The Port Theatre asked people to share how they have used humour to positively affect their life or the lives of others for a contest to promote the Tom Jackson show, tonight.
The winners have received a pair of complimentary tickets to the show, have their names announced from stage, and their stories will be printed in the Nanaimo Daily News and on The Port Theatre website (www.porttheatre.com).
HUMOUR WAS WORTH THE WAIT
By Ravenna McColgan
Like many, the life I grew up in was full of dysfunction; and, like many, I have seen the "fun" in dysfunction.
While many of my experiences are not easy to have fun with, the ones that are have made up for it. It seems that by some sort of natural order, I have chosen humour to make the best of what could have been a heavy suitcase of issues. As an adult and a parent, I must say I was surprised that my children would never experience some of the bizarre types of people that I saw on a daily basis, for I had broken the chain. As an adult, I would never have the type of people in my life that were there when I was a child. However, as a child I did not know that these people were, well, less than desirable company. I know that I will never look at my young daughter and tell her that "if the cops call and ask for 'Dave,' don't say anything. Just tell them you don't know a 'Dave.'" So, did that mean I should say "Dave's' not here man," cause you know I was familiar with that phrase. It was only a little while longer until I learned that 'Dave' was later picked up for running down some barren Stony Plain road in a pair of red long johns screaming that he was the Greatest American Hero, you know, the TV hero. Well, 'Dave' thought that was a scream. You know what, so do I. Too bad for him that alcohol impairs running or in his less than lucid thoughts... flying. I have fun imagining the RCMP chasing 'Dave,' a little fella in red pajamas.
It is memories like this that I have laughed at through years of growing up. I didn't want to hang on to darker moments; I am not a victim of their craziness. It is laughter at the absurdity of my surroundings that has helped me rise above. I am not sure when I came to any conscious choice to laugh; however, in hindsight, it may have started around the time of one Sunday afternoon when my elders gathered for some afternoon beers. My seven-year-old self was sitting on a kitchen counter, watching, when suddenly someone's (okay, it was 'Dave') pants pocket was noticed to be smoldering with smoke. A small commotion started as everyone started beating his pocket trying to figure out what happened while I sat back snickering to myself. You see, as the only sober one there, I watched 'Dave,' who was smoking a cigarette while talking with his hands, slide his hand into his jeans pocket, only to pull his hand out again... without the cigarette. I thought it would be funny if I didn't tell anyone, and it was. While it took some time for him, or anyone, to clue in, it was worth the wait. Humour always is.
A SILLY MOMENT STOPS SHAME
By Lorraine Hill
Humour: in my case, slightly twisted with a dash of satire. Encased in a body that refuses to co-operate, one needs a panacea to overcome social humiliations. So I could empathize when the woman next to me on a Vancouver bus burst into tears when her grocery bag gave way, scattering oranges, one angel cake and hygiene products one doesn't care to advertise.
"No prob; I'll help," I said, leaning over to grab an errant orange and promptly hitting my head against another kind stranger assisting in the great orange hunt. We sat back, a little stunned, silent, and then the three of us burst into laughter.
Life is not always kind, and rarely meaningful, but sometimes sharing its silliness can bring a little solace into your life.
SHARE HUMOUR WITH A FRIEND
By Jane Trotter
Asking how I have used humour to positively affect my life is like asking how breathing has positively affected it. I acquired both survival skills under traumatic circumstances.
Early in my life I was pushed and squeezed out of a dark, warm, moist environment into a cold, drafty, noisy world where someone promptly hung me upside down by my heels and smacked my bottom.
Not much later, when I was twelve, I was up-ended again: I hit puberty and entered junior high school. Overnight I went from a rack of bones to a fat girl with boobs and from a leader of sorts, or perhaps just a bossy kid, to a social outcast with no friends at all. I endured a year of hell.
Too shy to ask my mother for a bra and too ripe to manage without one, I also had only one skirt and several identical white blouses that I had to wear every day. A recipe for disaster in any grade seven class.
It gave an unfair advantage to my arch enemy Twink Macdonald, a luscious, sexy blonde from the other elementary school in town. At first she had her following and I had mine. It wasn't until fifty years later that I finally understood what the contest was about: she wanted to be top dog and would use any weapon to win the leadership battle. I didn't even know war had been declared.
I don't recall most of the snubs and sneers, but I will never forget the day I realized I was vanquished. I overheard, as I was meant to overhear, Twink calling me "Flopsy" behind my back. I blushed redder than my single tartan skirt and sweat drenched my entire body. I bolted into a washroom to hide my tears of shame.
By Grade 8 I was still an outcast, but I had acquired one friend, Sharon. She was a year younger than I and an outcast from her Grade 7 class. It was Sharon who discovered the secret to surviving junior high and kindly shared it with me.
"When they are mean to me, when they say those awful things that they say, I laugh, as if they were just teasing," she confided. "It confuses the heck out of them. It's no fun for them if you laugh."
Bless you Sharon. With those words you saved my sanity. I tried it and it worked. My tormenters were startled and uncertain. When their meanest gibes met with merriment they backed off and eventually they left me alone. I even got the last laugh when Twink Macdonald got pregnant and had to leave the school in disgrace.
However, it was humour that won the day and has been my body armor against rude and hurtful people for a lifetime, a shell now so natural it has become part of who I am.
I continually find new uses for humour. I have laughed in cancer clinics and intensive care wards. I have shared a chuckle with widows telling stories of their departed husbands and made others chortle over the escapades of my own lost love.
A trusted tool, forged in fire, humour has brought me safely and happily through the traumas and triumphs of a full and wonderful life. Thank you, Sharon, wherever you are.