My late husband Arnie and I met at age eighteen and married within the year. Being so young, we fought like name-calling little kids when we had disagreements. One weekend while playing Scrabble, we disagreed about a word I used. My old, ragged dictionary came out to prove a point. In a huff, Arnie took the thick tome and wrote on it, “Kathy The Weird-One Altmann”.

I didn’t know what made me angrier: that he called me weird, or that he used my maiden name, or that he wrote on a book! We came from similar backgrounds, but we were very different in nature. Arnie always insisted that my family had a weird sense of humor.  He held to this point of view right to the end.

Was my husband right? Who decides if a sense of humor is weird or not? I decided to think back to my childhood starting at four years of age.

A soap opera was playing on the kitchen radio just like it did every day when Daddy came in for dinner, our noon meal. Before sitting down, he clumsily hugged Mom. She teased, “You just come in for dinner at this time every day so you can listen to Helen Trent.” She didn’t smile when she said that, but I could tell it was said in good humor.

Daddy laughed, “You’re right! I gotta know what’s happening to her.” Because it was a weekday, only Mom, Daddy and I were at the kitchen table. All my brothers and sisters were either at school or work. Placing the leftovers that she’d warmed up for us on the table, Mom commented, “This looks unappetizing.” Daddy assured her it would be fine. Before eating, while blessing our meal, they both began to chuckle.

At noon, the soap opera ended, and the local news came on. The announcer reported a local barn fire. My family already knew about it because it was close enough that we could see the glow of flames in the night sky the evening before. Daddy and several of my siblings had gone in the car for a drive-by. He told Mom, “Every farmer from miles around came to see who lost their barn and to watch the fire.”

With a twinkle in his eyes, Daddy said, “Should we see who drives by to see a bonfire at our place? Since we built the new house, we don’t need our old outhouse anymore. I think one of these nights I’m going to drag it out behind the machine shed and set it on fire to see how many people drive by to see what’s burning at our place.”

Indignantly, Mom said, “Don’t you dare!” The opportunity to provide some homemade fun was too strong. Soon after, Daddy burned the outhouse. My brother carried me through the tall, dewy grass so I could see the beautiful orange flames and sparks touching the inky black night sky.

Our humor was fed on a steady diet of Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck escapades. Each week when Daddy took oats into town to be ground into feed for the cows, he bought the latest Del comic book edition. Without a television to amuse us, these comic books were read and reread by my siblings and me. We discussed their latest adventures at the supper table as though they were members of the family. Like cult movie fans, we’d repeat certain phrases from the stories.

When we did get a television, Daddy got a big kick out of a show titled, Green Acres. He liked it so much, he had a huge sign put up at our driveway that said, “Altmann’s Green Acres”.

My brother took over the farm in 1969. In the following years, he decided that he didn’t like crossing the backyard at night to check on the cows in the barn, so he had a tunnel built from the farmhouse basement to the barn. He also began using the heat generated by the cows in the barn to heat the farmhouse. No, it didn’t make the farmhouse smell like barn. At this point, I decided to end my contemplations on my family’s sense of humor. Judging by the amused fascination that local people had when they heard about my brother’s tunnel to the barn, even some of the stuff we think is sensible could be judged as weird. I’m imagining Arnie in the next world, grinning and nodding.