I felt totally comfortable with my husband and often shared funny asides and comments about life when we were together. Arnie usually laughed at my observations, but sometimes exclaimed to me, “You and your weird Altmann sense of humor!” Despite his negative description of my family’s humor, I got the distinct impression that Arnie loved it, was sometimes bewildered by it, and even, at times, secretly admired our outlook on life.

A sense of humor is a personality trait that allows people to understand funny things, appreciate jokes, and in general, see the funny side of life. I don’t think living a perfectly happy life necessarily produces happy, joke-spewing people. If you have a sense of humor, it will show up even in the darkest of times. When I gave birth to a baby with an obvious birth defect, I joked, “At least we know we brought the right baby home from the hospital. There was no way there could have been a mix-up. Ours looks different!” This is an example of ‘dark humor.’

Does everyone in a family share the same type of humor? Not always, but I know my daughter Tammie shares my dark humor abilities. She once said she never worries about anyone stealing her winter coat from public coat hooks because, “Not many people can use a short-armed coat!”

Is a sense of humor trait something people can learn, soak up, or discover like a treasure? I’m not sure, but can verifiably report that, if that is possible, that is what happened to me and my family. During the 1950’s when the lean years of the depression and war was over, Daddy bought every Donald Duck comic book written by Carl Barks as they were published. At first, each of these comic books cost only five cents a copy, which was very affordable for our farm family.  

We loved these comic books because they contained references to geography, history, literature and science. The humor Carl Barks infused into the duck family’s experiences was sublime and clean. We read and reread each issue. Our meal-time discussions sometimes centered around the duck’s latest adventure. One of our favorite, playful family insults was taken from one of the stories. The horrid Beagle Boys had been outsmarted by the wily old duck once again.  Holding Scrooge by the feet, upside down, Beagle Boy number 716-617 angerly shouted, “You rich pig of a duck!”

A comic book-infused sense of humor can carry a person all the way through their life. I witnessed this in my two bachelor brothers, Billy and Casper, who both had Parkinson’s. When their Parkinson’s symptoms became pronounced in the years following our mother’s death, I began to regularly visit their home to fill pill boxes, pay bills and to take them out for Friday night fish fries.

Billy had a collection of cast iron toys that included a train engine and a few train cars, which he displayed on the bay windowsill in the dining room. When I arrived for a visit, he would often tell me with a snigger, to go inspect the latest train accident. Using a few toys that grandchildren left at the farm, Billy presented different scenarios such as a jack-knifed train that had collided with a large stuffed Teddy bear, or a train derailed by a rampaging toy dinosaur. Casper would stand in the kitchen doorway, chuckling over the silliness, and offer me a glass of his homemade wine.

I’ve often heard people say that growing old isn’t for sissies because of the aches and pains and all the aggravations that go with traveling that privileged road. Having a good sense of humor is like having a cast iron roll bar framing your personality. As we tumble through life, it protects our human spirit from becoming injured by unfortunate accidents, illnesses, loss of loved ones and unwanted changes. In my opinion, the weirder your sense of humor, the stronger your “cast iron roll bar” humor will be.