The Best Medicine

My father had a unique sense of humor. He laughed easily and often. He told the same old jokes again and again, laughing each time as if he were hearing them for the first time. I think he was funniest when he was trying not to laugh, which often happened in church. Somehow, George did not mind falling asleep and snoring during services, but he drew the line at laughing out loud. The harder he tried to hold it in, the funnier he became. 

I remember sitting next to him once at a dance recital of seven year old girls. When a little girl did a handstand and accidentally knocked over the little dancer next to her, George’s entire body began to shake as he struggled to suppress a laugh. Of course, it was contagious, and soon I was shaking right along with him.

This picture captures my favorite image of my father. 

 

What made his humor unique, though, was not funny at all. It was the opposite. I believe George’s sense of humor was a way of coping with far more than his share of trauma in life. 

His father, Orbison, died during the Great Depression, when George was just five years old. He was killed by a train after his truck stalled on the tracks. Some of us assume it was suicide; others in the family prefer to call it an accident. After his father’s death, his mother, Sallie Owen could not manage or afford to raise George and his four siblings, so George was placed with other relatives, where he spent most of his childhood and adolescence. After high school, George joined the Air Force and served during World War II. When he returned home, he and his new wife—my mother—bought their first house. They invited George’s mother to visit and to see the new home. While exploring it, Sallie mistook the basement door for a closet and fell down the stairs to her death. I never heard George say a single word about the incident. My mother spent the rest of her life believing that some of George’s siblings suspected her of pushing Sallie down the stairs. 
 
George’s formal education ended after high school, but that did not keep him from setting lofty career goals. He spent the rest of his life chasing unrealistic dreams of financial success that never materialized  - not even close. Still, George kept his sense of humor and his capacity for uninhibited laughter. 

His humor may have been a coping mechanism that masked his depression. I don’t know. If it was, it was a damn good one.