Laugh it off

Many moons ago I was working at a newspaper in North Carolina in the sports department when the phone rang one night as we were taking basketball calls.

The sports editor was an old-school newspaperman called Wild Bill. Even kept a bottle of bourbon stuffed back in the dark recesses of an unused desk. He was as congenial as the day is long, but he had a mischievous streak in him that I still smile at 20 years later.

As it happened, Wild Bill answered the call and put it on speakerphone.

"Bill," the caller yelled over the music playing in the background. "We’re having an argument over here. Did Y.A. Tittle go to LSU or TCU?"

The way Bill was smiling, I knew he recognized the voice. I also knew from the way he looked across the desk at me that he was working up something and, if given the chance, he was going to pull a fast one.

"LSU," he correctly answered. "Who’s arguing with you?"

"Jimmy is, as always," came the response as Lynyrd Skynryd played in the background. "The boy’s more stubborn than any mule I’ve ever seen — and he don’t smell much better."

"Let me talk to him," Wild Bill said. "I’ll set him straight."

"OK."

For about the next minute or so, the phone was unattended on the other end. Bill and I even had time to try to guess the name of the establishment where the conversation may be taking place. When Molly Hatchet followed Skynyrd on the jukebox, we narrowed it down to one of two places.

Meanwhile, we heard scraps of the conversation. Seems Jimmy wasn’t pleased with the comment about his hygiene. And he wasn’t particularly eager to come to the phone. I swear I heard something about how Bill always disagreed with him and didn’t really know anything anyway.

Finally, a voice I can only assume was Jimmy’s came through the speaker.

"Hello," came a different voice on the speaker.

"Jimmy, it’s Bill. Y.A. Tittle went to TCU," Bill said.

Without another word, he disconnected the line and turned back to the high school game call he’d been working on.

It’s been 20 years, and I still love sharing that story with people. It’s also the kind of humor I can appreciate.

I must admit that in this workaday world where we all are going a hundred miles an hour all the time, it’s easy to forget to slow down and laugh once in a while. And let’s be honest — a lot of people out there seem to be severely lacking in the sense of humor department.

I’m lucky in the fact that I have a second-grader who lives with me and keeps things in perspective.

The other night at the hockey game I had to explain what the penalty box was and why someone was sent to sit in it for a few minutes.

"So they’re teaching him a lesson like you taught me a lesson when you grounded me from the computer," she said matter-of-factly.

See? Humor is where you find it.