I'm Not Funny

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m a clown.

I never had a magic kit. Can’t even shuffle a deck of cards.

I’m not drawn to jokes.

Physical comedy makes me nervous. To me, it’s not funny when someone slips on a banana peel. You can get hurt that way. End up on crutches for months.

As for the Three Stooges, they clearly couldn’t learn to get along. I thought they should separate for good.

I do, upon occasion, successfully deliver a funny rendition of an event that has happened in my life. But, by and large, I am not funny. Even though I can be fun, I am a serious, introspective person.

***

I once read an interview with an Irish comedian who said he got his start early in life by trying to get his mother, who suffered from acute depression, to laugh.

My mother was only forty when my father was killed in a car accident. It never occurred to me to try to cheer her by telling a joke. I did, however, try to raise her spirits by doing nice things for her, like spending my allowance to buy her a one-inch bottle of Blue Danube perfume at the dime store. The night she came home, tired from work, and saw it, sitting on our grey, linoleum-topped kitchen table, the bottle’s tiny neck wrapped in a blue bow, me standing next to it, she stopped, and her mouth flew open in pleasure and surprise. Perhaps that’s when the seed of the caring clown within me sprouted.

***
When I decided that I wanted to be a hospital clown, I researched on line until I found a class that was starting up near my home. But the day I signed up, a number of “Nay-Sayers” inside my head began to carry placards reading: NOT FUNNY. NOT QUICK WITTED. TOO QUIET. SLOW MOVING. CAN'T JUGGLE.

In consternation, I called Arne Swensen, the sponsor of the class I had found on-line and the head of the Foundation for Therapeutic Clowning. I’d read that Arne had clowned with Patch Adams in Russia and China. After introducing myself, I explained that I wanted to be a hospital clown, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t be any good at it.

“If you have a loving heart, you’ll be fine,” Arne said.

“Hmmm.” I said.

“Let me tell you a story about Mother Theresa,” he replied.“When she came to the States, she paid a visit to a local nursing home. Upon entering the facility, she saw several patients lined up in their wheel chairs along the entryway, facing the door. She walked over the nurses’ station and asked why they were all there. The nurse explained that each one was hoping the next visitor who came through the door would be coming to see them.”

Arne paused, and then he added, “Like I said, the main thing you need is a loving heart.”