Senior Humor 
                                                           

 Seniors have a distinct sense of humor. Hang out with a group of them and their laughter will be raucous.

 An example. A couple, both seniors went into town and stopped in Wal-Mart for a few minutes. Coming out they saw a policeman writing a parking ticket.

 They approached him and quietly asked him for consideration for a senior couple. He ignored them. The wife called him a Nazi cop and he wrote another ticket. 

 The husband called him a Fascist-pig. The cop wrote a third ticket. They went on for 20 minutes harassing the cop. He kept writing tickets.

 The couple walked off laughing their heads off. They didn’t care because they had come to town on the bus. The car wasn’t theirs.

 Laughter at any age is important. Especially for seniors.

 Nora is a 102 year old senior, going on 20. A perpetual smile, fastidious dresser, hair always neat, and sharp as a tack. How does she do it? “I eat sparingly, exercise every day, good genes and laugh several times a day.”

 John told me this story and cracked up laughing as he told it. A 92 year old man married a 90 year old woman. His kids asked him why he married such an elderly woman. Was she beautiful? “No,” he said. “She’s uglier than a mud fence.” Was she rich? “No, she’s poorer than a church mouse.” Was she a good cook? “No, we eat at McDonald’s every day.” Then why? His answer was classic. “Because she can drive at night.”

 The importance of laughter and humor reached front page and TV news in the 60’s and 70’s. Norman Cousins was the leader. He had been stricken with a collagen illness that affected the connective tissue of the body. He was diagnosed as terminal. Through laughter he became well.

 As a professor in the medical department at UCLA, he was the person to discover ENDORPHINS. This secretion of the brain is stimulated by laughter. It affects the immune system and wellness.

 Laughter seems to be indigenous to seniors. They laugh, smile, giggle and tell jokes. I know many elderly or aging people. They all laugh and make fun of each other.

 No one remembers Jack Benny, George Burns, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, and Jimmy Durante as young people. In their heydays, they were seniors. So, seniors, show the way to the younger generations, Laugh a little and live a lot.”

 Betty Miller lived 100 plus years. She retired as chief of nurses at Patton State Hospital at age 50. She and her husband Charley raced horses until he died. Willy Shoemaker was one of their riders. She was an inveterate joke teller. Many of them a little risqué.

 Two I remember very well. John and Mary made a pact that whoever died first would try to contact the remaining spouse. John died and Mary waited anxiously for his contact.

 Finally it happened. Mary heard a weird voice calling her. “What is it like over there?” John’s answer was enigmatic. “I wake up and have sex; take a nap and have sex; eat a bit and then more sex; another nap and more sex. Sex, sex, sex all day long.”

 “My word, John. Is that what heaven’s like?” “Who said anything about heaven, Mary? I’m a jack-rabbit in New Mexico.”

 Another one that Betty loved to tell. An elderly Pasadena matron drove a 1950 Packard with only 5,000 select miles. She drove into a strip mall and looked for a parking slot. Just as she was about to turn into one, a bright red corvette zipped in ahead of her.

 A beautiful, sassy blonde jumped out, wiggled and yelled. “That goes to show what a young, beautiful blonde can do.”

 Those Packard’s were big. The elderly matron backed up and with top speed smashed the back of the corvette. Three successive times. The corvette looked like an accordion. She popped out; adjusted her hat and said, “That shows you what your can do when you’re a senior and rich.”

 Every senior I know loves a joke.

 

WORDS TO THINK ABOUT

G. W. Abersold Ph.D.