Laughter, the Best Medicine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Hi folks! 

Sorry, nothing new on my You Tube channel lately, but Graham (who shoots the videos) and I have plans... that is to say, we did have until the COVID-19 virus struck just about everywhere.

Meanwhile, I was SO pleased to hear from a reader who emailed to say she loves browsing the channel whenever she is feeling fed-up as it always cheers her up. Thanks, Monica, positive feedback always welcome:

http://www.youtube.com/user/rogerNtaber

Now, just in case you think I am getting too serious in my old age…

Since my mid-late 60’s, I seem to be having more than my fair share of senior moments. I can’t help wondering…what lies ahead now I will be 75 this year?

Oh, but life is too short to let such things get you down. Besides, sharing senior moments has to be more fun than discussing the weather…well, hasn’t it? As my mother used to say, if you can't laugh at yourself, you really need to get a life. 

Humour, I have always believed, is that ultimate free spirit that invites us all to enjoy precious moments in time away from those aspects of life seemingly conspiring to hurt us. Sometime, when life gets us down and it seems, at our nadir, that no one gives a damn something happens to make us laugh; it mat be a memory, someone cracking a good joke on the radio or TV,but whatever its is, the sound of our laughing aloud is invariably music to a lonely person's ears. The years drop away. Being able to laugh, moreover, reminds us that we are alive and, yes, where there's life there really is hope. 

Been there, got the tee shirt ...

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE

This little poem of mine
may well be missing the occasional line;
since senior moments with me
are as common as sugar or milk in a cup
of tea or coffee

Whenever out and about,
I rely on my trusty walking stick’s support,
but will often raise the alarm
when I put it aside and it chooses to hide
(usually on my arm)

An easy to follow recipe
(meant to impress old friends visiting me)
might well prove a mistake
when I get proportions sufficiently wrong
to make us all feel sick

I have hurried for buses
only to find I’m soon counting my losses
for its heading (miles) away
from whatever destination I’d had in mind
or forgetting that anyway

A positive thinking person,
I refuse to let senior moments get me down,
but love to laugh at them
among friends over a few drinks in the pub,
ever toasting, ‘Carpe Diem’

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

The Teacher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

A reader has asked "... why on earth would anyone would want to access Edwin Black’s blog or even follow it?"  [at http://bardicblackspot.blogspot.com ]

Apparently, he doesn’t find it in the least amusing and considers it, at times, to be ‘quite offensive’. Well, Edwin doesn’t offend me. He makes me laugh…sometimes uncomfortably, it’s true. But isn’t it that element of discomfort, often associated with humour, that gives rise to various concerns that, in turn, offer food for serious thought?

Everyone’s sense of humour is different of course. Even so, surely it’s better to let it run a whole gamut of expression than settle for its getting stuck in any particular groove?

Incidentally, Edwin performed on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square last year a couple of months after my own appearance as part of Antony Gormley's  One and Other 'living sculpture'  project:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Edwin [This link is temporarily out of action as it is incompatible with new B L software, but B L hope to reinstall all the plinth links at a later date.] RT

Me, I guess I have a predilection for anything (and anyone) that makes me laugh.

This poem is a kenning.

THE TEACHER

I light up dark corners of the heart,
bring smiles to lips turned down in a scowl,
temper sorrow with happier times,
turn back even pain’s relentless attack
into a victory for the human spirit’s
capacity for rising above the worst of things,
and reaching for its kinder side,
on show but, oh, too rarely, in a world
preferring secrets and lies

I give Youth a chance to score points
over peers preoccupied with one-upmanship
in some bleak, sordid arena
of gang warfare, where the weak are seen
as targets for bullies, even killers,
armed with knives and guns on the grounds
that actions speak louder than words
and it’s only fools learn the body language
of peace and love

I bring to Old Age welcome respite
from an inclination to turn back the pages
of memory, wishing we had done
things differently, trod more carefully
among muddy leaves of desire,
considered the needs of others more
in our anxiety to leave footprints
of memorable endeavour once left to wing
time’s corridor forever

Oh, I can be cruel (can’t we all?) Yet, no finer
teacher of life’s ways than I, called Laughter

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010