusetts and my brother Steve and I were in the backseat. Steve, about 11 years old at the time, one year my senior, whispered an inappropriate joke in my ear. I laughed so hard I was shaking. My mother scowled in the rear-view mirror and said, “shush.” I started taking deep breaths and finally stopped laughing, so Steve repeated the punch line, which rejuvenated the laughter. He did this again and again until my mother pulled over to the side of the road and said, “get out.”
I tried to stop laughing, even as I closed the door of the Mustang, but I was still holding my stomach and shaking. Steve looked at me from inside the car and shook his head, telling me silently to stop.
There”s one place as an adult I could count on to laugh that way again, Sal”s Comedy Hole on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village in New York. Sal Froio, proprietor and comic, is a master storyteller; a skill he honed as a child in Italy. He said that everyone would gather behind the church after services and tell tales, which became like television episodes. They named the stories and people would request certain ones over and over.
On Saturday Sal called to tell me he moved to California. I am jubilant.
Now I can laugh really hard more than once or twice a year. I”m pretty sure the Golden State will never be the same. Welcome Sal.
Not everyone treasures laughter, however.
A friend and fellow columnist told me whenever she”s happy people seem hell-bent on squashing her joy.
Laughter makes many people uneasy. Some people don”t like it because they think they are being laughed at or mimicked.
So what if that”s the case?
It seems healthier that someone feels joy rather than anger or hatred in my book.
Perhaps it”s the green monster envy and the people who get snarky about others being joyous are really just terribly unhappy.
That is a pity.
According to Psychology Today, laughter is the best medicine and there”s proof.
“It reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort. It reduces blood sugar levels, increasing glucose tolerance in diabetics and non-diabetics alike. It improves your job performance, especially if your work depends on creativity and solving complex problems. Its role in intimate relationships is vastly underestimated and it really is the glue of good marriages. It synchronizes the brains of speaker and listener so that they are emotionally attuned.”
The article states that some researchers believe that the major function of laughter is to bring people together. And all the health benefits of laughter may simply result from the social support that laughter stimulates.
So laugh heartily and often.
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” ? e.e. cummings
Mandy Feder is the Record-Bee news editor. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 Ext. 32.
