Did you hear the one about...

Humor is a tricky thing to commit to print. Too bold, it turns off readers. Too mild, it puts them to sleep.

And trying it in a speech can be really problematical.

Earlier in my working career, though, I heard a speaker charm her audience with the following two stories. I’ve repeated them often, and so have my two sons. I’ll paraphrase, since memory can be faulty as one ages.

Seems that an invited official was to address an audience of convicts in the state penitentiary. How to begin? Ladies and gentlemen? No, they weren’t. Friends and neighbors? That would be similarly untruthful.

Finally, this truthful welcome was chosen: “I’m so glad to see you all here tonight.”

The female government official who told us that one also related how she had earlier tried to strike up a conversation with her seat-mate on a plane, a rather elderly, distinguished looking gentlemen. “I see you’re reading a magazine. What are your favorites?” she inquired.

He smoothly replied, “National Geographics and Penthouse.”

Taken aback at such a puzzling response, she asked, “Why.”

His response: “Because it’s a thrill for me to see, all the places where I shall never be.”

Humor pervades the airwaves. Note the recent TV commercials showing babies heartily laughing, along with the assertion that laughter adds eight years to your life. Nice, but then the financial firm AIG adds the sobering stinger: “Never outlive your money.”

That reminder has eluded harassed homeowners who opted for cheap mortgage rates that would escalate someday.. Someday is here for many. Washington’s remedy: Teaser-freezer programs to bail them out of their contracts. Why? After all, nobody has offered to rebate any of the money I lost during the dot-com stock bubble’s burst a few years ago. Tough toenails. So I just swallow hard and quote Jack Kennedy: “Life is unfair.”

Where was I? Oh yes, humor and all that.

Just as Mary Poppins (a k a Julie Andrews) used to sing that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, I try to get some serious points across with a light touch. That touch, however, was too much of a punch in a recent column.

“[Republicans] aren’t fractured like the Democrats and their kids grow up more like their parents and adopt healthily conservative views, unlike the wild things spawned in drugged stupors by leftist radicals who forgot to abort them.” Was I pulling readers’ legs too aggresively? I plead guilty.

Any kind of public writing can be hazardous, it seems, and more so for the adventurous kind, which definitely includes humor. Early in my stab at writing columns here for the Sun, I tried one about a fictitious Al Queda operative in Stafford County reporting back to Osama bin Laden on possible terrorist targets here—one being the Falmouth intersection. About all I can say is that the column bombed, ending my brief venture into fiction.

Too much real stuff is more fun to read about anyhow. Politicians supply ample material. For example, what if the 2008 GOP ticket reads Giuliani-Huckabee? Look for a campaign jingle that ends, “With a banjo on my knee.”

Besides, excerpting stuff is easy. Two examples, which I have framed for my office, appeared in print:

One is an AP photo of a hand-painted sign in a New Orleans store’s display window to ward off looters shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit:

DON’T TRYI AM SLEEPING INSIDE WITHA BIG DOG, AN UGLY WOMAN,TWO SHOTGUNS AND A CLAW HAMMER

The other, more recent treasure is a cartoon published in the Wall Street Journal’s Pepper and Salt spot on its editorial page. It depicts a woman and man conversing on a couch at a cocktail party. She says, “How nice to finally be able to put a face to a really strange op-ed piece.”

I’ve luckily not had that kind of reaction to my columns, at least to my knowledge.. Instead, most people recognizing me or my name are courteous when we meet, and that goes even for certain Democrats.

Reader response is usually pretty sparse regardless. But an Augustine Homes official complained last winter that I was being unfair in my criticism of his Hills at Aquia development next to Aquia Harbour for assertedly causing undue siltation during rains. Not to worry, since drought ensued over the next 10 months. Also, thanks to a housing market still heading south, hardly any homes have been built to stoke further runoff problems.

So the joke’s on me. Exit laughing. But if the elation lasts longer than four hours, call a doctor.

