As regular readers of this column likely know, Grandpa O’Brien was an inveterate storyteller. And while my father wasn’t quite the storyteller his father was, Dad (his name was Ned) would talk to anyone, anywhere. Depending on your perspective, I seem to have inherited the best — or the worst — from both of them. Were you to ask my older sister, Lynn, she’d likely say it’s the worst.
Nevertheless, because I am descended from Grandpa and Dad, I have a story to illustrate my point:
Sometime shortly after Halloween last year, my sister and her husband drove up from their home in Virginia Beach to visit for a few days. With my brother-in-law, Dick, driving we took a ride south, following the Connecticut River, to visit some of the villages that grew up along its banks. One such village is Ivoryton, home of the Ivoryton Playhouse, myriad small shops, and a few quaint restaurants. One such shop was called Gather (now apparently renamed Gather Again under new ownership), a combination antique/consignment/used-book emporium that Anne likes to visit as often as she can.
We pulled into the small, gravel parking area next to the shop. As I opened my door and stepped onto the gravel, I looked down. There, nestled between the stones, was a rubber eyeball that looked quite like this one:
I picked it up and put it in my pocket.
After looking at and chatting about some of the items in the display windows at the front of the shop, we walked up the steps and entered. I strode purposefully to the counter behind which the woman who owned the shop stood.
“Has anyone been in here recently wearing an eyepatch?” I asked.
From the back of the shop, I heard my sister say, “Oh, no.”
After thinking it over for a moment, the owner said, “No. Why do you ask?”
Pulling the eyeball from my pocket, I said, “I found this in the parking lot.”
As the woman started to laugh, I heard my sister say, “There goes Ned again.”
Dick, who was laughing as hard as the shop owner, knew enough to move away from my sister as he did.
Eyes and Ears
Thanks to Grandpa and Dad, I see observation and humor as connected. From them, I inherited an eye for noticing quirks, contradictions, absurdities, and opportunities to see or to find them. And the connection between observation and humor is a recognition of truth and the determination to refract it in unexpected ways.
By the same token, humor can sharpen observation. Laughing at something can help you see it from a new angle, to see details differently. The more you observe and see details differently, the more opportunities you have for humor. The more you laugh, the better you get at spotting the oddities worth laughing at.
On the other hand, as I asked my sons frequently as they were growing up, if you tell a joke and nobody laughs, is it still a joke?
To paraphrase an old expression, humor is in the ear of the beholder.
Originally Published on https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/category/lifecolumns/notes-to-self/
