A Little Humor Please? 3/19/2020

Good Morning,

I am up and awake. I figure that is more than I deserve and it feels good to face another day with all of you. My mug was just filled with Door County Vanilla Cappuccino Coffee. It is time to write.

My wife Rene and I were talking about some of the crazy things we have experienced through our years together. We both were recalling the first winter we observed when we had begun dating. It was January and my mother needed to visit one of her sister's who was very ill and close to dying. My parents hadn't moved back to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan yet, but they already had their place on the lake there so we had a place to stay.

So Rene and I volunteered to drive "Up North". We could visit my aunt and the two of us could go skiing while my mother visited longer. Yes, I could ski back then! Well when we arrived "Up North" the temperature was 25 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. The next morning it warmed up to minus 30 F. Needless to say that skiing was out of the question. What to do with the new girlfriend? My answer was to go hiking. I had been told that one of the local waterfalls had frozen over and you could hear the rushing water but could not see it until it reached the bottom of the falls. I thought that this frozen attraction just might save the day.

So off we went, dressed for 40 below and with a Thermos bottle of hot chocolate. The falls are surrounded by stairs that can take you from the top of the falls to the bottom. They are encased with a sturdy pipe railing that gives you something to hold on to while using the concrete stairs.

When we approached the first set of stairs I could see that they too had iced over from the water mist and they looked like an awesome ice slide experience.  That's when my "Macho" kicked in and I said that I would try the stairs first. I took two steps and thought that I could make it the rest of the way by holding tightly to the railing. I turned and said to my future wife. "Watch where I step. Walk exactly where I walk and do it the same way." Well my third step was my last. I slipped and started a free slide toward the next landing . My only hope was to have the vertical part of the railing stop me from finishing an icy plunge to the bottom. These are not big falls but they are big enough. As I was sliding on my back my legs were open and the approaching railing would have split me in a region I can't mention like a piece of kindling. At the last second I turned enough to have me slam into the railing with my hip. I thought for sure that my hip would crack. It was very quiet as I assessed my physical condition and figured that I could pull myself up slowly and make it back to the top.

That's when Rene yelled down to me. "Are you alright? Is that how you want me to do it?" Even through the pain I started to laugh with her and in sub zero weather we cracked up until our tears were freezing on our faces.

The reason I am sharing this story is that when we recall it, the story still makes us laugh. I think we all could use a healthy dose of laughter now. You all have stories that are funny and now is a good time to recall them, share them, and let them make you laugh one more time.

Proverbs 17:22  Laughter of the heart is good medicine, but a crushed Spirit dries up the bones.

Tomorrow I will share the story of Silly Putty and the diaper.

Marty