A couple of people have asked me lately if the political climate is good for humor. Not really, I said. How funny does life seem when a pit bull has grabbed onto your leg?
That is not the time for someone to come along and say, “Hey, would you like to hear a funny story?”
“I’m sort of preoccupied,’’ you might answer.
“Grrrr, rip, munch,’’ the dog might add.
People are being snatched and deported to terrible prisons, online comments are mean and ugly, our president has gone from weird to weirder, the stock market bounces like a Super Ball (remember those?) and it’s been raining all week.
The other day I asked Dede to look at something on my back. “I think it’s moss,’’ she said. Yeesh. Forty days and 40 nights of this and we might be in trouble.
I was so desperate recently that I went to the Kilton Library seeking solace, some humor-as-medicine. There is plenty of bitter humor about, but I wanted something to lift my soggy spirits.
A book of David Sedaris essays was just the thing. The first selection made me chortle.
“Are you all right?” Dede asked. “Are you choking?”
“No, that was a chortle.”
“It sounded like a chicken bone.”
That’s how long it had been. She didn’t recognize my sputtering hack as a stifled laugh.
I also turned to Will Rogers for inspiration. He’s rarely mentioned anymore, but some claimed in the 1920s and ‘30s that he was the most famous person in the world. I don’t know about that — was he big in Azerbaijan?
He came from nowhere, that is, Oklahoma, to get to where he was: famed actor, newspaper columnist, cowboy humorist. Unlike nowadays, when people get famous by dancing or showing skin on Tik/Tok, Will Rogers really worked his way to the top. He got into entertainment by doing rope and pony tricks at rodeos and circuses, then went into vaudeville and silent movies, then talkies. He wrote thousands of newspaper columns, some short “Daily Telegrams,’’ some longer, like his “Slipping the Lariat Over’’ pieces for the snooty New York Times.
Nobody tells jokes anymore about Herbert Hoover or Calvin Coolidge, so lots of his material seems dated, but what stands out is it was affable; ironic but with a light spirit. He began columns and live shows with, “All I know is what I read in the papers,’’ a line he delivered while twirling a rope. It warms this newspaperman’s heart to think of a world like that.
Then he meandered through the news, dishing out the wit and wisdom of the common cowboy. His most famous line, “I never met a man I didn’t like,’’ would be startling if delivered today. Think about it.
Is likable even a thing at top levels of American politics? I mean, J.D. Vance. To be bipartisan, I offer up Sen. Chuck Schumer. As newspaper hacks used to type, ‘nuff sed.
But let’s think of more pleasant things. Many of Rogers’ quotes live on:
“Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
“The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.”
“Things aren’t what they used to be and never were.”
“Our Constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.”
And this great line: “I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
Well, those were the days. I’m sorry I missed them, but if I hadn’t, the calendar suggests I’d probably be dead.
Here in the Upper Valley, the issues are more, umm, local. The Norwich Listserv has been in a tizzy over dogs pooping on the playing fields of Huntley Meadows. I suppose there is a better breed of dog in Norwich, but nature still calls.
To judge by Listserv content, Lebanon is stressed about property taxes, and Hartford frets about the end of curbside pickup of recyclables. The Valley News Forum, however, is mostly all Trump all of the time.
It’s one thing after another. Just recently the White House shared a fake image of Trump dressed as the Pope. The president first said he had nothing to do with it but later said, “Catholics loved it.”
I’m not sure. If I pulled something like that when I was in parochial school, Sister Mary Retribution would have taken the ruler of vengeance to my heretic’s palm.
But back to Will Rogers, who perhaps could somehow see the future. He wrote, “On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.”
We have to endure it, but nobody said we have to like it.
Dan Mackie lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.