Did you hear the one about....

Humor is a tricky thing to commit to print. Too bold, it turns off readers. Too mild, it puts them to sleep.

And trying it in a speech can be really problematical.

Earlier in my working career, though, I heard a speaker charm her audience with the following two stories. I’ve repeated them often, and so have my two sons. I’ll paraphrase, since memory can be faulty as one ages.

Seems that an invited official was to address an audience of convicts in the state penitentiary. How to begin? Ladies and gentlemen? No, they weren’t. Friends and neighbors? That would be similarly untruthful.

Finally, this truthful welcome was chosen: “I’m so glad to see you all here tonight.”

The female government official who told us that one also related how she had earlier tried to strike up a conversation with her seat-mate on a plane, a rather elderly, distinguished looking gentlemen. “I see you’re reading a magazine. What are your favorites?” she inquired.

He smoothly replied, “National Geographics and Penthouse.”

Taken aback at such a puzzling response, she asked, “Why.”

His response: “Because it’s a thrill for me to see, all the places where I shall never be.”

Humor pervades the airwaves. Note the recent TV commercials showing babies heartily laughing, along with the assertion that laughter adds eight years to your life. Nice, but then the financial firm AIG adds the sobering stinger: “Never outlive your money.”

That reminder has eluded harassed homeowners who opted for cheap mortgage rates that would escalate someday.. Someday is here for many. Washington’s remedy: Teaser-freezer programs to bail them out of their contracts. Why? After all, nobody has offered to rebate any of the money I lost during the dot-com stock bubble’s burst a few years ago. Tough toenails. So I just swallow hard and quote Jack Kennedy: “Life is unfair.”

Where was I? Oh yes, humor and all that.

Just as Mary Poppins (a k a Julie Andrews) used to sing that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, I try to get some serious points across with a light touch. That touch, however, was too much of a punch in a recent column.

“[Republicans] aren’t fractured like the Democrats and their kids grow up more like their parents and adopt healthily conservative views, unlike the wild things spawned in drugged stupors by leftist radicals who forgot to abort them.” Was I pulling readers’ legs too aggresively? I plead guilty.

Any kind of public writing can be hazardous, it seems, and more so for the adventurous kind, which definitely includes humor. Early in my stab at writing columns here for the Sun, I tried one about a fictitious Al Queda operative in Stafford County reporting back to Osama bin Laden on possible terrorist targets here—one being the Falmouth intersection. About all I can say is that the column bombed, ending my brief venture into fiction.

Too much real stuff is more fun to read about anyhow. Politicians supply ample material. For example, what if the 2008 GOP ticket reads Giuliani-Huckabee? Look for a campaign jingle that ends, “With a banjo on my knee.”

Besides, excerpting stuff is easy. Two examples, which I have framed for my office, appeared in print:

One is an AP photo of a hand-painted sign in a New Orleans store’s display window to ward off looters shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit:

DON’T TRYI AM SLEEPING INSIDE WITHA BIG DOG, AN UGLY WOMAN,TWO SHOTGUNS AND A CLAW HAMMER

The other, more recent treasure is a cartoon published in the Wall Street Journal’s Pepper and Salt spot on its editorial page. It depicts a woman and man conversing on a couch at a cocktail party. She says, “How nice to finally be able to put a face to a really strange op-ed piece.”

I’ve luckily not had that kind of reaction to my columns, at least to my knowledge.. Instead, most people recognizing me or my name are courteous when we meet, and that goes even for certain Democrats.

Reader response is usually pretty sparse regardless. But an Augustine Homes official complained last winter that I was being unfair in my criticism of his Hills at Aquia development next to Aquia Harbour for assertedly causing undue siltation during rains. Not to worry, since drought ensued over the next 10 months. Also, thanks to a housing market still heading south, hardly any homes have been built to stoke further runoff problems.

So the joke’s on me. Exit laughing. But if the elation lasts longer than four hours, call a doctor.