You'll laugh and you'll cry

What a wonderful Christian blog site memoirsbyval.blogspot.com

One of her entries:

Friday, April 08, 2005
Electric Shock
Last night my aunt and I had a hilarious visit talking about many funny family stories. My aunt is a delightful, funny, intelligent woman who is nearly completely computer illiterate. It's a really sad day when I'm the one giving computer advise. However that's the position I'm in often with my aunt. I told her repeatedly over several weeks how to perform a relatively simple function on the computer. To no avail. She kept doing it her way, unsuccessfully. Finally I began to express my frustration that she wasn't listening to me. She said, "I can't help it. I was shocked real bad when I was 8 years old and I've been slow ever since."

Her comment about being shocked instantly reminded me of a family story involving an electric wire. When I was growing up on the farm, we had a number of electric fences. I do no know why; perhaps they were cheaper than fencing and cross fencing. For whatever reason, we had several. Often these fences would quit working and require my dad's attention.

The "electric fence box" was on the carport wall. Daddy cautiously gave Mama instructions. "Stand here and when I tell you to, turn it on. Don't turn it on until I tell you to." Mama stood there with her hands perched on her hips as if she was thinking of all the other things she could be doing.

Daddy walked along the path of the wire studying each section. Finally he bent down and studied the wire more closely. He hollered at my mom, "Don't turn it on" and then picked up the wire. My mother, who had a legitimate hearing problem, thought my dad said "turn it on" so she reached up and flipped the switch.

My dad's hands were firmly holding the wire. Unable to let go of the wire because of the shock factor, he was left holding the hot wire and yelling at my mom something nearly indiscernible. "Biiiiiii, Hu-biiiiiiiiiiiii, Hu-biiiiiiiiiiiiii." He looked rather silly out there holding the wire yelling, "Biiiiiii". My mother lost her mind with laughter and bent double laughing. She couldn't hardly stand up to turn the box switch off, but just as she flipped the switch, what Daddy was saying became clear. "Biiiiiitch, Biiiiiitch," he was yelling. Mama went double again with laughter as Daddy came across the pasture yelling at her incompetence.

My parents gave me a very good gift when they gave me a love for humor. That particular day my dad wasn't giving any laugh lessons, but there were certainly plenty days when he did. Daddy's humor was very different than my mom's. Mama went double laughing often, just like I do now. My kids imitate me just like I use to imitate my mom. She often lost her breath laughing and couldn't talk to save her life when she got going in a belly laugh. I am "blessed" with the same penchant.

Daddy's humor was a lot dryer and certainly more controlled. But a good sense of humor he had and still has.

Aside from my mom instilling Christian ideals, humor is the greatest gift they gave me.